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September 03, 2026
A Jan. 13 issue of the Ottawa Citizen reported on the sentencing of Alam Buoc, who had been found guilty by a jury of second-degree murder. Superior Court Justice Robert Maranger described the crimes in exceptionally harsh terms, calling Buoc a “homicidal maniac” and “a monster.” He characterized the July 2017 killings as “cold-blooded and ruthless” and said the motive appeared to be trivial. It involved an alleged dispute over a bullet that Buoc believed one of his friends had taken. The sentence imposed was the same as if the crime had been first-degree murder: life imprisonment without parole eligibility for 25 years. Buoc appealed, and the Ontario Court of Appeal delivered its reasons on July 6, 2026 (R. v. Buoc, 2026 ONCA 492).
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September 03, 2026
Within the legal community, there is growing recognition that the billable hour can negatively impact lawyers’ lives. Billable-hour culture can lead lawyers to make judgments about the value of activities based on whether they are billable. If you are spending the day with your children, your mind might start to calculate how many billable hours you are missing out on. Time becomes a commodity, and you may begin to view meaningful activities as wasteful.
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September 02, 2026
The B.C. Court of Appeal has issued a practice directive adopting the Canadian Open Access Legal Citation Guide (COAL), a free, publicly accessible legal citation guide, as its preferred method for civil and criminal filings in an effort to advance access to justice.
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September 02, 2026
The Canadian Bar Association, B.C. Branch (CBABC) has a new face at the head of its leadership table.
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September 02, 2026
There is something profoundly unsettling about a society that regards prolonged solitary confinement as unconstitutional in prison yet appears prepared to tolerate the same isolation when the person behind the locked door is a psychiatric patient.
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September 02, 2026
Bennett Jones has appointed Hennadiy Kutsenko, Quentin Vander Schueren, Elad Travis and Samantha Weng as counsel in Toronto.
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September 02, 2026
Jonathan Herman is retiring as CEO of the Federation of Law Societies of Canada at the end of 2026, following 20 years in the role. He will remain through year-end to support the leadership transition.
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September 02, 2026
“Alle Menschen werden Brüder” translates to “all people become brothers” and is one of the most recognizable lines from Friedrich Schiller’s poem Ode to Joy, immortalized in the final movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. In modern, inclusive language, its meaning might be expressed as “all people become kin.”
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September 01, 2026
Saskatchewan’s Loreley Chekay, who assumed the leadership of the 40,000-member Canadian Bar Association (CBA) today, says she is striving to move the needle forward on the legal profession’s shared goals of attaining more resources for courts and defending the independence of lawyers and judges.
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September 01, 2026
Private equity is beginning to enter the legal industry with transactions such as Uplift’s acquisition of Dudley DeBosier Personal Injury, Trive Capital’s acquiring Massumi + Consoli, and Morgan & Morgan’s hiring of JPMorgan to explore a private equity sale.
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September 01, 2026
Georgia-Rae Meldrum has joined Duncan Craig LLP as an associate in Alberta.
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September 01, 2026
Vlad A. Calina has joined Fasken as a partner in its litigation and dispute resolution group in Vancouver.
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September 01, 2026
After years spent in litigation for my clients and, in retirement, assisting a prominent litigation lawyer in writing his autobiography, it is good to take a break. Last Friday I attended a showing of the newly released feature Coyote vs. Acme.
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September 01, 2026
In part two of this series, I suggested that artificial intelligence could start out on parking tickets as a way of measuring its abilities regarding adjudication. There is also no reason the first generation of AI adjudication would need to eliminate humans from the process. In fact, I think it should do precisely the opposite.
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August 31, 2026
This past July, the Ontario Bar Association’s family law section executive held its annual planning and insights meeting to help prepare for the year ahead. One of the questions we were asked was: What issues keep you up at night? As someone who has struggled with insomnia for basically my entire adult life, this wasn’t a straightforward question. But it did get me thinking about some of the serious challenges facing family lawyers today. This is not my typical research-heavy article. Instead, I wanted to share some of my reflections on my top three issues.
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August 31, 2026
Alf Mamo has retired from the London, Ont., office of McKenzie Lake Lawyers, effective Aug. 28, following a legal career spanning more than five decades.
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August 31, 2026
Linda Chen has joined Lindsay Kenney LLP in its Vancouver office, practising with the firm’s estate planning and business law groups.
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August 31, 2026
I was doing annual minutes for my teeny tiny corporation today, and I got to thinking.
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August 31, 2026
Anyone who has had a modern eye examination has encountered some version of “the machine,” which is formally known as an autorefractor. Before the optometrist begins the familiar process of asking whether one lens is clearer than another, the autorefractor takes an initial measurement of the eye.
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August 28, 2026
Alexander Holburn has added two associates: Jordan Mario Jutras in Vancouver and Ty Maccagno in Toronto.
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August 28, 2026
There is a familiar moment in family court.
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August 28, 2026
Litigator Stefanie Holland has joined Aird & Berlis as the firm’s chief growth officer, leading the firm’s business development, marketing and communications functions and advising on the firm’s growth strategy, with a focus on client experience, business development and service excellence.
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August 28, 2026
Gary Scales has been appointed president of the Law Society of Prince Edward Island.
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August 28, 2026
Law firms have long served as trusted guardians of highly sensitive information, but the digital landscape is rapidly changing how that data is protected — and attacked. According to a recent legal services threat intelligence report, the legal sector in the U.S. experienced a 20 per cent year-over-year increase in cybersecurity incidents over the past 12 months.
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August 28, 2026
In this three-part series, I will look at my experiences with artificial intelligence and how it might impact the legal profession going forward.