Lawyer’s Negligence 101: Proving a Lawyer Fell Below the Standard of Care
A Personal Starting Point: Being Sued as a Lawyer Over the course of a long career in personal injury litigation, I...
Let’s Get Ready to Rumble: When Employment Law Meets Insurance
The Overlooked Battleground Employment disputes are rarely just about employment law anymore. Beneath almost every...
REVIEW: Chapter 9: The Persuasive Value of Documentary Evidence in an Ever Evolving Digital Time
The Document as the Spine of Persuasion Chapter 9 of Litigation and Administrative Advocacy: The Art and Science of...
The Future of Mediation: Staying Relevant in a Changing Landscape
The Conversation We’re All Starting to Hear It’s becoming harder to ignore. Everywhere I turn, there is talk about...
Chew On This: Ontario’s Double Deductible Dilemma
Where This Issue Actually Surfaces In my practice as a mediator, this issue rarely appears at the outset of a case. It...
The Neutrality Trap: Why Mediators Should Never Advocate
There is a moment that experienced mediators recognize immediately. It happens early, sometimes very early. You leave...
Mediation in Estate Disputes: Why They Settle Differently
A View from the Middle After years of mediating personal injury, insurance, and commercial disputes, estate files...
Biomechanics Demystified: The Role of Crash Physics in Personal Injury Litigation
The Opening Ritual at Mediation Anyone who mediates motor vehicle cases in Ontario will recognize the pattern almost...
System Under Pressure: The Case for a More Proportionate Litigation System
I read an recent article[1] reporting on a case where the judge came down hard on defence counsel who had stepped up...
BLOG SERIES: Special Considerations in…Bicycle Accidents
The Changing Landscape of Urban Cycling I have recently mediated cases involving bicycles and cars. I’ll will say...
Target Practice: Motions to Strike in Ontario Civil Litigation
Introduction Few procedural tools in Ontario civil litigation are as powerful, or as frequently misunderstood, as the...
When the Robot Is Listening: AI and the Ethics of Recording Legal Conversations
Not long ago, I received a call from a young lawyer about a file. Before the conversation even began, a recorded...
Loose Lips Sink Ships: Law of Defamation in Canada
In my career, I agreed to be retained very few times for the tort of defamation. It’s tricky. Defamation law in Canada...
Of One’s Own Free Will: A Primer on the Succession Law Reform Act
Not long ago, I saw firsthand a situation that will be familiar to anyone who practises in estates. A grandmother,...
Judicial Oversight Reimagined: From Passive Arbiter to Active Case Manager
Ontario’s Civil Rules Review Final Policy Report[1] is, at its core, a recalibration of judicial authority. It does...
Special Considerations in…Boating Accidents
The O’Leary Collision and the Civil Aftermath Serious recreational boating accidents rarely stay confined to the...
REVIEW: Chapter 9: Conducting an Effective Examination in Chief
There is a moment in every trial when the courtroom stops being a place where lawyers talk and becomes a place where...
BLOG SERIES (Part 4): A New Architecture: The Trial Track
The Trial Track: Discipline Without Illusion The Trial Track is where the Working Group in its Final Policy Report[1]...
Hidden Ripple: The Consequences of Civil Delay
The Migration of Financial Pressure In a recent exchange with counsel, a simple observation crystallized something...
Bubble in the Middle: A Mediator’s Toughest Files
For most of my career, civil litigation followed a fairly predictable pattern. Smaller cases moved through the system...