By Julius Melnitzer | May 22, 2025
LAW FIRM PAYS $11.4M FOR STADIUM NAMING RIGHTS
CITY AM reports that Liverpool’s Hill Dickinson, a top-50 UK law firm whose profits exceed C$95M, has paid $11.4 million for the naming rights to soccer team Everton’s new stadium. The move is apparently part of law firms’ realization of “the importance of tying their name to something iconic”. That, it seems, is why London-headquartered Addleshaw Goddard is in the second year of a three-year term as the first official legal partner of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, and why Irwin Mitchell, based in Sheffield, is the official legal partner of England Rugby. So here’s the question: which Canadian law firm would take a chance on becoming the official anything of the Toronto Maple Leafs at this point in time?
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OSC IMPOSES FIVE-YEAR SENTENCE ON SUPERVISOR WHO IGNORED WARNING OF DANGER
The Ontario Superior Court has sentenced Milton Urgiles to five years’ imprisonment for ignoring warnings about steering problems with a dump truck driven by Denis Garant, who died the day after reporting the issue when he lost control of the vehicle and crashed into a tree. “This is the harshest sentence ever imposed on an individual for criminal negligence in occupational health and safety in Canada,” writes Èric Thibaudeau in BCF‘s Executive Summaries. The judge’s message, Thibodeau adds, was clear: “Gross criminal negligence causing death calls for more than just a conditional sentence-it’s punishable by a long prison term.” Urgiles’ sentence surpassed the previous standard of three-and-a-half years set by another Ontario court in R. v. Kazenelson.
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PROFESSIONAL MISCONDUCT MERITS COMPENSATION ORDER FOR UNPROVEN CLAIMS
Ontario’s Divisional Court has upheld a decision of the Law Society Tribunal, Appeal Division, directing Osborne Barnwell, who surrendered his license to practise after the LST found him guilty of professional misconduct, to pay up to $100,000 to the Compensation Fund while the claims were still active, as Convocation had not yet decided to make the payments. But while the court ruled that the payments were “appropriate” in this case, it specifically declined to decide whether jurisdiction attached “in other circumstances”.
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TALIBAN OUTLAWS CHESS
Practice Source reports that the Taliban has banned chess in Afghanistan, which it considers “a means of gambling under sharia law”. The Quran describes games of chance (a categorization that might confound many of chess’s devotees) as a “grave sin” and “abominations of Satan’s handiwork”. The Ministry of Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, no less, stated the ban would remain in place until chess’s compatibility with Islamic law was finally determined.
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LEXIS NEXIS TESTS LIMITS OF DISINGENUOUSNESS
According to a so-called “independent study” conducted by Forrester Consulting but not so independently funded, apparently, by Lexis Nexis, Lexis+AI workflow solution returned 344% on investment with $30 million revenue growth in three years for large global law firms. It achieved this “by scaling lawyer productivity, work quality, and client impact”. Practice Source headlined its article on the study as follows: “Word of the Week is. . .guile”.
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Julius Melnitzer is a Toronto-based legal affairs writer, ghostwriter, writing coach and media trainer. Readers can reach him at julius@legalwriter.net or on his website.