BARE BONES BRIEFS: Abusive firm leader disbarred for insulting juniors | Vancouver bar icon dies before facing laundering charges | Trending: return to office | UK Court of Appeal: ANNs not patentable | Arbitrator: Taking a diving course counts as “union business”
By Julius Melnitzer | July 24, 2024 TREAT JUNIOR COLLEAGUES WITH RESPECT – OR ELSE! Domenic Pisano, a lawyer with 23 years’ experience and a director of Domenic Levent Solicitors in London, has been disbarred by the UK’s Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal for “offensive, intimidating and insulting” behaviour towards junior colleagues. His sins included shouting at […]
BARE BONES BRIEFS: Law Society Tribunal: child pornographer can practise | NS Provincial Court judge pursues misconduct allegations against fellow jurist | Excuse me: juror had accused’s pictures on T-shirt | Suspended driver motors into court | IBA: Lawyers contribute $1.6 trillion to GDP
By Julius Melnitzer | June 6, 2024 TRIBUNAL LICENSES APPLICANT WHOSE CHILD PORNOGRAPHY CONVICTIONS WERE STAYED FOR DELAY The Law Society Tribunal has allowed an applicant whose convictions were overturned on appeal for unreasonable delay to practise law. Jordan Cristoferi-Paolucci, formerly a youth basketball coach, was charged with various child pornography and luring offences in […]
BARE BONES BRIEFS: Lawyer fined for x-exam of rape survivor | Fired: Receptionist couldn’t pronounce firm’s name
By Julius Melnitzer | May 29, 2024 LAWYER “CROSSED LINE” QUESTIONING RAPE VICTIM Scotland’s Faculty of Advocates imposed a fine equivalent to C$3500 on defence lawyer Lorenzo Alonzi, concluding he “repeatedly crossed the line” while cross-examining rape victim Ellie Wilson and during his remarks in closing argument and his client’s sentencing. Among other things, Alonzi […]
Maximum: Restorative Justice
Photo by Ron Lach at Pexels By Lino Matteo | May 1, 2024 Julius Melnitzer’s Maximum Medium Minimum is more than one man’s journey through the Canadian penitentiary system. It also starkly shows the weakness and foolishness of our entire judicial system. It is supposed to be there to protect society, and to help rehabilitate; instead, […]
BARE BONES BRIEFS: Lawyer convicted of racketeering too closely connected to judges for court to sanction him | Corporate veil still eroding? | Bail for RCMP official sentenced to 14 years for leaking state secrets to organized crime | FC: Google not exempt from PIPEDA | IBA Annual Conference coming to Toronto
By Julius Melnitzer | April 22, 2024 MAJORITY OF APPEAL COURT RECUSE THEMSELVES FROM WELL-CONNECTED LAWYER’S CASE The Chicago Tribune reports that Illinois’ Supreme Court was unable to act on an an interim license suspension application brought by the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission against Ed Burke, a Chicago lawyer and the city’s longest-serving alderman, […]
BARE BONES BRIEFS: Blakes absent, but Gowling shines on YouTube | Investment fund liable for “greenwashing” | Lawyer forgives client who stabbed him in court | Ukraine wants to trademark “go fuck yourself” war slogan | Adultery now legal
By Julius Melnitzer | April 4, 2024 BIGLAW MISSES THE YOUTUBE BOAT According to Eric Troutman, a prominent class action defence lawyer with California-based Troutman Amin LLP, writing in Practice Source, YouTube is “the world’s second most visited website and an absolutely critical communication channel for businesses (including law firms) seeking to engage with new […]
BARE BONES BRIEFS: “Most positively reviewed” lawyer faces new misconduct allegations | Law firm openly adopts slippery slope | Calling colleague “pathetic human” is professional misconduct | FCA boosts climate litigation | FC certifies “older inmates” class action
By Julius Melnitzer | January 31, 2024 SAMFIRU TO FACE MISCONDUCT ALLEGATIONS IN ALBERTA Lior Samfiru, the Toronto-based national co-managing partner of employment law boutique Samfiru Tumarkin LLP, a firm that claims to be the “most positively reviewed employment law firm in Canada”, must now contend with allegations of professional misconduct in Alberta in addition […]
Knock at your door: why the police can make themselves at home
By Yasmina Aldohan | September 20, 2023 The Supreme Court of Canada’s 2022 split decision in R. v. Stairs may well have the unfortunate consequence of allowing police responding to a call from a private residence too much latitude in making themselves at home when they get there. Five members of the court ruled that […]
OCA orders new trial for accused whose lawyer ‘conscripted him into assisting his own prosecution’
The Ontario Court of Appeal said counsel’s incompetence was ‘pervasive.’ By Julius Melnitzer | December 31, 2022 The Ontario Court of Appeal has ordered a new trial for an accused whose lawyer, Toronto’s Janice R. Johnson, a 35-year veteran of the criminal bar, “conscripted [him] into assisting his own prosecution.” The OCA’s reasons are damning. […]
OCA expands grounds for reversal of HIV-related non-disclosure sexual assault convictions
Wayne Cunningham says Rubara goes beyond existing scientific consensus By Julius Melnitzer | October 28, 2022 The Ontario Court of Appeal has overturned a six-year-old aggravated sexual assault conviction of a man who did not disclose his HIV-positive status to a sexual partner of three months’ standing. The decision in R. v. Rubara expands on the court’s […]