Jurisage launch marks new era in bulk access to Canadian law
By Julius Melnitzer | February 7, 2022 With the recent launch of Jurisage AI, bulk access to a national case law collection is now a commercial reality in Canada. Jurisage is a joint venture between independent legal publisher Compass Law, and AltaML, a Canadian applied AI studio. “There’s a whole lot of insight and opportunity […]
FP Dealmakers: As governments pulled back on debt issuance, corporations picked up the slack
By Julius Melnitzer | February 3, 2022 Depth was the hallmark of Canada’s debt market in 2021 even as overall deal count and supply declined from the year previous. Anomalous? Not really. Close examination of statistics compiled by Financial Post Data show a sharp divergence between the corporate and public sectors. Corporate issuance rose 11.3 […]
FP Dealmakers: Law firms on overdrive amid ‘hunger and urgency to get deals done’
By: Julius Melnitzer | February 1, 2022 It’s rare for lawyers to be unequivocal. But then, when it comes to capital markets activity, 2021 was a rare year for law firms. “We certainly had not planned for what occurred this past year, which produced one of the best capital markets ever, and we’re talking all […]
B.C. Supreme Court ruling on First Nations’ infringement rights to ‘open up broad range of remedies’
The court found that Rio Tinto had ‘significantly impaired’ the Saik’uz and Stellat’en First Nations’ historical fishing rights By Julius Melnitzer | January 26, 2022 The British Columbia Supreme Court has opened up yet another avenue for First Nations seeking redress against project developers for infringement of their Aboriginal rights and title. “While litigation has […]
BARE BONES BRIEFS: Judges: counsel still wasting courts’ time | Post-Pandora crackdowns target lawyers | Survey: Lawyers profit most from class actions | Top 5 law firm bulletins & webinars
By Julius Melnitzer | January 10, 2022 JUDGES: LAWYERS STILL SCREWING UP COURTROOM PROCEEDINGS “The file is in a state of near total disarray”: these are nothing less than the opening words in a recent Federal Court judgment. That’s perhaps not surprising in a case where the applicant was unrepresented. But what is surprising is […]
Energy workers switch to other professions in droves as work dries up in once booming sector
Beset by layoffs, Canada’s energy and mining workers have been bucking tradition and seeking opportunities in other sectors — quite successfully, by all accounts. “The cyclical changes in the resource sector are giving way to structural changes,” said Jeanette Sutherland, director of the multi-stakeholder Energy to Digital Growth Education and Upskilling Project (EDGE UP) at […]
New Brunswick to allow windup of pension plans with missing members
By Julius Melnitzer | January 3, 2022 New Brunswick’s new unclaimed property regime, which came into force on Jan. 1, 2022 and is the fourth such provincial regime in Canada, will finally allow defined benefit pension plan sponsors with unlocatable or missing members to fully windup their plans. The governing legislation, the Unclaimed Property Act, […]
Share transfers to executives, employees are income not capital gains: appeal court
By Julius Melnitzer | December 23, 2021 A Federal Court of Appeal ruling will make it very difficult for executives and employees to treat share transfers from their companies as capital gains rather than income. The decision involved Kitchener, Ont.-based D2L Corp., whose intention was to distribute appreciated shares of the company, held in a […]
Ottawa’s last-minute interventions in energy projects eroding Canadian regulators’ independence
By Julius Melnitzer | December 22, 2021 Uncertainty about who ultimately makes energy decisions and how they are made is among the largest stumbling blocks to Canada’s chances of achieving net zero by 2050, according to a recent study from the University of Ottawa’s Positive Energy group. “The road to net zero requires an unprecedented […]
Litigation-help.com gives hope to unrepresented litigants
By Julius Melnitzer | December 17, 2021 While still a law student, Heather Hui-Litwin, founder of Litigation-Help.com, found herself and her husband, a banker, involved in a lawsuit with a contractor. The proceedings dragged on for more than ten years – – – during which legal costs became unaffordable. The couple decided to represent themselves, […]