BARE BONES BRIEFS: Leafs’ John Tavares has new linemates for tax appeal | Virtual Reality comes to courtroom | Lawyer on career break entitled to bonus | Jeffrey Leon joins Arbitration Place | Alexi introduces Advanced Legal Reasoning platform
By Julius Melnitzer | January 11, 2025 FORMER LEAFS JOIN TAVARES IN MULTIMILLION DOLLAR BONUS TAX DISPUTE According to The Province, former Toronto Maple Leafs players Patrick Marleau and Jake Muzzin have filed Tax Court of Canada appeals mimicking John Tavares’ challenge to the Canada Revenue Agency’s $6.8 million assessment on a $15.4 million bonus […]
Lawyers, Be True to Yourself: Know your Capabilities
By Rose Avarino | January 9, 2025 In my last article, Mental Health in Law Firms, I focused on mental health in the workplace. In this article, I will be zoning in on a strategy I suggested for achieving mental wellness: “Be true to yourself in knowing your capabilities”. Although presented as a general mental […]
Do we lawyers complicate simple matters? Yes and no—Maybe?
November 6, 2024 The following is an excerpt from Marcel Strigberger’s new book, First, Let’s Kill the Lawyer Jokes: An Attorney’s Irreverent Serious Look at the Legal Universe A lawyer is a person who writes a 10,000-word document and calls it a “brief” – Franz Kafka Do we lawyers unnecessarily complicate matters? Are we windbags? […]
BREAKING NEWS: Law Society Tribunal of Ontario reprimands “most positively reviewed” Toronto lawyer Lior Samfiru, who faces additional misconduct allegations in Alberta
By Julius Melnitzer | June 10, 2024 The Law Society Tribunal of Ontario has reprimanded 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 in the country”, and ordered him to pay $5,0000 in costs. The Tribunal found that Samfiru […]
BARE BONES BRIEFS: Trump judges, citing university’s failure to condemn antisemitic acts, won’t hire Columbia grads | European Human Rights Court opens floodgates for climate change litigation | Kielburgers’ mother can proceed with defamation claim | Federal Court certifies class action for “mental illness stigmatization” by Canadian Armed Forces | Bennett Jones appoints new office managing partners
By Julius Melnitzer | May 21, 2024 TRUMP APPOINTEES BOYCOTT COLUMBIA GRADS NBC reports that 13 federal judges appointed by Donald Trump chose Holocaust Remembrance Day to announce that they would not hire students who graduated from Columbia University, which they called “an incubator of bigotry” in which “professors and administrators are on the front […]
BARE BONES BRIEFS: Climate disruption and natural asset management: perfect legal storm? | Neurodivergent lawyers stay under the radar for fear of discrimination
By Julius Melnitzer | May 6, 2024 NATURAL ASSETS INITIATIVES’S LEGAL PRIMER EXPOSES RISKS IN NATURAL ASSETS MANAGEMENT The growing frequency of climate disruption with its associated impacts in costs, combined with the steady growth of climate and nature-related litigation will doubtless increase the legal risk associated with natural asset management, the process of inventorying […]
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: “Jobs bloodbath”sparks DLA Piper cuts to paternity leave | Good looking lawyers win more frequently in courtroom: study | Crown: directors, officers face increased OHSA prosecution risks | Federal Court OKs RCMP’s lengthy delays in harrassment cases | Receivables crisis coming for law firms?
By Julius Melnitzer | April 16, 2024 DLA REDUCES PATERNITY LEAVE IN WAKE OF ECONOMIC UNCERTAINTY The Daily Mail reports that global firm DLA Piper has reduced non-partners’ (other than birth mothers) paternity leave by six months, leaving them with 12 months’ eligibility, four less than the 16-week average of most major law firms. “It […]
BARE BONES BRIEFS: Maple Leafs’ captain fighting CRA demand for $6.8 million | LST: Child abuser can practise law | Alberta CA justice joins BLG | Remote work, wellbeing slow law firm productivity | Bullying of law students ‘relatively high’
By Julius Melnitzer | March 25, 2024 TAVARES TAKES ON CRA Maple Leafs’ captain John Tavares is fighting the CRA’s claim that he owes $6.8 million in taxes for 2018, when he signed a seven-year US$77 million contract with the team and moved from New York to Toronto. The agreement included a $70.8 million bonus, […]
Top 10 business decisions of 2023, Part I – and the law firm players
By Julius Melnitzer | January 15, 2024 What follows is Law360 Canada’s annual list of the Top 10 business decisions in Canada for the just-ended year. This is a two-part series, which begins below with numbers 6-10, in ascending order. 10. Benjamin Moore & Co v. Canada (Attorney General) In this case, the first time […]