INTRODUCTION The Ontario Court of Appeal’s (“CA”) recent decision in Knauff v. Ontario (Human Rights Tribunal) (“Knauff”) sought to resolve two CA panels’ disagreement about the continuing relevance of the test for leave to appeal in Sault Dock Co. Ltd. and City of Sault Ste. Marie (Ont. CA) (“Sault Dock”). (I considered the two CA decisions, West Whitby Landowners Group Inc. v. Elexicon Inc. [“West Whitby”] and Davis v. Aviva General Insurance Company [“Davis”] in my January 7, 2025 Slaw post, “Tension on the Ontario CA: Thwarting a Judicial Coup?”.) My focus . . . [more] The post The Court of Appeal’s Consideration of Sault Dock: A New Test, Refinement or More of the Same? appeared first on Slaw.

Ease of access to justice is a good thing but can there be too much access? The Employment Tribunals in the United Kingdom have discovered the downsides of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) with an inundation of interim applications for relief. The tsunami of recent applications prompted the issuing of new guidance. Before we get to the tools the employment tribunals have devised to attempt to address the issue, it is worth talking about friction in dispute system design. “Friction” is the effort, steps or complexity involved in completing an action: “Every extra step between intention and action . . . [more] The post Push Button Access to Justice: Too Much of a Good Thing? appeared first on Slaw.

Many generative AI tools are relatively easy to access and use. For example, no technical expertise is required to pull up and type a prompt into ChatGPT, and the most basic version is free. This reality has led to a significant amount of “shadow AI” use within organizations; that is, uses of AI that are not formally approved or are even contrary to formal policies. Concerns about shadow AI commonly arise in the context of private companies, with some studies indicating that over 80% of workers report using unapproved tools at work. Much less discussed – and worthy of far . . . [more] The post Shadow AI: A Growing Problem for Canadian Courts appeared first on Slaw.

Josh Warren has a debut album and a show coming up in Ottawa on August 29, also new releases

In late April, two groundbreaking decisions concerning legal regulators in Canada were announced — one by a court, and one by a law society. The first decision came from the British Columbia Supreme Court, which ruled that the provincial government’s proposed overhaul of legal regulation in BC was constitutional and could proceed. I thought this was the obvious outcome from the outset, as I wrote here at Slaw two years ago, and I’m very glad to see the issue resolved — for the moment, anyway. At the heart of BC’s legislative overhaul (and the lawsuit that challenged its . . . [more] The post The Legal Profession’s Weakening Grip on Law Society Governance appeared first on Slaw.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a bold experiment being conducted on our institutions, with very few guardrails. When we do experiments with chemicals and biological materials to develop new drugs, pe...

Often driven by mental health issues, these cases affect the day-to-day functioning of the courts and consume valuable public resources

In the midst of the ongoing concerns about hallucinations, particularly related to citations in documents filed with courts, I wonder if the particular focus on AI generated errors, and the penalties that have been imposed in response, are at least partly due to perceptions of these tools as cheating or aesthetic ideas about how “real” legal writing should happen. And I query the rationales for recent instances of judges issuing sanctions against people who have inadvertently included them. It seems that mistakes in AI generated documents are treated differently from mistakes that can and do appear in any piece of . . . [more] The post New Panic Over Old Mistakes: Judicial Sanctions and Hallucinated Citations appeared first on Slaw.

A professional legal advocate occupies a unique position, interposed as they are between the justice system on one hand, and their client on the other. Each advocate has a duty of commitment to the client’s cause, and must resolutely pursue the client’s legitimate goals using all legal means. At the same time, the advocate is an officer of the court and must help the legal system accomplish its own objectives. The need to reconcile duties to client with duties to the law comes up frequently in the practice of law, and pervades the study of legal ethics. The balancing act . . . [more] The post The Time’s Not Right: Advocacy When a Tribunal Is Delayed or Imposes Short Timelines appeared first on Slaw.

At an annual cost of 30 million – Some of this already comes from digital broadcasters – the Community Radio Initiative will strengthen licensed community, Indigenous, and campus radio stations.

Early scandals have not slowed lawyers' adoption of AI tools, even as court sanctions over fake legal briefs continue to rise.

Antivax group calls for chief justice to remove himself should the Supreme Court of Canada agree to hear an appeal related to the federal government’s use of the Emergencies Act

Artificial intelligence is quickly becoming part of everyday professional practice in dispute resolution. As its use expands across the legal profession, questions are beginning to arise about how the...

Reasons require active engagement with the evidence plus defending the Rule of Law

A recent case on the limits of advocacy by a tribunal member after appointment

Now an award-winning newsletter, plus restrictions on post-employment appearances before tribunals

And so here we are – New Year’s Eve 2025, the end of an extraordinary and turbulent year whose passage many of us will be happy to celebrate, as we equally fervently welcome the hope and potential …

As well, some New Year's Resolutions - some for others and some for me

“Reserves do not improve with age. The longer a decision sits unwritten, the heavier it becomes.” When the Honourable Deena Baltman (retired) offered this observation during a recent continuing profes...

By: Gideon Christian Cases Commented On: Dosu v Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, 2025 ONSC 6496 (CanLII); Dosu v Human Rights of Ontario, 2025 ONSC 6509 (CanLII) PDF Version: A Court Divided: What…

A look at new guidance on confidentiality and AI from the United Kingdom and yet another case on adjournment requests

There has been renewed interest in recent years in the theory of administrative law. As I commented a few years ago: It seems to me that it is no accident that contemporary administrative law scholars...

Your hands aren’t just accessories to your words. They’re one of the most powerful tools you have to make your ideas resonate.

It’s December first and that of course means it’s time to open up Clawbies nominations! And because we are getting set to issue our 20th edition of the awards, we called in for reinforcements! The 201...

New cases on when a failure to have a transcript is not fatal, and how decision-makers can use non-binding opinions by the courts

Comments from recent presentations, plus case briefs on vexatious litigants, referring to the wrong statute and cautions on using active adjudication

Independent Media Matters. Now More Than Ever CKCU's 2025 Funding Drive | Celebrating 50 Years October 24 to November 9 Goal: $193,100 For 50 years, CKCU has been a trusted voice in our community. We ...

Denying a second adjournment - how to approach the request

Guidance for lawyers on generative AI use consistently urges careful verification of outputs. One popular framing advises treating AI as a “first-year associate”—smart and keen, but inexperienced and needing supervision. In this column, I take the position that, while this framing helpfully encourages caution, it obscures how generative AI can be deceptive in ways that make it fundamentally dissimilar to an inexperienced first-year associate. How is AI deceptive? In short, generative AI can fail in unpredictable ways and sometimes in ways that mimic reliability, making errors harder to detect than those flowing from simple inexperience. Before elaborating, three important caveats . . . [more] The post Deceptive Dynamics of Generative AI: Beyond the “First-Year Associate” Framing appeared first on Slaw.

I’m frequently asked to track down cases that lawyers can’t find. Most of the time the problem is an incorrect citation, but sometimes the problem is that the (usually older) case isn’t available in any online databases or print reporters. I’m now running into a new challenge: does the case exist or is it an AI hallucination? I generally start with the assumption that the problem is an incorrect citation. In this situation, the most common issues are the misspelling of a party name or missing or incorrect numbers. I use multiple resources (e.g. CanLII, Lexis+, Westlaw Canada) and search . . . [more] The post Does This Case Really Exist? appeared first on Slaw.

Sir Geoffrey Vos on the questions we should be asking about AI and justice, plus a note on managing backlogs

Also, more on the risks of active adjudication

What duty does a decision-maker have? Stretching the boundaries of the duty of accommodation

A brief discussion of unreliable AI and a case comment on admissibility of surreptitious recordings

In France, "la rentrée" is the return to school and work after a summer - a return to normalcy

The way governments appoint judges and tribunal members is mostly mysterious – we know the general framework but not the inner workings of the process. It is only when the appointment process fails th...

Procedural fairness like it's 1999 - Baker factors still relevant

Former Dean of Law at the University of Saskatchewan and a former part-time member of the federal Public Service Labour Relations Board

Swedish guitarist Finn Loxbo leads a quintet in an hour-long performance

A conversation with her about the album plus a bonus hour available on demand about classical music as well as her close association with singer Mark Murphy

The challenges in credibility assessment and the right approach to expert evidence