TLA’s social calendar is about to get more interesting

/ Legal Services /

By Tony Poland, LegalMatters Staff • With the fog of COVID-19 slowly receding the Toronto Lawyers Association (TLA) has plans to bring Zoom-weary members together socially in the coming months. The pandemic pushed the world onto video screens and after more than a year of social distancing, TLA executive director/library director Joan Rataic-Lang says members are anxious to get […]

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Misguided ruling on IDEL muddies the judicial waters

/ Employment/Labour /

Months after two Superior Court of Justice decisions made it crystal clear that those temporarily laid off because of the COVID pandemic can bring a claim for constructive dismissal, a Superior Court judge has muddied the waters with an ill-reasoned decision stating otherwise. In Taylor v. Hanley Hospitality Inc., the plaintiff had been temporarily laid

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Electronic wills may be ‘inevitable’ but they have drawbacks

/ Wills and Estates /

A headline of a 2019 Forbes article delivered a blunt message to those of us who practice estate law: “Electronic wills are coming whether lawyers like it or not.” The article notes that the U.S. Uniform Law Commission “recognizes the trend in online everything” and recently approved the Electronic Wills Act, which provides a framework

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There are ways to get drug charges dropped in Canada

/ Criminal Law /

A conviction for a drug-related crime can have far-reaching consequences, which is why those charged need the services of an experienced criminal lawyer. Keep in mind that a criminal record will hurt your chances of finding employment and could even affect your ability to travel across the border. If you have been charged, there are

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TLA calls for reversal of funding cuts to ‘hugely important’ libraries

/ Legal Services /

By Tony Poland. LegalMatters Staff • Restoring funding to law libraries across the province is important to ensure a strong legal profession and access to justice, says Toronto Lawyers Association (TLA) president Michael White. White says the Law Society of Ontario (LSO) decision to cut funding to the libraries by 10 per cent this year is short sighted and

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Physicians hurt by reigns of unreasonableness in hospitals

/ Health Law /

The administrative structure of Ontario hospitals centralizes power into the hands of a few key players – and physicians who practise in these public facilities are often at the mercy of disproportionate or overbroad decision-making. The lack of procedural safeguards for physicians under the Public Hospitals Act is at the root of the problem. To

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Google must do more to combat defamatory online reviews

/ Defamation Law /

By Paul Russell, LegalMattersCanada.ca • Google has facilitated and profited from the proliferation of fake and defamatory online reviews about people and businesses so it is reasonable to expect the search engine giant to make greater efforts to remove those posts, says Toronto defamation lawyer Howard Winkler. According to a CBC news report, Google is

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CBA’s surprise embrace of rebuttable presumption is welcomed

/ Family Law /

By Paul Russell, LegalMatters Staff • When Toronto family lawyer Gene C. Colman appeared before the Justice Committee in Ottawa when it was considering amendments to the Divorce Act through Bill C78, he argued that legislative reforms concerning “child custody” should establish a rebuttable presumption of equal shared parenting as the philosophical starting point. “That

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More couples preparing for the challenges of the ‘grey divorce’

/ Family Law /

By Tony Poland, LegalMatters Staff • While people are generally living longer that doesn’t necessarily result in longer marriages with some unions ending in what has become known as the “grey divorce,” says Toronto family lawyer A. Julia P. Tremain. Tremain, a partner with Waddell Phillips Professional Corporation, says while there are common aspects of divorce at

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