University of Alberta Faculty of Law Blog

Charter challenge of BC forfeiture laws

Vancouver lawyer Joseph Arvay is well-known for taking on difficult, potentially ground-breaking Charter challenges, and, sometimes, winning them. Arvay's newest client may seem less sympathetic than his past clients, but arguably the legal principles at issue are just as pressing and as important to the public interest as Arvay's past cases on safe injection sites and freedom of expression: Arvay is challenging British Columbia's Civil Forfeiture Act on behalf of six Hell's Angels. As Arvay himself states in this blog post about his latest Charter challenge, "Some people may not be sympathetic to my clients, but the case has implications for a whole lot of other people...I think it is an important case with important issues."

Good to be a lawyer?

I recall a line from a movie where at the end, the antagonist talks about how lawyers are ruining society! Well, ok so that could have been from any movie etc. But the latest revelation from Wall Street settlements, in this case JP Morgan, shows just how much legal fees are consuming firms - $9.2Billion set aside for legal expenses plus another $23 Billion for other issues in the future. Most of the money is for actual settlements, but a good chuck of that is for legal fees. 

 

Goals are for Losers?

Follow your passion. Set goals. Failure leads to success? Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert explains why some of these conventional wisdoms are wrong.

A good idea for moots?

This article from Inside Higher Ed. talks about a proposed idea reuiring graduate students to make a 3-60 second video clip explaining their dissertation. A great idea, but an even greater idea for law students. I have always thought that one should be able to articulate one's case in two minutes or less regardless of how complex the issues are.

Attitudes towards the State

It would be interesting if such numbers were available in Canada, but this Washington Post piece on how Americans' public support for their government has shifted rightwards in all states is very interesting. In all 50 States and over the past 50 years, support for the state has dropped, with some states becoming even more conservative than they once were back in the day.

Another day in Sao Paulo

We take our daily safety for granted, but in some countries, people take the dangers they face for granted. Watch the clip in this piece about how a motorcyclist get car-jacked at gunpoint, and then a cop takes down the robber (aorund 0.59 of the clip). And also watch how no one else seems to react, as if this is just another daily occurrence. 

End of Popocorn in Cinemas

It seems popcorn eating makes those advertisemnets ineffective in cimenas! Will this spell the end of the popcorn for us?

Nobel Prize in Economics

Are financial markets rational or irrational? Are they predictable or not? Apparently, the Nobel Prize in Economics committee couldn't make up its mind, so it gave the prize to three economists whose work is related but not necessarily consistent in findings. Congratulations to Fama, Shiller, and Hansen! 

Eugene Fama should have won it a long time ago and by himself or with some of the earlier winners who specialized in Finance. Nontheless, a well-deserved prize for all three of them. 

Update John Cochrane, a possible Nobel prize winner some years from now, has a good post on why Fama deserves the prize.

The Lawyer Lived!

Whether or not an American social studies teacher was getting the kids ready for Obamacare's death panels or not, what amazed me is that the lawyer lived! 

Faith in humanity restored (or not?).

Happy Shoe Day

Today (or yesterday) is the 43rd anniversary of Nikita Khrushchev banging his shoe at the United Nations.  It turns out that may be an urban legend, or maybe it really happened. Where did the shoe come from and why did he do it? Find out here!

Government Shutdown

I had assumed that only the US was experiencing a government shutdown, but Rick Mercer reminds us that we too have been having the same:

 

Of course, Mercer makes it sound like a bad thing. But I am always reminded of Gideon Tucker's quotation (or was it Mark Twain) that:  "No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the Legislature is in session."

Learn how to use e-mail

It would seem that lawyers by now should learn how to use the CC function in their e-mail. After all, we had the summer associate over ten years ago CCing everyone, then a partner at the same firm e-mailed internal evaluations to everybody, and then a partner at another national firm e-mailing everyone a private message that suggested a less than favorable view of the firm.

And now we get a lawyer commending the lawyers who appeared at their state supreme court oral argument but also putting down some of the judges who asked the lawyers questions. The problem is that he didn't just e-mail the lawyers, but he also CCed the Chief Justice of the very court he wasn't too impressed by! 

 

Old fashioned teaching anyone?

There is a lot of dicussion about legal education these days, but one of the key advantages law schools deliver regardless of content is that they create a common language for all lawyers. Justice Kennedy in this WSJ interview in response to a question about shortening law school to 2 years:

I think the cost factor has to be addressed [but] I don’t think the right way to address it is to shorten the curriculum [which provides] the foundation for what I call the language of the law, the language that lawyers speak to each other. I can pick up the telephone and talk to an attorney two generations removed from me, and [yet] I know him, I know her. We talk this [common] language that we learn in the law school. And this is the envy of the rest of the world, I assure you, it’s a tremendous national resource.

Chris Christie is a Classy Politician

and this is how you keep your class in politics:

 

Roundup

Although freedom-warriror Judge Napolitano laments the latest from the US government's foreign interventions as damaging to liberty, it seems the US high court is curbing down on frivolous lawsuits (will we see this up here both in terms of the frivolty and in terms of the curbing down), and Holland announced the end of the welfare state.

Too absorbed by gadgets

Apparently we are so pre-occupied with our daily gizmos and gadgets that no one one on a train noticed that one of the passenegers was brandishing a weapon at least three of four times.

The Nanny State Cometh

Some might say we are doomed. Some might say two nanny states collide, and the result is straight from The Onion.

The US Post Office is destroying a batch of stamps because they were meant to encourage active wellness but show people exercising in unsafe positions.

Future of Law School conference, continued

Folks are still talking about this conference, which is great to see! There was obviously much discussed at the conference that my blog posts did not touch on, including Professor Harry Arthurs' keynote address. Fortunately, Kim Nayyer has written about it  for Slaw.

Freaky Prank

The law is an a**

A man is declared legally dead and cannot change that even though he is really alive.