[{"pubDate":"Wed, 21 Oct 2026 08:00:51 +0200","titre":"You Get Out What You Put In: All Is Fair in Love and Mediation","url":"https://www.slaw.ca/2026/10/20/you-get-out-what-you-put-in-all-is-fair-in-love-and-mediation/","id":3230806,"description":"A longstanding sore spot in the world of dispute resolution is the gap between education and experience. For decades now, I have encountered mediation students eager to put their learning to work only to struggle to find the opportunity to do so. For those pursuing the ADR Institute of Canada’s Qualified Mediator (Q.Med) designation in Ontario, this real-life experience criterion is often the most elusive. After all, who would select a mediator with no experience? I touched upon this question slightly in this column years ago when I questioned the value of mediators promoting their mediation counts . For aspiring . . . [more] The post You Get Out What You Put In: All Is Fair in Love and Mediation appeared first on Slaw","source":"Slaw"},{"source":"Slaw","id":3220228,"description":"This column presents excerpts from a student paper, completed under the University of Toronto’s Community Research Partnership in Ethics program; the full paper will be published by the National Self-Represented Litigants Project later this year. Over the past 20 years, Alberta’s family justice system has distinguished itself from other jurisdictions by implementing mandatory forms of assistance. In 2005, the Alberta government launched mandatory meetings for SRLs in provincial court, pursuant to the Intake and Caseflow Management Regulation. [1] Building on this, and recognizing the inherent difficulties associated with an SRL’s journey through the family law system, the new Family Justice . . . [more] The post The Utility of Mandatory Assistance for Self-Represented Litigants in Alberta appeared first on Slaw","pubDate":"Fri, 16 Oct 2026 07:57:54 +0200","url":"https://www.slaw.ca/2026/10/15/the-utility-of-mandatory-assistance-for-self-represented-litigants-in-alberta/","titre":"The Utility of Mandatory Assistance for Self-Represented Litigants in Alberta"},{"source":"Slaw","id":3217670,"description":"Your mid-sized firm invested $500,000 recruiting four to five new students last year. By year five, 91 percent are gone. Your per-person investment was roughly $100,000 to $125,000. Add salary, training, and mentorship. Then they leave. The question worth asking is whether you hired the wrong people, or whether you didn’t integrate them. The data suggests the latter. When the National Association for Law Placement Foundation surveyed departing Canadian associates, 29 percent cited work quality concerns. Sixteen percent pointed to productivity standards they felt they weren’t meeting. Thirteen percent said the advancement path was unclear. Thirteen percent mentioned fit. Another . . . [more] The post Beyond Day One: The Onboarding System Firms Still Haven’t Built appeared first on Slaw","pubDate":"Thu, 15 Oct 2026 07:57:55 +0200","titre":"Beyond Day One: The Onboarding System Firms Still Haven’t Built","url":"https://www.slaw.ca/2026/10/14/beyond-day-one-the-onboarding-system-firms-still-havent-built/"},{"description":"A consensus is emerging in law schools across Canada and the US that AI has no place in teaching the core curriculum, because it impedes student learning, especially in first year. Schools are beginning to follow the University of Chicago’s lead in banning AI in first-year core courses. Some profs are also banning laptops in classrooms — taking every precaution to shield students’ developing minds from the corrosive effects of AI. Michael Plaxton, one of the leading voices in Canada thinking through the many challenges AI poses to legal education, crystallizes the argument: “The case for law schools must be . . . [more] The post The Argument for Encouraging Student Use of AI in First-Year Law appeared first on Slaw","id":3133345,"source":"Slaw","url":"https://www.slaw.ca/2026/09/03/the-argument-for-encouraging-student-use-of-ai-in-first-year-law/","titre":"The Argument for Encouraging Student Use of AI in First-Year Law","pubDate":"Fri, 04 Sep 2026 07:59:07 +0200"},{"source":"Slaw","description":"The beginning of another academic year has me reflecting on what more we can give students beyond the curriculum. We spend considerable time thinking about what students need to know and what they need to be able to do. We develop learning outcomes, create assignments, design simulations, evaluate learning, and provide feedback. All those things are important. However, some of the most valuable learning opportunities are not found in the curriculum at all. Sometimes, they arrive in an email. I remember an interaction with a student from several years ago. The student had sent a series of emails that were, . . . [more] The post The Learning Opportunities We Don’t Plan For appeared first on Slaw","id":3127233,"url":"https://www.slaw.ca/2026/08/31/the-learning-opportunities-we-dont-plan-for/","titre":"The Learning Opportunities We Don’t Plan For","pubDate":"Tue, 01 Sep 2026 08:01:36 +0200"},{"url":"https://www.slaw.ca/2026/08/21/briefcases-cigarettes-the-law-library-of-1978/","titre":"Briefcases & Cigarettes: The Law Library of 1978","pubDate":"Sat, 22 Aug 2026 07:56:57 +0200","description":"This summer our law library intern (shout out to Bailey Kaye!) is reviewing our archival casebook collection for a digitization project. Among them was a casebook for exchange students arriving at Dalhousie Law School in 1978. It outlined an introduction to the common law, as provided by the Sir James Dunn Law Library. In this casebook, the Sir James Dunn Law Library included a helpful list of general information about library etiquette. Let’s review how you were to conduct yourself in the law library of 1978, shall we? The one rule that has survived nearly word-for-word, across nearly fifty years . . . [more] The post Briefcases & Cigarettes: The Law Library of 1978 appeared first on Slaw","id":3110437,"source":"Slaw"},{"url":"https://www.slaw.ca/2026/08/13/call-for-submissions-arizona-journal-of-international-comparative-law-2027-symposium/","titre":"Call for Submissions: Arizona Journal of International & Comparative Law – 2027 Symposium","pubDate":"Fri, 14 Aug 2026 07:58:00 +0200","source":"Slaw","description":"I’m thrilled to share with all Slaw readers this great opportunity from our dedicated law students at the Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law. I work closely with these students either in the Journal or in the courses I teach and I can confidently see that they are hardworking, intellectually engaged and eager to make an impact. The topics of the 2027 Symposium taking place in Tucson will include International Trade Law, Digitization of International Commercial Law, and Indigenous Peoples and International Economic Law. These areas of study have been an integral part of the Journal since its inception . . . [more] The post Call for Submissions: Arizona Journal of International & Comparative Law – 2027 Symposium appeared first on Slaw","id":3093433},{"url":"https://www.slaw.ca/2026/07/31/the-hidden-economics-of-the-vanishing-apprenticeship/","titre":"The Hidden Economics of the Vanishing Apprenticeship","pubDate":"Sat, 01 Aug 2026 08:00:27 +0200","description":"Two columns ago, I followed the money through a law firm’s student recruitment program and found nearly $500,000 a year in lawyer time and expenses before a single billable hour was worked. Last column, I followed that same money into the delegation of actual work and found that firms were quietly losing much of it back through vague instructions, overworked memos, and write-downs nobody quite wants to talk about. This column follows that same money to where it gets spent – on the reps junior lawyers used to log before anyone trusted them with something that mattered. Those reps are . . . [more] The post The Hidden Economics of the Vanishing Apprenticeship appeared first on Slaw","id":3069027,"source":"Slaw"},{"id":3060094,"description":"Queen’s University Library has added a new chapter on “ An Introduction to Researching Indigenous Legal Orders ” to their Canadian Legal Research Manual . The introduction to the chapter notes that it “provides a very brief introduction to researching Indigenous legal orders. It is not meant to be comprehensive, but rather a starting point primarily intended for non-Indigenous law students researching in an academic setting.” It includes an overview of the terminology, an overview of sources of Indigenous law, a discussion of ethical considerations and limitations of resources, as well as a list of further reading. Suggested resources include . . . [more] The post Tips Tuesday: Researching Indigenous Legal Orders appeared first on Slaw","source":"Slaw","pubDate":"Wed, 29 Jul 2026 07:59:26 +0200","url":"https://www.slaw.ca/2026/07/28/researching-indigenous-legal-orders/","titre":"Tips Tuesday: Researching Indigenous Legal Orders"},{"description":"At a conference of law teachers at Western in June, I took part in discussions among professors and lawyers about whether facility with AI should be a core competence in a Canadian law degree at this point in time. This gave rise to larger questions about whether law profs now have an ethical or pedagogical duty of some kind to familiarize themselves with AI and develop methods of teaching students how to use it effectively. This, in turn, pointed to the even larger question of what it means to be a competent lawyer in the age of AI. Put another . . . [more] The post What Does It Mean to Be a Competent Lawyer in the Age of AI? appeared first on Slaw","id":3030524,"source":"Slaw","titre":"What Does It Mean to Be a Competent Lawyer in the Age of AI?","url":"https://www.slaw.ca/2026/07/14/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-competent-lawyer-in-the-age-of-ai/","pubDate":"Wed, 15 Jul 2026 08:01:12 +0200"},{"source":"Slaw","id":3006501,"description":"In a previous article, I wrote about the benefits of simulations in jump-starting learning. In this article, I want to focus on one specific aspect of simulation: the use of simulated clients. Medicine has long used simulated patients to help students develop practical skills and bedside manner. The use of simulated clients to support law student learning is a more recent development. Through the pioneering work of Paul Maharg and others, simulated clients have become an important educational tool in legal education in Canada and around the world. Rather than discussing the history of simulated clients or the training they . . . [more] The post Beyond Role Playing: How Simulated Clients Enhance Learning appeared first on Slaw","pubDate":"Sat, 04 Jul 2026 08:01:22 +0200","titre":"Beyond Role Playing: How Simulated Clients Enhance Learning","url":"https://www.slaw.ca/2026/07/03/beyond-role-playing-how-simulated-clients-enhance-learning/"}]