: KEY TAKEAWAYS The French high schooler-led uprising is not a sign of a generational struggle pitting the young against baby boomers. The uprisings indicate a state of discontentment reflecting three grievances: failings within the education system, eco-anxiety and concerns over employment in the age of AI. Far from demanding a break with the established order, young protesters are simply asking for the right to live a good and fair life... like their predecessors before them. Rarely has Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents seemed so relevant to the times in which we are living. Although the discontents we are currently witnessing do not necessarily affect society as a whole, they are certainly impacting an entire generation born in the 21st century, as well as their parents and their social environment. Admittedly, we know that generations are not homogeneous and that any attempt to generalise is an oversimplification. Nevertheless, the high schoolers that are taking to the streets to protest in this day[...]
: 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
: Hannah Steeves, the Instruction & Reference Librarian at the Sir James Dunn Law Library, Dalhousie University (Halifax), recently wrote an article on "Using Vinyl & Spotify to Understand Legal Information Online" . It originally appeared on Slaw.ca on February 15, 2022 . Most legal research is done online through a combination of open and subscription databases. Legal information is available at our fingertips through Justice Laws, LEGISinfo, CanLII, Westlaw, Lexis, ProView, SOQUIJ, [insert your preferred database here], and the list goes on. The availability of electronic resources has radically changed—and will continue to change—the way legal professionals conduct research. However, despite my enthusiasm for the improved accessibility and retrievability, I think the lack of engagement that new legal researchers have with print resources creates comprehension issues. The disconnect between a source’s print and electronic formats reduces their understanding of the process used to create the document. Unders[...]
: CALL member Erica Friesen, Research and Instruction Librarian & Online Learning Specialist at the Lederman Law Library at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario recently wrote an article on " Thoughts on the New Lexis+ Brief Analysis Tool: For Law Students and Novice Researchers ". It originally appeared on Slaw.ca on September 28, 2022. It is republished here with permission of the author. New academic year; new legal research tools. Something new always comes out right as another cohort of students is gearing up to begin their law degree. And, as with many new product launches these days, “artificial intelligence” is often a prominently displayed term with accompanying materials. As legal publishers continue to launch AI-driven research tools in Canada, what do students and other novice researchers need to know to be prepared for theirfirst forays into legal research? Lexis recently launched the latest version of their legal research platform, Lexis+ Canada, for Canadian law schools. It features signific[...]
: How can we encourage women to pursue scientific careers? In recent years, a number of mentoring or awareness campaigns have been put in place to encourage French high school students to study maths, physics or engineering sciences, while they remain underrepresented in these fields. One of the last large-scale initiatives is the Filles et Maths program , launched in 2025, including work on gender bias, the implementation of “role models” or timetables featuring flexible hours. The program was nonetheless met with criticism: while women remain under-represented in some disciplines, they also remain a minority in the highest positions across the board in the academic world, from mathematics to social sciences. In France, gender inequalities are therefore not limited to access to scientific studies: they cut across all university careers and make many women leave French Higher Education and Research before securing tenure. This “drain” is explained by several factors among which motherhood holds an important pl[...]
: On Tuesday, Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson submitted recommendations for deleting or revising anticompetitive regulations across the entire federal government to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget. This report is a response to President Trump’s Executive Order on Reducing Anticompetitive Regulatory Barriers . The Executive Order tasked the FTC with finding unnecessary regulations that exclude new market entrants, protect dominant incumbents, and predetermine economic winners and losers, as a first step to repealing them. “President Trump’s Executive Order recognizes that heavy-handed regulations can hurt competition, including by entrenching incumbent firms, raising costs for new entrants, and discouraging innovative new ways to serve customers,” said FTC Bureau of Competition Director Daniel Guarnera. “Competitive markets lower the cost of living, improve the quality of products and services, and drive innovation. Our engagement with citizens across the country and agenc[...]
: Following widespread looting sprees and acts of violence occurring on the sidelines of the October 17 student protests, so-called “casseurs” seem to be the centre of attention. But the term, which comes from the French verb casser or “to break”, poses more questions than answers. The sociologist Paolo Stuppia examines the unprecedented situation many cities across France are having to contend with, and the complex combination of collective action whose motivations are unclear and the social media’s extreme agility. The Conversation: How unprecedented are the scenes of looting that we witnessed on the sidelines of the October 17 demonstrations? Paolo Stuppia: What may be unprecedented is the extent of the destruction of private property and the goods that have been stolen. It should be clear, however, that not all the looters can necessarily be sorted into identifiable groups, at least politically. Indeed, as the politician Xavier Crettiez, the sociologist Isabelle Sommier and the historian François Audigier [...]
: New FTC warning letters cite unsupported Coronavirus-related health and earnings claims sgressin April 24, 2020 | 12:44PM New FTC warning letters cite unsupported Coronavirus-related health and earnings claims By Seena Gressin The FTC is not the pen pal you want if you operate a multi-level marketing company but aren’t closely monitoring your distributors. In its latest round of warning letters, the FTC warns ten MLM companies that they are responsible for the claims made by their participants. The letters direct the companies to report within 48 hours what actions they’ve taken to stop their distributors from claiming their products can treat or prevent Coronavirus disease, that MLM business opportunity participants are likely to earn substantial income, or both. The FTC says that the health and earnings claims are unsubstantiated and therefore violate truth-in-advertising laws. The products at issue are not scientifically proven to treat or prevent COVID-19, the disease that Coronavirus causes. The FTC pre[...]