When a stranger breaks the rules in a scary way, it is always tempting to banish them. This old-fashioned word might suggest disgraced medieval nobles driven from of their kingdoms. But banishment occurs whenever a person is cast out from what used to be their home or social group. A few examples of modern-day banishment: […]

Civility and its importance are contested in the Canadian legal profession and the Canadian legal academy. [1] Moreover, civility and the broader concept of professionalism have a shameful history as exclusionary concepts with significant negative impact on the ability of members of equity-seeking groups to join the legal profession and succeed in the practice of […]

Whatever its faults (and there are more than a few), “the rule of law” underpins democracy as a bulwark against authoritarianism. It is not only the system of laws that does this, but the actors who are most closely aligned with ensuring that the rule of law works: the judges and lawyers. Nothing makes the […]

If you had asked both a Canadian and an American, in the last several weeks, “What do you think about the mess at the country’s largest legal regulator?”, you would’ve had two separate conversations about two separate messes, which together speak to a single big problem for lawyer self-regulation. The Canadian would assume you were […]

Territories have the unique characteristic of being both in and out at the same time. Despite their massive differences in all areas, you can easily spot the “territory” due to this in and out feature. Whether they are called a special administrative unit, dependency, self-governing, autonomous nation, outermost/overseas department, etc., once you have identified this […]