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Full-Text Articles in Law
Legal Ethics And Judicial Law Clerks: A New Doctrinal Account, Andrew Flavelle Martin
Legal Ethics And Judicial Law Clerks: A New Doctrinal Account, Andrew Flavelle Martin
Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press
Judicial law clerks are largely overlooked in the Canadian legal literature. This article provides a new doctrinal account of the ethical obligations of law clerks that is rooted in the fact that at least some of the major work of law clerks constitutes the practice of law—and thus that law clerks’ ethics are lawyers’ ethics. It argues that the lawyer’s duty to encourage respect for the administration of justice transposes some of the ethical obligations of the judge into professional obligations of the law clerk. The article also argues that the law societies’ regulatory and disciplinary jurisdiction over law clerks …
The Government Lawyer As Activist: A Legal Ethics Analysis, Andrew Martin
The Government Lawyer As Activist: A Legal Ethics Analysis, Andrew Martin
Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press
Can a lawyer and government employee represent the government in her professional life while being an activist in her personal life? There is a striking and seemingly irreducible clash, at least at the intuitive level, between the two roles – between representing the government on the one hand while at the same time lobbying it or litigating against it on the other. Government lawyers are nonetheless some of the more successful activists in recent Canadian history. This article analyzes whether this duality is problematic from a legal ethics perspective. The analysis is grounded in three case studies: disability rights activist …
The Ethical Tax Judge, Kim Brooks
The Ethical Tax Judge, Kim Brooks
Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press
This chapter advances the claim that judges have an ethical obligation of competence that requires them to enhance their knowledge about language (in the context of statutory interpretation) and income tax law design and policy. It articulates some of the foundational understandings that support that competence and provides a simple hierarchy of approaches to interpreting income tax law. It concludes by contending that greater competence is not only more ethical but also advances other important societal goals fulfilled by the imposition of income tax systems.
A Less Private Practice: Government Lawyers And Legal Ethics, Jennifer Leitch
A Less Private Practice: Government Lawyers And Legal Ethics, Jennifer Leitch
Dalhousie Law Journal
Government lawyers are public servants and legal professionals. How they differ from private lawyers has much to do with whom they purport to represent and how they exercise power as a lawyer. I will look at a particular case-study—the St. Anne’s Residential school adjudication. This case study illustrates the challenges that government lawyers face in fulfilling their professional duty within a traditional private lawyer framework. St. Anne’s Residential School involved some of the most egregious physical, sexual and psychological abuse of Indigenous children between 1941 and 1972. St. Anne’s Residential School litigation is used as a cautionary (and truly tragic) …
From Attorney General To Backbencher Or Opposition Legislator: The Lawyer’S Continuing Duty Of Confidentiality To The Former Client, Andrew Martin
From Attorney General To Backbencher Or Opposition Legislator: The Lawyer’S Continuing Duty Of Confidentiality To The Former Client, Andrew Martin
Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press
This note uses a recent incident from Manitoba to reflect on the professional duty of confidentiality owed to the Crown by a former Attorney General as lawyer. The duty of confidentiality survives the lawyer-client relationship. As a fiduciary, the lawyer cannot disclose or use the client’s confidential information for her own benefit or the benefit of a third party, or against the client. These obligations constrain the former Attorney General in her conduct as an opposition legislator and suggest that she should not accept an appointment as Justice critic for her caucus. While parliamentary privilege protects the former Attorney General …