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Articles 1 - 30 of 40
Full-Text Articles in Law
The Political Economy Of Laughter And Outrage, Genevieve Renard Painter
The Political Economy Of Laughter And Outrage, Genevieve Renard Painter
Dalhousie Law Journal
A bit uncomfortable. That is how it feels to be among dear friends but labelled professionally as an outsider. I have a law degree, a bar membership, and a PhD in Jurisprudence and Social Policy. I am a professor in a women’s studies department at Concordia University. At conference receptions, people respond breathlessly, “But they don’t have a law school at Concordia!?,” as though I am hearing confession in a gas station, or something as heretical. I teach legal history, international law, feminist legal theory, and constitutional law to undergraduates who are not in law school and mostly don’t want …
Government Lawyering: Duties And Ethical Challenges Of Government Lawyers, Andrew Flavelle Martin
Government Lawyering: Duties And Ethical Challenges Of Government Lawyers, Andrew Flavelle Martin
Dalhousie Law Journal
Are government lawyers different than lawyers in private practice? If so, why does it matter? While these questions have been addressed piecemeal in the Canadian legal ethics literature, Elizabeth Sanderson's Government Lawyering: Duties and Ethical Challenges of Government Lawyers is the first comprehensive and long-form answer to them.1 As Adam Dodek hints in the foreword 2 and has noted elsewhere,3 the degree to which government lawyers have been overlooked in the Canadian legal literature is incongruent with their sheer numbers as a proportion of the legal profession in Canada. The need for this book is pronounced.
On Being A Second: Grace Wambolt, Legal Professionalism And 'Inter-Wave' Feminism In Nova Scotia, Elizabeth Legge
On Being A Second: Grace Wambolt, Legal Professionalism And 'Inter-Wave' Feminism In Nova Scotia, Elizabeth Legge
Dalhousie Law Journal
Grace Wambolt was the fifth female graduate of Dalhousie Law School and the second woman to practise law in Nova Scotia. She was one of the relatively few female lawyers in Canada (up to the influx of the nineteen-seventies) who practiced law following the push by the first female lawyers for the elimination of formal barriers to practice. This paper examines the similarities and differences between the "firsts" and those who followed them, primarily by looking at the life of Wambolt and her letters and speeches preserved in the Wambolt fonds located in the Nova Scotia Archives and donated by …
Indigenous Lawyers In Canada: Identity, Professionalization, Law, Sonia Lawrence, Signa Daum Shanks
Indigenous Lawyers In Canada: Identity, Professionalization, Law, Sonia Lawrence, Signa Daum Shanks
Dalhousie Law Journal
For Indigenous communities and individuals in Canada, "Canadian" law has been a mechanism of assimilation, colonial governance and dispossession, a basis for the assertion of rights, and a method of resistance. How do Indigenous lawyers in Canada make sense of these contradictory threads and their roles and responsibilities? This paper urges attention to the lives and experiences of Indigenous lawyers, noting that the number of self-identified Indigenous lawyers has been rapidly growing since the 1990s. At the same time, Indigenous scholars are focusing on the work of revitalizing Indigenous law and legal orders. Under these conditions, Indigenous lawyers occupy a …
The Judicial Regulation Of Lawyers In Canada, Amy Salyzyn
The Judicial Regulation Of Lawyers In Canada, Amy Salyzyn
Dalhousie Law Journal
The question of whether Canadian lawyers ought to be trusted to govern themselves has been repeatedly raised by the public, policy-makers and the academy over the past several decades. The legal profession has responded on a number of fronts, adopting what has been characterized as a "regime of defensive self-regulation." The analysis in this article complements and complicates this account by arguing that, alongside the profession's efforts at defensive self-regulation, there has been a steady stream of aggressive judicial regulation. The central argument of this article is two-fold: first, that courts have come to occupy an increasingly active role as …
"The Harshness And Injustice Of The Common Law Rule... Has Frequenly Been Commented Upon": Debating Contributory Negligence In Canada, 1914-1949, R Blake Brown, Noelle Yhard
"The Harshness And Injustice Of The Common Law Rule... Has Frequenly Been Commented Upon": Debating Contributory Negligence In Canada, 1914-1949, R Blake Brown, Noelle Yhard
Dalhousie Law Journal
In the early twentieth century many legal professionals damned the law of contributory negligence as complicated and unfair to plaintiffs barred from recovery, while businesspeople often complained thatjudges and juries refused to find sympathetic plaintiffs contributorily negligent. Elite Canadian lawyers, through their work in the Canadian Bar Association and the Commission on Uniformity of Legislation in Canada, proposed model contributory negligence legislation that a number of provinces subsequently adopted. Reviews of these statutes were mixed however The large body of existing case law, despite its complications, encouraged some lawyers and judges to fall back on older jurisprudence in interpreting the …
"Uncivil By Too Much Civility"?: Critiquing Five More Years Of Civility Regulation In Canada, Alice Woolley
"Uncivil By Too Much Civility"?: Critiquing Five More Years Of Civility Regulation In Canada, Alice Woolley
Dalhousie Law Journal
The author revisits criticisms of the civility movement made in an earlier paper ("Does Civility Matter?" (2008) 46 Osgoode Hall LJ 175). She argues that Canadian law societies remain concerned with lawyer incivility, despite bringing surprisingly few formal prosecutions against lawyers for incivility. In a few cases the law societies' concern can be justified insofar as lawyer incivility in those cases appears to correlate with serious professional dysfunction. Generally however, the focus on incivility is counter-productive. First, in several cases the focus on lawyer incivility elides the complex and difficult ethical issues raised by the behaviour of the lawyers in …
Lawyering At The Intersection Of Public Law And Legal Ethics: Government Lawyers As Custodians Of The Rule Of Law, Adam M. Dodek
Lawyering At The Intersection Of Public Law And Legal Ethics: Government Lawyers As Custodians Of The Rule Of Law, Adam M. Dodek
Dalhousie Law Journal
Government lawyers are significant actors in the Canadian legal profession, yet they are largely ignored by regulators and by academic scholarship. The dominant view of lawyering fails to adequately capture the unique role of government lawyers. Government lawyers are different from other lawyers by virtue of their role in creating and upholding the rule of law Most accounts of government lawyers separate public law duties of government from ethical duties of lawyers; for example, acknowledging the "public interest" role ofgovernment lawyers but asserting that this has no impact on their ethical duties as lawyers. Instead of this compartmentalized approach, this …
Cravath By The Sea: Recruitment In The Large Halifax Law Firm, 1900-1955, Jeffrey Haylock
Cravath By The Sea: Recruitment In The Large Halifax Law Firm, 1900-1955, Jeffrey Haylock
Dalhousie Law Journal
The traditional view is that regularized, meritocratic hiring in Canadian law firms had to wait until the 1960s, with the rise in importance of Ontario university law schools. There was, however, more regional variation than this view allows. After an overview of the rise of large firms in the U.S. and Canada, and of the modern hiring strategies (the "Cravath system") that developed in New York in the early twentieth century, the author considers whether Halifax firms were employing these strategies between 1900 and 1955. Nepotistic hiring continued unabated; however, the three large firms of the period recruited young students …
C. English, Ed., Essays In The History Of Canadian Law, Volume Ix: Two Islands: Newfoundland And Prince Edward Island, R Blake Brown
C. English, Ed., Essays In The History Of Canadian Law, Volume Ix: Two Islands: Newfoundland And Prince Edward Island, R Blake Brown
Dalhousie Law Journal
The Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History has played a vital role in encouraging legal history research in Canada, and one of its most important programs has been the Essays in the History of Canadian Law series. Canada lacks a legal history journal, but since 1981 the Osgoode Society has provided an opportunity for scholars to publish their work in one of its collections. Two Islands is the ninth such edited volume by the Osgoode Society that bears the title Essays in the History of Canadian Law. The first two volumes, published in 1981 and 1983, were general collections containing …
Tending The Bar: The "Good Character" Requirement For Law Society Admission, Alice Woolley
Tending The Bar: The "Good Character" Requirement For Law Society Admission, Alice Woolley
Dalhousie Law Journal
Every Canadian law society requires thatapplicants for bar admission be of "good character" The author assesses the administration of this requirement and its statedpurposes ofensuring ethical conductby lawyers, protecting the public and maintaining the profession's reputation. In particular, the premise underlying the use of the good character requirement to fulfill those purposes - that character is the "well-spring of professional conduct in lawyers" - is subjected to critical examination through the theoretical principles of Artistotelian virtue ethics and the empirical evidence of social psychology. The primary thesis of this paper is that as currently justified, administered and applied the good …
Law's Ambition And The Reconstruction Of Role Morality In Canada, David M. Tanovich
Law's Ambition And The Reconstruction Of Role Morality In Canada, David M. Tanovich
Dalhousie Law Journal
There is a growing disconnect and alienation between lawyers and the legal profession in Canada. One cause, which is the focus ofthe article, is philosophical in nature. There appears to be a disconnect between the role lawyers want to pursue (i.e., a facilitator of justice) and the role that they perceive the profession demands they play (i.e., a hired gun). The article argues that this perception is a mistaken one. Over the last fifteen years, we have been engaged in a process of role morality reconstruction. Under this reconstructed institutional role, an ethic of client-centred zealous advocacy has slowly begun …
Breach Of Contract?: The New Economy, Access To Justice And The Ethical Responsibilities Of The Legal Profession, Richard Devlin
Breach Of Contract?: The New Economy, Access To Justice And The Ethical Responsibilities Of The Legal Profession, Richard Devlin
Dalhousie Law Journal
In the last several years, there has been a growing awareness within the legal profession that access to justice, that is, to legal advice and representation, is becoming increasingly difficult. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the cuts to legal aid programmes. The author argues that the response of the legal profession is inadequate because it remains trapped in a welfarist paradigm of legal aid that is insensitive to the impact of the new economy and the newly emergent social investment state. The author explores the possibility of an alternative response - the adoption of a mandatory pro bono …
Reconceptualizing Professional Responsibility: Incorporating Equality, Rosemary Cairns Way
Reconceptualizing Professional Responsibility: Incorporating Equality, Rosemary Cairns Way
Dalhousie Law Journal
Are legal professionals concerned with "doing good" or just with "doing well" financially? In an age of increasing and intensifying public scrutiny there is a need to examine and challenge the legal profession's conception of professional responsibility, and how it translates into practice. This paper expresses the concern that the profession has moved too far in the direction of a "billable hours" culture, a culture that is falling short of the legal profession's obligation as a self-regulated entity to consider and acknowledge the public interest at all points. The author calls for a broader conception of professionalism, one that encompasses …
Preface, Philip Girard
Preface, Philip Girard
Dalhousie Law Journal
The foreword to the first issue of the Dalhousie Law Journal (September 1973) stated that the editors commenced the enterprise "without lofty pretensions." If the newjournal' s existence served "to encourage creative research and writing among law teachers, among students, and generally among the legal profession and related disciplines, that may be justification." The editors nonetheless concluded with a lofty enough mission statement: "we shall be endeavouring to produce a stimulating journal exemplifying those qualities that most people would characterize as scholarly, among them thoroughness, precision of thought, independence of judgment." The Editorial Board believes that the Journal has fulfilled …
A Case For Compulsory Legal Ethics Education In Canadian Law Schools, Jocelyn Downie
A Case For Compulsory Legal Ethics Education In Canadian Law Schools, Jocelyn Downie
Dalhousie Law Journal
The author presents principled arguments, consequentialist arguments, arguments by analogy and arguments by authority in support of her conclusion that Canadian law schools should have compulsory legal ethics education. Among other things, she argues that legal ethics education is an imperfect but essential way to meet the obligations that arise from the public trust placed in the legal profession. She also explores a number of benefits that can accrue to students, law schools, the legal profession and society in general when ethics is a compulsory component of legal education.
Inside The Law: Canadian Law Firms In Historical Perspective, Douglas C. Harris
Inside The Law: Canadian Law Firms In Historical Perspective, Douglas C. Harris
Dalhousie Law Journal
This collection of essays edited by Carol Wilton' chronicles the changing character of Canadian law firms from the "golden age" of the sole practitioner in the nineteenth century to the mega-firms of the late twentieth. Most of the essays describe the changing profession through a case study of a single lawyer or firm, and Wilton has collected a representative sample of firms from across the country. Some of the firms remained small or disappeared, while others grew into full-service corporate commercial law firms of several hundred lawyers. Most of the essays focus on the personalities of the lawyers involved, their …
Lights, Camera, Litigate: Lawyers And The Media In Canada And The United States, Charles W. Wolfram
Lights, Camera, Litigate: Lawyers And The Media In Canada And The United States, Charles W. Wolfram
Dalhousie Law Journal
Drawing on recent high profile cases in Canada and the United States, the author examines the different extent to which lawyers in those two countries comment to the media about ongoing litigation. He investigates various formal constraints upon lawyer comment, such as court-imposed publication bans and rules of professional responsibility. He also looks at the way in which lawyer behaviour is attributable to non-formal, cultural determinants.
A Lot Of Knowledge Is A Dangerous Thing: Will The Legal Profession Survive The Knowledge Explosion?, H W. Arthurs
A Lot Of Knowledge Is A Dangerous Thing: Will The Legal Profession Survive The Knowledge Explosion?, H W. Arthurs
Dalhousie Law Journal
Professor Arthurs argues that with the growth and diversification of knowledge, the common body of knowledge that underpins a unified profession is becoming more difficult to sustain. The desire to know, the need to know and the resources to know have divided lawyers into subprofessions, increasingly defined by the non-lawyers with whom they work and the clienteles they serve, bound togetherif at all-only by nostalgia and some residuum of self-interest.
Mikmaw Tenure In Atlantic Canada, James [Sákéj] Youngblood Henderson
Mikmaw Tenure In Atlantic Canada, James [Sákéj] Youngblood Henderson
Dalhousie Law Journal
The Supreme Court of Canada has characterized aboriginal title to land as a sui generis legal interest. This essay describes the sui generis interest of Mikmaw tenure in Atlantic Canada from a Mikmaq linguistic perspective. The author argues the prerogative treaties and legislation of the eighteenth century suggest it is a reserved and protected tenure, which in Eurocentric law might be reconceptualized as allodial tenure.
Law And Economics, Michael J. Trebilcock
Law And Economics, Michael J. Trebilcock
Dalhousie Law Journal
Prior to 1960, most North American law schools paid attention only to anti-trust, public utility regulation, and perhaps tax policy from a law and economics perspective (sometimes referred to as the "old" law and economics). However, beginning in the early 1960's with pioneering articles by Guido Calabresi on tort law and Ronald Coase (the 1991 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics) on property rights, followed by prolific writings and a comprehensive text by Richard Posner on a vast range of legal issues, the field of law and economics has burgeoned with many lawyers and economists around the world now …
A Conflict Is A Conflict Is A Conflict: Fiduciary Duty And Lawyer - Client Sexual Relations, Matthew Certosimo
A Conflict Is A Conflict Is A Conflict: Fiduciary Duty And Lawyer - Client Sexual Relations, Matthew Certosimo
Dalhousie Law Journal
Does a lawyer breach his' fiduciary duty by engaging in sexual activity with a client?' The Nova Scotia Barristers' Society is attempting to answer this very question with a proposed Rule in the Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Handbook : Chapter 24 on Sexual Relation-ships with a Client. The purpose of this paper is to review the proposed Rule in the context of a lawyer's fiduciary duty to his client.
A Comment On The Canadian Bar Association's Gender Equality Task Force Report, Dianne Pothier
A Comment On The Canadian Bar Association's Gender Equality Task Force Report, Dianne Pothier
Dalhousie Law Journal
The Canadian Bar Association's Gender Equality Task Force Report sets out to challenge the traditions of a male model of the legal profession. The title of the Report, Touchstones for Change: Equality, Diversity, and Accountability, announces the challenge. Although in a formal sense the legal profession has been open to women since well before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council acknowledged women's eligibility to be Senators, the sad truth is that, in many respects, the legal profession is still not a welcoming environment to women. While women are entering the profession in greater numbers than ever before, they are …
Ideology And The Emergence Of Legal Aid In Saskatchewan, Jennie Abell
Ideology And The Emergence Of Legal Aid In Saskatchewan, Jennie Abell
Dalhousie Law Journal
My work at Saskatchewan legal aid (from 1978 to 1982) generated questions for me about law and social change, and about the origins of legal aid in the context of the expansion of the welfare state. I examined the history of legal aid under the N.D.P. in Saskatchewan from 1974-1982 in an earlier work.' I concluded that the Saskatchewan N.D.P did not significantly differ from other provincial parties in its handling of legal aid during that period, and in that sense that legal aid as it was elaborated under a social democratic government was not fundamentally altered.
Criminology: A Reader's Guide, Bruce P. Archibald
Criminology: A Reader's Guide, Bruce P. Archibald
Dalhousie Law Journal
As a journeyman law teacher, sometime sociologist, enthusiastic law reformer, and an occasional dabbler in criminology and comparative law, this volume came to me like manna from heaven. It's an intelligent catalogue of almost all I ever wanted to know but most often never had time to read. Modestly called "a reader's guide", this book will serve a multitude of purposes for anyone with an interest in criminology. It is an excellent starting point for the student wishing to commence research on nearly any serious criminological topic. Criminal justice professionals who wish to step out of their narrow niche and …
Discrimination In The Legal Profession, Codes Of Professional Conduct And The Duty Of Non-Discrimination, Christ Tennant
Discrimination In The Legal Profession, Codes Of Professional Conduct And The Duty Of Non-Discrimination, Christ Tennant
Dalhousie Law Journal
This paper is about discrimination in the legal profession, and about the kinds of responses to discrimination that the legal profession should be considering. I begin with a review of the various forms of discrimination which exist in the legal profession. Discrimination in the legal profession ranges from the exclusion of the members of certain groups from parts of the profession, to sexual harassment, to discrimination in our courts, to the exclusion and deprecation of the perspectives and experiences of those who have not traditionally beenin positions of power. Discrimination in the legal profession occurs against women, against aboriginal people, …
The Democratic Intellect: The State In The Work Of Madame Justice Wilson, Philip L. Bryden
The Democratic Intellect: The State In The Work Of Madame Justice Wilson, Philip L. Bryden
Dalhousie Law Journal
It is a great honour to have been asked to provide an essay for this volume of reflections on the contribution Madame Justice Bertha Wilson has made to the development of law in Canada. To a certain extent, this is a matter of pride in finding my own name associated with that of the very learned and respected individuals who have set out their thoughts in this collection of articles. In the main, however, the honour comes from the opportunity to make a public statement of my own respect and admiration for Madame Justice Wilson and the significant role that …
Tribute To Madame Justice Bertha Wilson, Foreword, And Preface, A Kim Campbell
Tribute To Madame Justice Bertha Wilson, Foreword, And Preface, A Kim Campbell
Dalhousie Law Journal
On behalf of the Government of Canada, I am pleased to convey my best wishes to all those participating in 'The Democratic Intellect" Symposium being hosted by Dalhousie Law School in honour of Madame Justice Bertha Wilson's contribution to the law and to the life of Canada.
The Origin And Evolution Of The Attorney And Solicitor In The Legal Profession Of Nova Scotia, Barry Cahill
The Origin And Evolution Of The Attorney And Solicitor In The Legal Profession Of Nova Scotia, Barry Cahill
Dalhousie Law Journal
D.G. Bell has observed that the torrent "of historical writing on Canadian legal education has yet to be matched by intensive study of the legal profession itself." The aim of the present paper is to demonstrate that, for eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Nova Scotia, the development of the legal profession was so closely linked to the evolution of the superior courts, especially the Court of Chancery, that the former cannot be studied in isolation from the latter. By the time Halifax was founded in 1749, the attorney at law and solicitor in equity had not only been statutorily entrenched as …
Lawyers And The Nuclear Debate, Malcolm Shaw
Lawyers And The Nuclear Debate, Malcolm Shaw
Dalhousie Law Journal
The volume under review constitutes a valuable and exciting contribution to the whole nuclear debate. Its distinctiveness, perhaps, lies in the format. A mix of more formal and prepared papers, less formal papers, interventions and discussions provides an interesting example of the genre. While one is clearly not dealing with an academic treatise, the style of the compilation enhances the feeling of acute concern, spontaneity and the sense of the contemporary significance of the whole enterprise.