A friend, who is originally from the UK and not a lawyer, asked me why we call our trainees articling students.

The articling element comes from the articles (provisions, clauses) of the agreement by which a mediaeval apprentice was bound to his (it would have been his in the Middle Ages) principal.

In full it was always articles of clerkship for would-be lawyers, clerk being an old word for anything kind of scribe-y. My late, very old-school father would refer to articled clerks (and pronounce the second word to rhyme with larks not lurks).

In British Columbia, the …

Last Thursday, CanLII unveiled its newest endeavour: the CanLII Manual to British Columbia Civil Litigation. The resource consists of nine “pathfinders” dealing with specific areas of the law, a guide to civil procedure at the BC Supreme Court, and annotated rules of court for both the BC Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals.

There is a lot of very useful information in this publication but there was one particular resource I wanted to highlight: the annotated rules of court. Lawyers frequently want to consult an annotated rules but up until now there has been nothing available freely online …

The error in the title is deliberate, for two reasons.

First, it’s important to proofread everything, including titles, recipient names in a memo, captions for diagrams or pictures (see below), footnotes. It’s particularly embarrassing if you spell your client’s name incorrectly or your managing partner’s.

Second, prof for proof is a play on words, prompted by the experience of students at the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto.

A certain law professor (who will not be named here – but who is identified in the original story) copied and pasted exam questions from a previous year. …

 Annoying little things that have crossed the radar.

Air on the side of caution

Uh, no. It’s err.

But, as the poet said, to err is human, to forgive divine.

Just desserts

Those who grew up in Toronto in the 1980s may remember a restaurant of this name, which served nothing but cakes and fruit pies.

The moniker was a play on the phrase just deserts, which (with the emphasis on the second syllable of deserts) means ‘due recompense’.

With the emphasis on the first syllable of deserts, the phrase would mean ‘solely arid wastelands’.…

Yet more.

Above-captioned
This is a truly awful way to describe anything.

Substitute this or a concise description of the subject of your e-mail or letter and it will read oh, so much better.

Action item
Plain old task will do nicely, thank you.

And please don’t action anything; it’s not a verb.

Ecosystem
If something isn’t a space (the derivatives space, the cannabis space, the cryptocurrency space), it’s an ecosystem – or, indeed, its own ecosystem.

Meaning (I think), subject to its own set of rules, like those of a particular jurisdiction. So, not really …

There are two principal and related uses of ellipsis (…), both based on their function to indicate that something has been left out (ellipsis means ‘omission’ in Greek).

The first is what we might call the technical use. Here, ellipsis shows that a specific word or larger portion of text has been omitted from a quotation: ‘I did … have sexual relations with that woman …’ (Bill Clinton, 1998).

Be careful when doing this, as in the Clinton example. There, the second ellipsis marks the missing name ‘Miss Lewinsky’, which hardly needs to be supplied; but the first one …

In a previous tip, I referred very briefly to the fact that the Canadian federal government and some provinces offer RSS feeds that can be used to track the progress of legislation. 

The federal RSS legislative feed is very flexible, allowing you to choose exactly what information you want to track. You can set up your feed to monitor the progress of specific (or all) bills, let you know when legislative amendments are proposed for specific acts, or see what acts have received Royal Assent. 

If you’re interested in creating your own custom RSS feed, you’ll find a box …

Oh, so many pitfalls. Here are a few more that have crossed the radar recently.

Credible/creditable

The first means ‘believable’, as in Inconsistencies in the witness’s testimony led inevitably to the conclusion that her evidence was not credible.

The second is sometimes (erroneously) used for credible, perhaps by writers who think that an extra syllable adds weight or effect. Creditable really means ‘reputable’ or ‘bringing credit to’: Irwin Law is a highly creditable publisher of legal titles.  

Presumptive/presumptuous

Clearly from the same root, like presume, and sometimes used interchangeably – but best not.

Presumptive should be …

If something isn’t a conversation these days, it’s a situation.

An extreme weather situation. Or, on public transport in Toronto, any number of the following in service announcements on ttc.ca: an emergency situation, a power-off situation, a flooding situation, even a full-throttle situation.

All can be recast without the situation bit: extreme weather, an emergency, a power-outage, a flood – although admittedly a substitute for the full-throttle thing doesn’t come readily to mind.

I’d even avoid situation on its own, as there are less tired expressions: incident, circumstance, …

Many people do, like the drafters of a contract at issue in an Indiana case brought to our attention by Ross Guberman in a LinkedIn post.

The contract made one party responsible for ‘the periodic repair of damages to said Easement area caused by vehicular traffic (i.e. potholes)’.

That party argued it was therefore not responsible to repaint lines in the area in question (a parking lot) after normal wear and tear from traffic not causing potholes.

The trial court held that potholes were but one example of damage to the parking lot. The Indiana Court of Appeals reversed, …