In collaboration with several other organizations, the University of Saskatchewan launched a Gladue Rights Research Database last spring (hat tip to Legal Sourcery for   noting this new resource).

At that time the database was accessible for a small subscription fee. Since then, the database has become open access (read: free) through the generosity of the several sponsors.

A bit more detail on the database:

“This database is an ever-expanding work in progress. It is designed to provide Indigenous people, their legal counsel, and others working within the justice system with information that will assist in the protection of Gladue …

Your prose should be tight, toned and vigorous if you want to engage rather than repel your reader.

Too often, though, lawyers resort to flabby and lethargic constructions like these:

• Please be advised that … [omit and just give the damn advice]
• make available [offer, provide]
• … when I am able [heard on voicemail and seen in out-of-office replies; do people think when I can is too colloquial? it’s perfectly good]
• quoted as saying [this always sounds like either I’m not saying that this person actually said this (in case I get into trouble for suggesting that)

The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969) defines a treaty in Article 2 as “an international agreement concluded between States in written form and governed by international law, whether embodied in a single instrument, or in two or more related instruments and whatever its particular designation.”

Treaties can be bilateral (between two countries), multilateral (between three or more countries) or plurilateral (between one state and a group of states).

In Canada, treaties fall into one of two categories: those that do not require new legislation in order to be implemented and those that do. For treaties that don’t …

Administrator’s note: thanks to Lesley Ellen Harris of Copyrightlaws.com for this guest tip!

Do you sometimes feel that there’s too much information out there?

Do you wish there were a list of the top 5 to 10 online articles you need to read to get from point A to point B?

These posts on Canadian copyright law provide a basic understanding of a variety of topics.

1. 10 Myths About Canadian Copyright Law
2. 8 Facts About Canadian Copyright Law
3. Canadian Copyright Law Quiz
4. The Balance in Canadian Copyright Law
5. Who Owns Copyright in Canada?
6. Duration of Copyright in Canada
7. Moral Rights

Shut down, shutdown
Don’t confuse these.

You shut down your computer in anticipation of the firmwide shutdown by the IT department.  On a similar footing, log in and login.

Surveil
This is like the awful liaise.

Surveil is a misguided back-formation from surveillance, but an ugly and unnecessary one; just say watch or follow.

Well wishes
Where on earth did this expression come from? You wish someone well, but send good wishes. Well wishes awkwardly places an adverb where only an adjective should go.

Impressed
The partner was impressed by the associate’s memo…

You’ve already been advised in a previous post not to say outside of or inside of. The of is both unnecessary and incorrect in each case.

Of creeps in elsewhere, where it should not. As in the shudder-inducing off of, Please, just off. Or perhaps from (I got it from the internet, not off of).

Or as in It’s not that big of a deal. You mean It’s not that big a deal (although not much of a big deal).

Where you should be using of is with the verb enamoured: …

The general rule of thumb is that acts are amended (or repealed) by acts and regulations are amended (or repealed) by regulations. Some acts do explicitly state that they can be amended by regulation, although what can be amended is usually minor (e.g. making changes to a schedule to an act).

An example of this can be found in British Columbia’s Workers Compensation Act:

(4.1) The Board may, by regulation,

(a) add to or delete from Schedule B [of the act] a disease that, in the opinion of the Board, is an occupational disease,
(b) add to or delete …

Basis is, basically, bad. Why, you ask? It’s one of those words that lawyers love to use, but one that renders their prose flabby and verbose. Instead of on a temporary/permanent/daily/whatever basis, just write temporarily, permanently, daily etc. While adverbs are not a hallmark of vigorous prose, a single word is better than four.

A related word is based: Where are you based?, people ask; I’m based in Toronto. Doesn’t this sound affected? Why can’t it just be live? Perhaps based sounds more cosmopolitan and jet-setty (put another way, pretentious)?

More along the lines …

Counsel is an ancient term for one’s legal advisers as a body (The accused did not have the benefit of counsel when he was interrogated) or for a single legal adviser (Maria acted as counsel to the federal government, for which she was made Queen’s Counsel).

A judge will address a Canadian barrister as Counsel (if not by name); in the US, it would more usually be counselor (with a single American L).

The OED says counsel is ‘rarely’ pluralised; ‘should never be’, in my view (and Fowler’s), but I see it.

As a job title, …

One of the best headlines of 2018 was ‘Stormy Daniels’ Attorney Wants to Depose Donald Trump’. He’s not the only one …

Of course the CBC was using depose in its US legal sense, which is to examine a witness for the purposes of discovery or a later trial. Most Canadian non-lawyer readers would, however, have interpreted depose as overthrowing a bad king.

In Canada, we would not depose a witness or take a deposition – we would examine a witness for discovery.

–Neil Guthrie (@guthrieneil)…