The completed five-year reviews on paralegal regulation by the Law Society of Upper Canada and David Morris have served to inspire a conversation within the justice system about the scope of practice of the paralegal profession that’s now focusing on a motion put forward by representatives of the paralegal community for debate at the upcoming LSUC annual general meeting (see “Time to expand paralegal rights?” on April 29).

In response to a recent Law Times article (see “CDLPA head worried about northern Ontario justice system,” April 8), let me say I have less to complain about than most citizens of Sudbury, Ont. From my office, although I have not tried, I can hit every window on the street side of the main courthouse and the jail is only 15 metres further away. I am more convenienced than most of the bar.

However well intentioned, Alan Shanoff’s call for the abolition of defamatory libel from the Criminal Code (see “Time to abolish outdated defamatory libel offence,” Feb. 11) is ill advised.

We read with interest your recent story (“Toronto legal clinic in jeopardy,” Feb. 4) about the disappointing decision by Legal Aid Ontario to cease funding West Toronto Community Legal Services.

The suggestion made by Prof. Steven Salterio (see “Prof questions expertise of judges, Crowns following Nortel ruling), that the outcome of the Nortel trial might have been different if the trial judge had “more experience with corporate law” is truly ridiculous and made more so by his acknowledgment that he could not say whether the decision of the presiding judge was right or wrong.

STRICT CONTRACT LAW RULES NOT APPLICABLE TO EMPLOYMENT MATTERS
As a practitioner who limits his practice exclusively to issues relating to employment law, I have often been frustrated by the approach the courts have taken when deciding liability and awarding damages in cases dealing with just cause and constructive dismissal.

As often happens when we only get one side of the story, the remedies suggested in your article about Superior Court Justice Ted Matlow’s rant against residential tenants abusing the right to appeal Landlord and Tenant Board decisions would do more harm than good.

John De Vellis obviously knows what he’s writing about (see “Wind power issues more about politics than health,” Law Times, Oct. 1) as he has done a good job of representing renewable-energy developers on matters flowing from the feed-in tariff scam.

In the April 23 article, “Family law case to feature testimony via Skype,” it is observed that it wasn’t the first time the province’s courts have allowed evidence-in-chief and cross-examinations by Skype.

Canadians enjoy their reputation for civility. One element of any proper notion of civility is the degree to which it embraces difference.

Recently, The Globe and Mail featured articles and an editorial complaining about the fact that a disproportionate number of federal judicial appointments were white and that minority groups in Canada were not fairly represented.

I applaud the efforts of the lawyers in the Department of Justice to formally raise the issue of changing the name of the Law Society of Upper Canada to reflect a modern one (see “Should LSUC change its name?” on April 23).