RSS FeedRichard Dawkins’ “Root of All Evil.” Divide and Conquer 101: Separating Children Based on Religion
The divisive forces in this world constantly bombard us with messages that allow them to conquer our hearts and minds. It is important to be mindful of these “divide and conquer” strategies. As a critical thinker I suggest acting in a way that is inclusive. To form the most multicultured-multireligious-multilingual identity in the self. To always seek out those that are “different” and to engage them and to interact with them. The first of a few segments that can be found one after the other if you happen to find the material mind stimulating.
Ryan Venables – Case Comment: UFCW Local 401 v. Old Dutch Foods [2009] ALRBD No. 56.
Follow the case comment link to the full case comment done by Ryan Venables
Take-Back Laws…
Are you aware of “Take-Back Laws”?
Well, view the video below, and then you’ll understand why we need them!
Ontario Legal News Update
UWO Law Welcomes AIDWYC @ Western
AIDWYC. Does that mean anything to you?
I, Ryan Venables, am very please to announce that thanks to Jonathan Thoburn and Lisa Lutwak, a couple of very keen and persistent (that’s a good thing) 1L law students, that UWO law students are now going to have the opportunity to be reviewing cases in association with AIDWYC.
I think this is a perfect time to bring this story forward considering the recent news of the acquittal of Ivan Henry, who spent 26 years in a B.C. prison for a series of sexual assaults that he did not commit.
Don’t know AIDWYC? Well, keep reading, and soon you will. Here’s how this great partnership has come to be.
As the President for the Criminal Law Student’s Association this year, I was contacted by Jonathan, an incoming 1L, who was eager in starting up AIDWYC under the umbrella of the CLSA. He had already contacted the administration and was given the green light and it was suggested to him that while in its infancy, that AIDWYC @ Western be under the umbrella of the CLSA.
Since I had never heard of AIDWYC I had to do some digging. Here is what I found out. From the AIDWYC Website:
*****
AIDWYC is a non-profit organization that has developed a strong reputation as an advocate for individuals who have been wrongly convicted.
AIDWYC’s primary mandate is to review and support claims of innocence in homicide cases.
However, because individual exonerations do not eliminate the conditions which foster these miscarriages of justice, AIDWYC is also dedicated to addressing the causes of wrongful conviction by:
- Making representations to governments on reforms to the legal system
- Raising public awareness about miscarriages of justice
- Participating in public inquiries related to wrongful convictions
- Intervening in legal cases which seek to rectify miscarriages of justice
There is no system in place at present in Canada for an independent review of claims of wrongful conviction. AIDWYC fills this gap, attracting some of the top legal experts in Ontario to identify these cases and, where warranted, prepare an application for ministerial review to the Criminal Conviction Review Group of the Federal Department of Justice, known as a Criminal Code Section 696.1 application.
AIDWYC’s office is located in Toronto and much of our work is done in Ontario. However, we have dedicated volunteers throughout Canada and in the United States. AIDWYC welcomes applications from across the country. AIDWYC is currently reviewing over sixty claims of innocence and actively pursuing more than 40 cases.
All Canadian citizens stand to benefit from AIDWYC’s efforts to free those who have been wrongly convicted and to reform the justice system wrongfutem of justice, but everyduce or prevent wrongful convictions in the future. Canada has an excellent sysand safeguard its integrity. Wrongful convictions are not easily corrected. The resistance to AIDWYC’s efforts is formidable and the correction of miscarriages of justice is always hard-won.
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Successes? Robert Baltovich; James Drisk; Anthony Hanemaayer; Clayton Johnson; David Milgaard; Guy Paul Morin; William Mullins-Johnson; Gregory Parsons; Romeo Phillion; Sherry Sherrett-Robinson; Thomas Sophonow; Steven Truscott; Kyle Unger; Erin Walsh.
Fast forward to today. AIDWYC @ Western is in the final stages of picking volunteers who will be assigned cases, reviewing them, and working hard to have the wrongfully convicted freed. It is hoped that as this project grows it will be able to come out from underneath the support of the CLSA and to form a group at Western Law akin to Pro Bono Student’s Canada.
Not only does this give fledgling lawyers a great way to get involved with a great cause, it will also give them practical experience that law student’s seem to lack coming out of school.
I personally look forward to seeing this great opportunity for students grow here at Western.
Three things to know if you are applying to law school
It’s mid-October. I’m halfway through the semester, and a quarter of the way through first-year hell.
One of my classmates has taken the liberty of describing what these first six weeks at McGill law have been like. I would have written something similar, but I lack the time management skills and energy that my classmate possesses. And so, with her permission, I have recopied her note from Facebook and pasted it below.
N.B.: To my friends and family — if you find that when you phone me I sometimes sound tired, busy and unenthusiastic, this is why:
Three things to know if you are applying to law school
I’ve noticed that there have been quite a few people I know whose statuses recently read something about law school applications and/or LSATs. Some of you may have perhaps contacted me asking about law school. Some of you may have simply attempted to contact me to keep in touch and I haven’t yet responded.
There’s probably a couple things you should be aware of. I’ll be brief. My opinions now may perhaps change soon enough and probably differ from experienced upper years. But this is what I see so far:
1) It’s hard.
People who got into law school told me it was hard. Yeah, I didn’t believe them. So I’m telling you it’s hard. I suppose it’s out of sheer idiocy that by writing that, I’d hope you’d believe me.
Now why is it hard? There’s a lot of readings. Generally, in undergrad, I made it through generally not reading stuff timely. I’ve only recently just fallen behind in readings in law – but the consequences are much higher than in business school. Following along in class really does not work well. You’re not talking about what was the content of the readings but you’re applying it and creating new hypotheticals. You’re comparing legal scholars’ points of view. You’re comparing cases that have opposing judgments with seemingly similar facts. Not reading timely makes this nearly impossible.
2) You’re on your own
This won’t make sense to you if you didn’t do a group-based undergrad like business. There’s no group work. Currently, it seems like it’s you versus the above-mentioned hundreds of pages of readings (note: I’ve probably read two semesters worth of reading in the past month, I’m not exaggerating). Some people form study groups; others don’t. Studying individually has benefits in that your mark doesn’t depend on someone else, but there’s the disadvantage of having only your point of view on a difficult subject.
Students generally seem to now disappear at lunch to bunker down in the library. In some cases, it seems to me that this takes away from a sense of community. You’ll probably pass people in the halls that you somehow have half your classes with but have not said a word to in a week.
3) Stress is in the air
There seems to be a lot of similarities to the LSAT and law school. If you’ve done the LSAT, you’ll remember the amount of anxiety in washroom lines at the break. Nervous people chattering, attempting to compare answers or find out which section was experimental.
From what I’ve heard of upper years, this stress anxiety atmosphere is characteristic of first year law school. Apparently it gets better in upper years. But you can really see it in people’s faces that we’re all getting a little nervous somehow, sometimes. Part of it is a common fear that all our efforts currently are useless and we’re spinning our wheels into the mud.
Notably, we haven’t gotten to the point of Scott Turow’s fragility in the opening pages of One L:
“By Friday my nerves will be so brittle from sleeplessness and pressure and intellectual fatigue that I will not be certain I can make it through the day […] I am distracted at most times and have difficulty keeping up a conversation, even with my wife. At random instants, I am likely to be stricken with acute feelings of panic, depression, indefinite need, and the pep talks and irony I practice on myself only seem to make it worse.
“I am a law student in my first year […] and there are many moments when I am simply a mess.”
It certainly does not seem too far off from the possible truth. Let’s see how we’ll be in late November.
My two cents (since that’s all I can afford right now): Add to this post to the new words I’ve learnt (“scintillated,” “interstitially,” “res judicata,” “res nullius,” “stare decisis,” et al) and constantly comparing common law and civil law (two legal systems + two languages = twice the mental work and a headache), and there you have it — my first few weeks at McGill law. It’s unlike anything I have ever experienced academically. You will begin to question your intelligence and everything you know to be true (like justice, the state, and other airy-fairy notions). I still don’t know what I am doing, or how I should be reading this stuff…
Strangely enough, I love it!
LEAF Intervenes in R. v. L.B. at Ontario Court of Appeal
On September 23 and 24, 2010 LEAF will be intervening at the Ontario Court of Appeal regarding the offence of infanticide in the Criminal Code. LEAF aims to offer the court a perspective that will shed light on infanticide as a homicide offence that is distinct from murder.
Moreover, according to LEAF’s press release, they will argue that “where the elements of infanticide are present, the infanticide offence should be available to women regardless of whether the Crown charges murder. This approach is consistent with the clear intention of Parliament to include the offence of infanticide in the Criminal Code.”
LEAF’s Legal Director, Joanna Birenbaum, stated that “infanticide is treated differently in law than murder because of the many overlapping social, cultural, psychological and medical factors which may affect the state of mind of accused women following childbirth. It is a very serious crime, but it is a crime which recognizes the reduced culpability of women [who have recently given birth] whose minds are “disturbed” due to the interaction of these complex factors related to childbirth.”
And they’re off to the races of … 1L Summer Jobs!
Ten days after law school started, I began to check off all the things that I needed to do in the first two weeks. Allow me to go through my checklist.
Settled in my new home, check. Made friends, check. Bought all required textbooks, check. Know where the washrooms are on the third floor, nope. Applied for summer jobs … WHAT! Who wrote that on this list?!?
Yes, we are less than two weeks into the first semester and there are emails, student service sessions, and peers buzzing loudly in my ear about 1L summer job applications that have deadlines on the horizon. Needless to say, this unexpected news startled me for a couple of reasons.
First, the time required for my alma mater to process my undergraduate transcript is four to five days – that does not include the number of business days needed for the transcript to be shipped to me. Unfortunately, many of those 1L summer jobs have deadlines that would have expired by then.
Second, the time needed for just one reference to whip up a stellar letter about me, albeit they could easily look up the numerous synonyms of outstanding – and copy and paste, is approximately one week, and that does not include the time necessary for them to reply to my “urgent” emails. Now some 1L summer job applications require three references. Can you sense my excitement about 1L summer job applications in the second week of law school yet?
Third, I’m not alone here as many of my peers have raised a similar yet pertinent comment: “Applying for summer jobs in the second week of law school is awesome CRAZY!”
But they (summer job applications) are not holding me by the wrists and dragging me to apply. Maybe we (law students in Canada) should accept the idea that this is a professional degree, where before you know what date all your exams are in December, you must know what date the deadline is to apply for summer jobs, which most students will miss if your alma mater’s printer can only crank out a transcript once every four to five days. Maybe we as first-years should make peace with the fact that many things in law school are on an expedited time frame; perhaps the best example I can construe is that we will apply for jobs well in advance of graduation.
To those 0Ls who will one day go through or are currently going though the OLSAS cocoon and will transform into 1Ls, this is what I wish someone told me before entering 1L:
1. Before you take your first step through the doors of law school, make sure you have an updated resume.
2. Before you take your second step through the doors of law school, make sure you have two or three individuals from your pre-law school era who can be on standby if a reference letter is needed or whose names can be used on your resume.
3. Before you even think about taking your first or second step through the doors of law school, radio your alma mater and ask them (way in advance) for your undergraduate transcript.
4. Last but not least, ask the administrative staff in your first week of law school whether they have any information about which organizations, government agencies, and law firms will require 1L summer job applications in September, so you can apply and put a neat check mark next to applying for 1L summer jobs: check!
The Donkey and the Carrot: Why Law May Not Be So “Cool” After All
For the class of 2013 (or 2014 in my case), the end of summer signals the beginning of law school. Buoyed by hopes of success and spurred by the prospect of good paying jobs at the end of it all (or the metaphorical carrot on a stick), many of us are getting ready to settle in and start what will no doubt be a challenging but personally fulfilling year. In the same spirit, I eagerly packed my bags and headed to Montreal propelled by the well wishes of friends and family members. “You’ll do great,” they said. “There’s a B curve at McGill.” I replied. “Don’t worry about it,” they said. For months I had been complaining about paying tuition (side note: I know McGill’s Faculty of Law has one of the lowest tuitions in Canada. Don’t stone me…), and I was saddled with my own fears and apprehensions. But my friends and family reassured me: “It’ll all be worth it in the end.” “Go out and make those big bucks,” they said. So I pranced off to law school.
Shortly upon my arrival, I was in the McGill bookstore looking for my law textbooks when I randomly ran into and finally met fellow Law is Cool contributor Siena Anstis. We lamented over the dollars that we would inevitably have to shell out in the next few weeks, but Sienna reminded me that, “It will all pay off in the end. That’s what I keep telling myself anyway…”
A few days later, I went back to the bookstore to purchase my first set of law textbooks (yes, they are so heavy that I will have to buy them in instalments). There, I bumped into another fellow 1L. Although we exchanged no words, our countenances did the talking as we exchanged depressed glances, and I made my way to the cashier to pay for my textbooks. At the cash, I let out a heavy sigh, still decrying the amount of money that these textbooks were going to cost me. The cashier replied, “Don’t worry. You’ll make it all back by the end of [law school].”
If I had a dollar for the number of times I was told that…
Most of us are going to law school with the ulterior motive of making some “good money” (admit it…) at the end of it all. No one pays upwards of $60 000 for the heck of it. After all, many of us go to law school desperately hoping that the stereotype rings true: “lawyers are stinking rich, or at least can live comfortably” and “job prospects abound for those with a law degree.” However, as if to add insult to injury, the following excerpt from a blog post puts the stereotype into question:
The Real Value of a Legal Education
By John Farmer Jr.
America’s law schools begin the 2010-2011 academic year facing one of the greatest challenges to legal education since the rise of the modern law school at the end of the 19th century.
On one hand, the job market for law school graduates has rarely been worse than the past two years, and the class of 2011 is facing an equally daunting paucity of opportunities. As The Star-Ledger reported last week, some recent law school alumni who have had a difficult time navigating the job market have become embittered, claiming that the legal academy induced them to borrow large amounts of money by dangling a career prospect that has proven illusory.
On the other hand, interest in legal education has never been higher. Record numbers of qualified college graduates are applying to law schools, which are not hesitating to enroll them. This, in turn, led some members of the bar, meeting recently at the American Bar Association convention in San Francisco, to question the motivation of the law schools. How, they wonder, can they continue to admit thousands of students when their career prospects are so uncertain?
The struggles of recent law school alumni, coupled with the apprehensions of the bar, should give pause to those of us who are involved in educating the next generation of lawyers. …
In the short term, students should embark upon a legal education with their eyes open; the job market is difficult, and likely to remain so. Legal education is not, as the comments of some would suggest, an entitlement program.
…In retrospect, we were spoiled by the prosperity of the large law firms, and the easy career pipeline and high salaries they offered. Tuitions could be raised without fear of compromising the students’ futures; the debt students were forced to incur would be easy to manage with the high salaries recent graduates were commanding. As a consequence, many law schools became “cash cows” supporting programs in their larger university communities. The focus shifted to revenue; economic issues came to dominate.
But the real value of legal education is not, and never has been, primarily economic. It’s not about money; it’s about freedom.
Legal education gives students what 99.9 percent of humanity yearns for but is denied: control over one’s own life….”
I can’t help but wonder, however, how much control one can exert over one’s life when one is broke and thus at the mercy of loans, the leviathan that is the state and the monster that is capitalism. We all know that job prospects for new law grads are not as great as they used to be (to say the least) – after all, there’ve been numerous posts and articles about this subject on numerous law blogs and sites. But what am I to expect as a law graduate in 2014? This year alone was one of the worst for articling students… Can we – should we – expect better in a few years? If so, there are no worries. If not, however, it would behove the class of 2013 to start law school with, not only the end, but reality in mind.
Society? It lied to me. My friends and family? Maybe they were wrong. It is quite possible that law school will not pay off in the end, or at least not without some elbow grease and elapsed time. The reality is that, in some ways, many of us law students will be like donkeys with that illusive (or, depending on how you think of it, elusive) carrot dangling in front of us – motivated to work because of and for the carrot but forever running after something we may never realistically obtain.
Happy Birthday BCCA!
The British Columbia Court of Appeal is officially 100 years old! To celebrate they’re having an academic symposium in Vancouver. There is even a special BCCA 100th birthday website, where you can register for the events. 
Although the official birthday was on January 4, 2010, the BCCA will have special sittings throughout April to commemorate this milestone in Vancouver, Prince George, Kamloops, and Kelowna. Special editions of BC Studies (published by UBC) and The Advocate (published by the Vancouver Bar Association) will be put out, as well as a book by Christopher Moore titled The British Columbia Court of Appeal: The First Hundred Years. A film titled 100 Years of the BC Court of Appeal will be broadcast on April 30, 7pm, on BC’s public educational network Knowledge, and if the trailer is any indication it should be a real zinger.
All in all it should be a great birthday celebration, very appropriate for a court that has really established itself over the last couple decades as a major player in the Canadian scene. Happy Birthday!
[Before being appointed to the Supreme Court, Chief Justice McLachlin sat on the BCCA]
Law School: A Fate Worse than Jail?
Last week a 28-year-old man stole two computer batteries from a Florida Staples, then returned to the store, reported his crime to the store manager and demanded that police be called. He told employees that he wanted a third-degree felony on his record, so that he wouldn’t be allowed to attend law school.
Unfortunately, the stolen items were valued at $276.88, a misdemeanor amount, $23.12 short of a felony. (Had he gone to law school, the would-be felon might have known that.)
The news outlet that reported the incident failed to answer the first question that comes to mind when reading the story: who is holding a gun to this guy’s head to go to law school?
George Akerlof on Identity Economics
George Akerlof, a Nobel Prize winner in Economics, spoke recently at UWO Law on Identity Economics.
See more about the event on the UWO Law webpage.
