Up to 15 people in Canada have died from the tainted meat so far, and at least 12 were in Ontario.  The Ontario suit seeks $350 million in damages, while the other suits did not specify any amounts.

The National Post states,

…a link was confirmed between deli meats processed at [Maple Leaf's] Toronto plant and a food-borne bacterium connected to the deaths.

Merchant claims they have been contacted by over 500 affected parties.

Two local firms have also entered the action, Falconer-Charney LLP of Toronto and Sutts-Strosberg LLP of Windsor, Ontario.

Information is available on:

• Finding a lawyer
• Tickets and fines
• Lawsuits and disputes
• Family and criminal law
• Human rights, and
• Wills and Estates

The site provides services in 23 languages to reflect the increasing cultural diversity of the Province, and the hotline has up to 170 languages. Minority access to legal information is a concern that has arisen in many different contexts.

Attorney-General, Chris Bentley, said,

Ontarians now have a place to start when they need basic legal information about our justice system. Justice Ontario is the one-stop destination that puts answers to your basic questions about the legal system just a click or a phone call away.

The site is part of broader strategies to reform the Civil and Criminal system.

The Access Partnership that helped develop the site includes representation from the following organizations:

• Law Society of Upper Canada
• Ontario Bar Association
• Advocates’ Society
• County and District Law Presidents Association
• Ontario Trial Lawyers Association
• Legal Aid Ontario
• Community Legal Education Ontario
• Pro Bono Law Ontario

Here’s how it works:

Step 1: Register & Login

When you register, make sure to select your law school.

Step 2: Profile

Go to your profile, and add your classes. In some cases, one of your classes may already be registered on Twistlaw – you can simply add the class.

Step 3: Search / Browse / Add a summary!

Really, step 3 is up to you. You can choose to search for a summary by entering a keyword. Or you can browse for a summary by class. If you can’t find the summary you’re looking for, add one (the link will be at the bottom of the page)!

And if ever you need to double check anything about this process, you can always try this link here: http://www.twistlaw.ca/learn.php

Who should use Twistlaw?

Twistlaw was designed to be used by any law student in any year of law school. The point is that each summary is organic, changing and improving over time, as more and more people read it and edit it.

Twistlaw is also ideal for study groups. Get everyone in your study group registered on the site, make sure you add the same class (you can even add “study group X” after the class name to differentiate it, if you prefer). Then each member of the study group can view/edit/print the cases, and work on them together.

Case Summary Features

• Each summary can be edited by logged in, registered users. Each time a change is made, the old version is archived and a link is created.
• If you’re using the same case in another class, you can “tag” it for that class by using the drop-down menu when viewing the case summary.
• If the case mentions a particular statute, you can tag that statute as well. (Make sure you’ve added the statute first, though…)
• To print the case summary, click on the Print button… Don’t use “File, Print” from your browser, as it won’t be printer friendly.
• Have something to say about a case that doesn’t belong in the summary? You can add a comment at the bottom of the summary page.

Casebook Features

• First things first, there are RSS feeds to each one of your classes in your casebook. So if a case summary is added for the class, you can decide if you’d like to add that case to your case summary. This is important. Just because you’ve added a class, doesn’t mean you’ve added all the cases that go with that class. The summaries you elect to have in your casebook are entirely up to you!
• Another feature for logged in, registered users is the ability to print out an entire class casebook (others have to do it one-by-one). Click on the print button, and the next page will give you a list of all the case summaries for that class which are in your casebook. Each time you view a printer-friendly page, all of the case names will be in “Heading 2.” For those of you using document styles in Word or Mac Pages, this means that it’s easier to select all the summaries and create a table of contents, selecting just Heading 2 items and adding some page numbers.

Statute Features

• This is one of the latest additions to Twistlaw – a statute wiki! Add a statute by including the name, citation, jurisdiction, and optional description or url. Then you can add a comment about the statute. Or tag the statute for a class in your casebook.
• If there’s a specific section of the legislation you think is important, you can add that as well, and make comments on the sections.

Blawgs

Let me know if you want your law blog added to the list on Twistlaw.

Main News Feed

Sign-up and stay on top of all the latest updates to the site.

Almost done…

So basically, Twistlaw will not function without collaboration. I created it because I think law students all do the same thing over and over and over again (read and summarize cases…), and this can help eliminate some of the redundancies and tease out the issues which we can sometimes overlook.

Many thanks to everyone over at Lawiscool.com for letting me spread the word about Twistlaw.ca.

The police said they had found two rifles, one with a scope, in the car, along with walkie-talkies, a bulletproof vest and licenses in the names of other people. One of the rifles was listed as stolen from Kansas.

• Guantanamero. Guajiro, Guantanamero.

• Commercial Pre-Law Courses Come to Canada

• Are Good Litigators Born?

11. Any person charged with an offence has the right…

(b) to be tried within a reasonable time;

The Supreme Court of Canada affirmed in R. v. Finta the principles outlined in R. v. Askov, indicating that 11(b) included the right to a speedy trial,

Two elements must be assessed under s. 11(b): the length of the delay, and its reasonableness. If the delay is prima facie excessive, it is necessary to go on to consider whether it is nonetheless reasonable. Reasonableness may depend on a variety of factors, including the prejudice caused by the delay. Absent waiver, a certain prejudice in a long‑delayed trial may be inferred if not rebutted by the Crown. Here, the delay was prima facie excessive and unreasonable and entitled the accused to the benefit of s. 11(b).

In June 2005, Ontario passed the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005 (AODA).  That same year, Honourable R. Roy McMurtry, Chief Justice of Ontario, headed an advisory report on making courtrooms more accessible.  The Attorney-General in this province then followed with an accessibilty plan launched last year.

But courtrooms may be facing a more significant problem [the obvious pun was deliberately avoided for sensitivity reasons].

Sheena Starky explained in a report for the Library of Parliament,

In 2004, approximately 6.8 million Canadian adults ages 20 to 64 were overweight, and an additional 4.5 million were obese.(1) Roughly speaking, an adult male is considered overweight when his body weight exceeds the maximum desirable weight for his height, and obese when his body weight is 20% or more over this desirable weight.  A similar guideline holds true for women, but at a threshold of 25% rather than 20%.  Dramatic increases in overweight and obesity among Canadians over the past 30 years have been deemed to constitute an “epidemic.”

A Texas court is facing this challenge today, as a woman charged with first-degree murder cannot even fit through the front door of her home,

She was allowed to remain in bed, on a personal recognizance bond, because she couldn’t be put in jail.

“Whatever the county and court system has to do in reference to the death of this child, we’ll do it,” Hidalgo County District Attorney Rene Guerra said at that time. “We can’t let someone’s physical disability stand in the way of justice.”

While he and Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño promised yesterday that Rosales would be prosecuted, “they remained mute about the details of that process,” reports the Monitor in another article.

Rosales can’t be put in jail, even if she could fit through the doorway of her home, because she needs medical care…

If a similar case was brought in Canada, it’s unlikely that any buildings could be brought to code in a timely enough manner.

This might rise to teleconference options that have been discussed in other contexts, but such options would have to be examined by the courts first.

Most in the 2010 class knew Professor Wood as an acting Assisant Dean, First Year but many of us also interacted with him as the Director of Osgoode’s Mooting Program. He is the Director of Osgoode’s LLB/MES program as well.

For more on the contents of this next issue in the OHLJ anniversary series, see the table of contents, download articles as pdfs or read Professor Wood’s foreword [pdf].

Law firms saw average profit per equity partner drop some 9 percent in the first half of 2008, [Dan DiPietro] writes in the lengthy article. Meanwhile, expenses rose by about 10 percent, pushed up, in large part, by increases in associate pay.

The second half of 2008 won’t be any better than the first half, DiPietro predicts. And it could be worse—”the common wisdom is that this economic slump is more akin to the downturn of 1991.”

But there is a silver lining, he writes: Financial pressure will likely encourage partners to watch expenses more closely and winnow out unproductive attorneys. He also urges law firms to start focusing now on year-end collections.

[emphasis added]

Translation of the “silver lining:” those with the lowest billable hours are likely to get axed.

Keep an eye out readers.

Might be a good time to review projected areas better insulated from downturns and slumps.

…if you have abilities, if you have resources and opportunities, you also have an obligation to use them on behalf of people who don’t.

Arthurs, a renowned labour law scholar, graduated with his law degree from the University of Toronto in 1958.

A video of his speech is available here.

Courtesy of ABA Journal,

A Michigan defense lawyer’s cross-examination of an informant went awry yesterday when the witness became angry and said the lawyer questioning him had sold drugs.

Informant David Maki’s outburst came after defense lawyer Tim Barkovic called him a liar and a snitch, the Detroit Free Press reports. Maki “got angry and said defiantly on the stand that Barkovic had sold drugs, after which the judge dismissed the jury,” the story reports.

Barkovic is representing a co-defendant accused of felony murder in a store robbery that left one clerk dead and another injured. Jurors were instructed to ignore the comments by Maki.

Judge Donald Miller of Macomb Circuit Court denied the co-defendant’s request for a new lawyer, the Detroit News reports.

Barkovic says the charge of selling drugs is ridiculous and sought a mistrial. Miller also denied that request, the Detroit Free Press reports in an updated account.