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There have been an outpouring of tributes to Edward Greenspan since his passing on December 24, 2014. There is not much that can be added, so it is Mr. Greenspan’s own inimitable voice that seems most worth recalling. What follows are extracts from an interview with Mr. Greenspan in the Spring 2009 edition of The […]

David Boies is a legendary litigator, having been involved in many of the leading civil cases in the United States. Early in his career, he defended IBM against anti-trust charges and CBS in a hard fought libel case brought by William Westmoreland. When the U.S. government launched a legal case against Microsoft, it turned to

A grainy video showing eight year old Tori Stafford being led away by one of her killers served as a tragic image in the trial of Tracy-Lynne McClintic and Michael Rafferty. McClintic pled guilty to first degree murder. Rafferty went to trial before a jury and was convicted of first degree murder. The high profile

The Dubin Lecture on Advocacy, named in honour of former Chief Justice of Ontario and legendary litigator Charles Dubin, is a series on advocacy started in 1998. Lectures are delivered every two years and have included luminaries of the legal profession from across the globe. Some of them have been very funny. The first speaker,

The decision of the Court of Appeal for Ontario in Zacharias v. Zurich Insurance Company, 2013 ONCA 482, is of interest in a number of respects. From the perspective of appellate practice, the case is noteworthy in that the grounds for the Court’s decision were based on an argument that had not been made before

The subject of access to justice has been receiving much attention of late. It was top of mind at the annual conference of the Canadian Bar Association. Consultation reports on the topic are forthcoming. I would like to focus, however, on a subject that has more practical implications for civil cases currently in our Court

It has been said many times that the introduction of the Rules of Civil Procedure in January 1985 was designed to broaden the scope of documentary and oral discovery. An important, and perhaps overlooked, facet of the Rules is the right to obtain the identity of persons who might have knowledge of the matters in issue. Rule

In an interesting decision, the Court of Appeal for Ontario took the unusual step of overturning an acquittal by a jury on a charge of first degree murder. The decision in R. v. Abbey, 2009 ONCA 624, is noteworthy for the extended analysis by Mr. Justice David Doherty on the scope of expert evidence, in

Trial lawyers are constantly searching for those elusive qualities of clients and witnesses which will capture the attention of the Court and result in favourable treatment by a judge or jury. Opinions on the subject are frequently based on little more than gut reactions. In the recent case of Catholic Children’s Aid Society of Toronto