Category: Ethics and the Legal Profession Page 1 of 21

Case Commented On: Wirring v Law Society of Alberta, 2025 ABCA 413

PDF Version: Religious Freedom and the Oath to the Sovereign, Revisited

On December 16, 2025, the Alberta Court of Appeal overturned a decision of the Court of King’s Bench which had held that the Oath of Allegiance required of candidates for enrolment in the Alberta Law Society did not infringe the religious freedom of the claimant, Mr. Wirring. At the relevant time, the text of the Oath was as follows:

I ________swear I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Her heirs and successors, according to law (quoted in Wirring v Law Society of Alberta at para 2).

The Non-Justiciable War on ‘Woke’ at the Law Society of Alberta

By Drew Yewchuk

On October 16, 2025

In Ethics and the Legal Profession

By: Drew Yewchuk

Decision Commented On: Song v The Law Society of Alberta, 2025 ABKB 525 (CanLII)

PDF Version: The Non-Justiciable War on ‘Woke’ at the Law Society of Alberta

Back in February 2023, a group of Alberta lawyers petitioned for a special meeting of the Law Society of Alberta (LSA) to hold a vote seeking to remove the LSA’s powers to require its members to engage in continuing professional development and specifically, remove the requirement to complete an Indigenous cultural competency program called ‘The Path’. The petition was defeated at that special meeting: 2,609 votes against the resolution to 864 votes in favour of the resolution. See the ABlawg posts about the special meeting: Law Society of Alberta to Hold a Special Meeting to Debate its Power to Mandate Indigenous Cultural Competency Training and Fighting Over History at a Special Meeting of the Law Society of Alberta.

The Alberta Court of Appeal Weighs in on the use of AI in Court Submissions

By Robert Hamilton

On October 15, 2025

In Artificial Intelligence, Ethics and the Legal Profession, Uncategorized

By: Robert Hamilton

Cases Commented On: Reddy v Saroya, 2025 ABCA 322 (CanLII)

PDF Version: The Alberta Court of Appeal Weighs in on the use of AI in Court Submissions

In Reddy v Saroya, the Alberta Court of Appeal had the opportunity to comment on the use of Artificial Intelligence in court submissions when considering a case wherein counsel had filed a factum containing multiple AI-fabricated citations. This is the latest warning for lawyers, following cases such as Zhang v Chen, 2024 BCSC 285 (CanLII) (Zhang) and Ko v Li, 2025 ONSC 2965 (CanLII) (Ko), that AI and Large Language Models (LLMs) cannot reliably prepare legal materials and should not be used to that end. These tools can be used to gain efficiencies and will surely have an increasingly important role in legal practice moving forward, but lawyers, legal academics, and law students who use them must understand their limits. Reddy shows the cost of forgetting that.

Must We Be Nice? Civility Rules and Law Society of Alberta v. Smith, 2025 ABLS 13

By Fraser Gordon

On June 12, 2025

In Ethics and the Legal Profession

By: Fraser Gordon

Case Commented On: Law Society of Alberta v. Smith, 2025 ABLS 13 (CanLII)

PDF Version: Must We Be Nice? Civility Rules and Law Society of Alberta v. Smith, 2025 ABLS 13

Lawyers as advocates must be “courteous and civil and act in good faith to the tribunal and all persons with whom the lawyer has dealings” (Law Society of Alberta Code of Conduct, s 5.1-6); this duty in fact extends outside of the courtroom and applies to all persons “with whom the lawyer has dealings in the course of his or her practice” (Code of Conduct, s 7.2-1). What this means in practice is notoriously hard to identify; the Law Society Appeal Panel, in a (173 paragraph) decision considered when to sanction a lawyer for incivility. In this blog, I want to consider the Law Society’s most recent attempt at this nettlesome question, and also and, more generally, whether this is a good use of the regulator’s resources.

Modernizing Professional Regulation is a Worthwhile Goal

By Collin May

On November 19, 2024

In Access to Justice, Ethics and the Legal Profession

By: Collin May

Matter Commented On: Review of Alberta Professional Regulation

PDF Version: Modernizing Professional Regulation is a Worthwhile Goal

Recently, more than one commentator has dismissed the Alberta government’s recent promises to reform professional regulation, including our own regulator, the Law Society of Alberta, as little more than grievance politics (see Shaun Fluker’s comment, here). However, the need to modernize Canada’s rather dated professional regulatory regime, with its excessive emphasis on self-governance, has been evident to many of us for a while now.