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PDF Version: ABlawg: The Year in Review

It is the time of year for making lists, and at ABlawg we have decided to put together a compilation of our highlights from 2014. It is also the season for the Canadian Law Blog Awards (Clawbies), and we have included a list of some of our favourite blogs as well.

A Series of Series

In 2014 ABlawg ran several series of posts on important judicial decisions and legislative developments in Alberta and Canada more broadly. These series provided an opportunity for the authors to discuss the nuances and impacts of these developments and to share that dialogue with ABlawg readers. Our series covered the following:

• April / May 2014: Students in Law 696: Constitutional Clinical wrote a series of posts on the constitutionality of the exclusion of Alberta farm workers from the Employment Standards Code; Labour Relations Code; Occupational Health and Safety Act; and Workers’ Compensation Act. The posts gained attention from the media (see e.g. here and here), other blogs, opposition parties and the PC leadership candidates.

• July / August 2014: Posts by Nigel Bankes, Jennifer Hocking, Jennifer Koshan, Kirk Lambrecht, Q.C., Sharon Mascher, Martin Olszynski, and Jonnette Watson Hamilton on Tsilhqot’in Nation v British Columbia, 2014 SCC 44 and Grassy Narrows First Nation v Ontario (Natural Resources), 2014 SCC 48 covered issues including the scope of Aboriginal title, treaty rights, and the duty to consult, and the demise of the interjurisdictional immunity doctrine and the “lands reserved” head of section 91(24) of the Constitution Act 1867. Faculty, students, research associates and guests discussed this commentary and the underlying decisions in a roundtable discussion in July.

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ABlawg will be taking a break from Christmas Day to New Year’s. We’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of our followers for your readership and support this year. We are honoured to have received so many Clawbie nominations from so many diverse sources. When we return in the new year, you can look forward to a series of posts on the NEB’s Northern Gateway Pipeline decision, amongst other commentary. We wish all of our readers a wonderful holiday season.

PDF version:  ABlawg 5th anniversary challenges

As noted in a previous post, February 2013 marks the fifth anniversary of the launch of ABlawg. We have already encouraged our readers to subscribe, and to get your colleagues to subscribe, which you can do here or by following us on Twitter. Help us double our readership to over 1200 subscribers!

Our new challenge is to ask readers to tell us about your favourite post(s) from the past five years, which you can do by directly commenting on that post or by posting to our comments page here.  How to decide on your favourite, given that there have been nearly 600 posts to ABlawg in the past five years? Perhaps you will choose the post that has been the most useful to you, be that in advising your clients, supporting a legal argument in a paper or factum (or judgment!), or advocating for a particular outcome outside the practice / writing of law. Or maybe you will choose the most irreverent or controversial post, one that made you re-think your position on a legal or policy issue. Perhaps you are aware of the impact that ABlawg posts have had on the development of law or policy, and you will make your choice on that basis. Or maybe the post with the catchiest title, or with the most interesting links or attachments have won you over. Consider as well the series of posts we’ve written, including those on Bill 2, the Responsible Energy Development Act, and our series of posts on the most significant cases of the 2000s.

Whatever your choice, please let us know about your favourite posts, and your reasons why they are your favourites. Although we reserve the right to maintain our academic freedom, we also aim to please our readers, and would love to know what you enjoy about ABlawg.  Tell us!

PDF version: Represented Adults and Solicitor-Client Privilege

Case considered: Wayne v Wayne, 2012 ABQB 763.

The Adult Guardianship and Trusteeship Act, SA 2008, c A-4.2 (AGTA), applies to persons over the age of 18 who are unable to make personal or financial decisions for themselves, a person the statute calls a “represented adult.” There has not been much judicial consideration of the statute which came into force on October 30, 2009; there appears to be fewer than a dozen cases interpreting only a relatively small number of the statute’s provisions. That is one reason why Wayne v Wayne is of interest. Another reason is that the issue in Wayne v Wayne is intrinsically interesting, at least to the legal profession, because it is about the ability of a trustee appointed to manage the financial affairs of a represented adult to gain access to information otherwise protected by solicitor-client privilege from the file of a represented adult to whom a lawyer gave legal advice.

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PDF version: ABlawg News

ABlawg is thrilled to have been awarded the Clawbie for Best Law School / Law Professor Blog for 2012. Thanks again to our indefatigable bloggers and enthusiastic readers, commenters, and nominators. ABlawg’s winning the Clawbie makes for an auspicious beginning to our 5^th anniversary celebrations, which will kick off in February. The ABlawg dates back to November 2007, and went live in February 2008. Here are some exciting ABlawg celebratory events readers can look forward to in the coming weeks:

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