Bill 4The Path to Reconciliation Amendment Act – amends The Path to Reconciliation Act to include references to the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. In addition to the calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the principles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the calls for justice of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls are to guide the Government of Manitoba’s commitment to reconciliation.
Bill 5The Coat of Arms, Emblems and the Manitoba Tartan Amendment Act – amends The Coat of Arms, Emblems and the Manitoba Tartan Act to add the polar bear as one of the designated mammal emblems of Manitoba. The plains bison was previously designated in 2014.
Bill 201The Regional Health Authorities Amendment Act – amends The Regional Health Authorities Act to require annual reports of health authorities to be tabled in the Assembly and referred to the Standing Committee on Social and Economic Development. The Standing Committee must consider each report within 120 days.
Bill 202The Louis Riel Act – This Bill bestows the honorary title of “First Premier of Manitoba” on Louis Riel. The Bill requires the Manitoba education curriculum to include the significant contributions of Louis Riel.
Bill 203The Abortion Protest Buffer Zone Act – Access zones are created for clinics and facilities that provide abortion services and for service providers. Certain activities are prohibited within these zones. Certain activities are prohibited on school sites and within 50 metres of school sites.
Bill 204The Protest Buffer Zone Act (COVID-19 Restrictions) – This Bill establishes The Protest Buffer Zone Act (COVID-19 Restrictions). Buffer zones are created with certain activities prohibited within these buffer zones.
Bill 207The Criminal Property Forfeiture Amendment Act – Enables the money in the criminal property forfeiture fund to instead go to non-profit community organizations for social programs, such as affordable housing and restorative justice.
Bill 6The Workers Compensation Amendment Act – The Workers Compensation Act lists specific illnesses and injuries presumed to be caused by firefighting, unless the contrary is proven. This Bill expands the list to include primary site thyroid, pancreatic, ovarian, cervical and penile cancers.
Available online to Member’s through vLex, this collection of 8 titles from Irwin Law, the Young Advocate Series is meant to be a bridge between law school and real-world practice,
“The series derives from the Advocacy Club. Based in Ottawa, the Advocacy Club trains junior advocates to conduct interviews, and to prepare for and conduct examinations. In the process, they learn collegiality, civility, and modern techniques that help to make them professionals. A word about what these handbooks are not and what they are. The handbooks are not comprehensive re-placements for legal education; they do not contain legal citations or war stories from real or imagined victories in a glorious past. They do contain a great many tips and techniques that permit the thoughtful junior lawyer to develop and advance skills essential to the profession.”
The Art of the Interview: How Lawyers Talk with Clients – “Good interviews lead to a deeper understanding of both a client’s problems and possible solutions. Conducting successful interviews, however, requires knowing what questions to ask and how to ask them. In this handbook, author John Hollander provides techniques; tricks-of-the-trade; and a series of exercises on conducting interviews, witness preparation, examinations, cross-examinations, and submissions.”
Case Analysis: The Critical Path to Persuasion – “How do lawyers get from the initial interview to a structured closing argument? Cases emerge in fits and starts — a fact here, a document there — and most of what lawyers learn about a case has no bearing on the outcome. How can lawyers begin to separate the wheat from the chaff? Case analysis, as outlined in this handbook, will teach you how to convert preparation into persuasion. Armed with case analysis, lawyers can plan and implement effective examinations, openings, and closings: start with the idea, then present the key facts in a manner that convinces — this is the critical path to persuasion.”
The Civil Courtroom: Professionalism to Build Rapport – “Demonstrating professionalism is one of the most important courtroom skills for civil litigators. A collateral benefit of this skill is learning to establish rapport with the people in the courtroom, including decision makers, opposing counsel, clients, and witnesses. This book will help lawyers recognize and evaluate their courtroom skills, and develop the techniques to improve these skills. Professionalism—both how lawyers act and how they relate to others—should be the ultimate goal of this development.”
Discovery Techniques: A Practical Guide to the Discovery Process in Civil Actions – “The discovery process is an opportunity for litigators to better serve their clients. This handbook examines various issues that arise during the discovery process; focuses the reader on questions and topics that allow improvement in performance; and offers examples and exercises that demonstrate best practices, common errors, and methods to deal with difficult situations.”
Examinations in Civil Trials: The Formula for Success – “The rough and tumble of examinations — direct, cross, redirect — is the heart of this handbook, which offers up a wealth of practical techniques and advice for the novice litigator. For more experienced counsel, it can offer alternatives to practices developed over years. Maintaining a plainspoken style throughout, Examinations in Civil Trials presents a sophisticated and comprehensive approach to conducting examinations in court, and before administrative tribunals. Nearly every section wraps up with a case study — a fact situation drawn from the courtroom that sets up an exercise — and a “solution” clearly showing how an advocate might tackle the exercise with aplomb.”
Expert Witnesses in Civil Litigation: A Practical Guide – “Expert witnesses can be the lifeblood of a lawyer’s case. This handbook applies recent pronouncements of the courts to the involvement of experts in civil litigation. It presents practical tips and techniques for lawyers with respect to the participation of experts from initial retainer, instruction, and report, to preparing experts to testify, leading experts’ evidence at trial, and cross-examination. In each chapter, the handbook uses court cases as examples of the points under discussion. Readers can see how case analysis applies to the role of experts in these cases.”
Legal Writing: Mastering Clarity and Persuasion – “What should a lawyer think about before putting pen to paper? How should lawyers organize their documents? What makes them persuasive? This handbook provides examples and exercises to guide the reader through the process of learning how to communicate persuasively. The chapters deal with such overarching topics as legal writing as a case of project management, general principles of legal writing, and specific good and bad habits.”
Mediation for Civil Litigators: Issues and Solutions – “Mediation presents a number of issues that confront the practitioner moving through the legal process, and this handbook guides the practitioner along that path. Law school rarely provides rigorous training in negotiation skills, yet the art of negotiation is central to the mediation process, the purpose of which is to facilitate settlement. Offering perspectives from several mediators, this handbook provides numerous commentaries and opinions about different aspects of mediation, as well as practical tips for successful negotiation and management of the mediation process.”
“Over the coming decades, the law surrounding motor vehicles is going to go through profound changes as autonomous vehicles become common and issues of law deriving from advances in technology inevitably arise. The definition of autonomy will be debated as we move to find new solutions to age-old problems, ranging from gridlock to human error. With the transition to, and ongoing evolution of, autonomous vehicles, the law will have to be modified accordingly. A new area of law will be needed, and with it, an assessment of how the current law can be adapted. Autonomous Vehicles: Self-Driving Cars and the Law of Canada will serve as a ready resource as courts and litigants begin the journey down this new road.”
“Despite growing societal and media attention to problems of discrimination in Canadian society, legal concepts in equality and anti-discrimination law are not widely understood. Discrimination Stories: Exclusion, Law, and Everyday Life explores diverse legal cases brought before courts and human rights tribunals to help us understand the development of anti-discrimination law in Canada. The cases take us into — and teach us about — the concrete realities of inequality in everyday life. They portray the struggles of individuals, families, and communities seeking justice and legal remedies for the harms of discrimination. The cases also reveal both the strengths and limits of anti-discrimination law. They show that equality in our human relations cannot be crafted exclusively by courts or tribunals, despite their significance and importance. Drawing on the complexity and power of discrimination stories, this book is designed to expand our collective knowledge of the evolving legal concepts at the heart of equality law.”
Volunteers are needed to serve as judges for the oral rounds at the 2022 Jessup Canadian Qualifying Tournament in Winnipeg, Manitoba from February 10-12, 2022. This is a great opportunity to interact with current law students and colleagues from across Canada. All volunteers are welcome to attend the Judges’ Reception as well as the Gala Award Dinner.
In many jurisdictions, serving as a moot court judge counts towards Continuing Legal Education / Continued Professional Development credit.
Pre-Competition Judges will receive background materials including:
The legal problem;
A comprehensive Bench Memo that details the problem and provides a general overview of the public international law principles teams are expected to address;
Copies of the teams’ written arguments are also available for judges to review prior to adjudication of the round.
Competition Oral round judges will sit in panels of three and score the performance of competing schools.
Judges have the opportunity and are encouraged to provide feedback to students following the round.
Organizers attempt to balance the panel based on the judges’ practice area and experience in international law; familiarity in public international law is an asset but not a requirement to judge.
Rounds typically last 2.5 hours, and depending on one’s familiarity with the legal issues, can require the same amount of time for preparation.
Vlex has updated its search capabilities with the latest update to Vincent, its A.I. research assistant, with cross-jurisdictional recommendations.
“As of November 2021, vLex users can discover recommendations from multiple jurisdictions that differ from that of the document they are looking at. For example, a lawyer using Vincent to analyse a document from the Caribbean or Canada will now see recommendations of textually similar and relevant authorities from the UK, and many other jurisdictions. Importantly, this will enable lawyers to build better arguments using on-point cases and persuasive authorities from jurisdictions that are most relevant to them.”
For more details, this post from Mishcon de Reya lays out the recent trends and advantages of searching other jurisdictions, and also explains why there is still some hesitancy and why judges typically prefer to cite jurisdictions that are geographically nearby.
The Manitoba Law Library would like to acknowledge with gratitude that we are situated on Treaty One Territory, the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe, Cree and Dakota peoples, and the homeland of the Métis Nation.
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