Articles 2025

Earlier this year, the Civil Rules Committee amended Rule 53.08(1) of the Rules of Civil Procedure, which had previously provided for flexibility for counsel in producing expert reports at pre-trial conferences. The flexibility built into the old Rule was creating limitations for the effectiveness of pre-trial conferences and often resulted in adjournments of fixed trial dates. The amendment to the Rule aims to strengthen the value of the pre-trial conference.

Following are this week’s summaries of the Court of Appeal for Ontario for the week of August 1, 2022.

Following are this week's summaries of the Court of Appeal for Ontario for the week of July 25, 2022.

As a result of a recent amendment to the Employment Standards Act as part of Bill 88, employers with 25 or more employees will be required to adopt a written policy on electronic monitoring.  Given the significant number of new obligations, businesses should begin preparing for Bill 88’s implementation now.

It was another busy week for the Court of Appeal of Ontario.  Here are this week’s summaries of the civil decisions released for the week of July 18, 2022.

Following are this week's summaries of the Court of Appeal for Ontario for the week of July 11, 2022. There were many interesting cases this week.

Restrictive covenants can be an essential feature of a franchise agreement, but how will they be enforced? Recent developments in the law have cast some confusion and inconsistency on the interpretation, scope, and enforceability of these clauses, including the test for obtaining injunctions. In this article the authors review recent decisions, and weigh in on the debate.

Section 11 of the Wishart Act is a protective provision preventing any waiver or release of rights. The Courts have interpreted the section strictly, presenting challenges in practice around ensuring enforceability of contractual releases. This article discusses the legal developments interpreting s. 11 and recent decisions clarifying its scope.

In “The Litigator and Mental Health“, Chief Justice Strathy writes about mental health in our profession and what we can do to improve it. Unfortunately, practicing law can be damaging to one’s mental health. In fact, there is a strong correlation between traditional markers of success in the law and depression in lawyers.