The Lawyers Weekly - September 30, 2011

STATUS UPDATE
Using Facebook as
a method of service
UNDER SUMMONS

SCC to tackle
veiled witness
controversy

THE LAWYERS WEEKLY

Vol. 22, No. 27 NEWS FOR THE LEGAL PROFESSION December 6, 2002

PAGE 9

ARTICLING
Finding articling tough
for young lawyers
SMARTPHONE

CRISTIN SCHMITZ OTTAWA

Veiled witnesses, copyright wars and hate speech are some of the hot-button issues facing the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) in the busy fall session starting next month.

If the replacements for Jus-
tices Louise Charron and Ian
Binnie aren’t yet in place when
the session opens Oct. 11, the
court’s eight members will sit in
panels of seven or five judges
until the chief justice is able to
schedule in the new recruits.
(When the court announced Jus-
tice Binnie’s impending depar-
ture last spring, it said his retire-
ment would take effect when “his
replacement is appointed.”)

The probable lack of a full Bench is unfortunate because the court’s fall docket is exceptionally heavy and diverse. The judges are slated to hear 34

appeals, which run the alphabetical gamut from administrative, bankruptcy and commercial law to sentencing and taxation (see docket highlights below).

One of the most fascinating cases for lawyers and judges, to be argued Dec. 8, is N.S. v. R., in which a Muslim sexual assault complainant contends she is entitled to wear her niqab (a veil which covers her face, except her eyes) while she testifies against her uncle and a co-accused.

After the defence argued it
must be able to see the complain-
ant’s whole face to know how to
best structure its cross-examina-
tion, the preliminary inquiry
judge ordered her to remove her
niqab.

N.S.’s appeal arguably involves a clash between her Charter-pro-tected freedom of religion and right to equality and the accused’s Charter right to a fair trial, including the right to make full answer and defence. A subsidiary but fundamental issue will be what value the Canadian justice system should accord to the time-honoured practice of finders of fact assessing witnesses’ credibil-

SCC will hear niqab, hate and copyright cases this fall

Frank Addario (L) and David Butt (R) will appear before the Supreme Court of Canada this fall on a Muslim sexual assault case.

See Docket Page 5

THE LAWYERS WEEKLY
VOL. 22, NO. 27 NEWS FOR THE LEGAL PROFESSION DECEMBER 6, 2002
Examining the role
of experts at tribunals

PAGE 14

PAGE 21

MATTHEW CHUNG

Canada’s legal community remains cautiously optimistic about the economy heading into the fourth quarter, judging by the hiring plans suggested in a recently released study.

Forty-three per cent of lawyers
interviewed for the quarterly Rob-
ert Half Legal Hiring Index said
they plan to add legal staff in the
next three months. While that is
down six points from the previous
quarter’s survey, it remains signifi-
cantly above the average for all
occupations surveyed by Robert
Half for its Professional Employ-
ment Report.
“To meet rising demand for
their services and grow revenue,
many law firms are hiring senior-
level associates...particularly those
specializing in the hottest practice
areas,” write the authors of the
Professional Employment Report.
“A net 43 per cent of lawyers at law
firms and corporations surveyed
indicated they are likely to increase
hiring in the fourth quarter of
2011. Most of the hiring is expected
at law firms.”
Robert Half’s survey findings
for the legal sector come from tele-
phone interviews with 75 lawyers
at law firms with 20 or more
employees and 75 corporate law-
yers at companies with 1,000 or
more employees. Information
from the study is featured in the
larger Professional Employment
Report.

For the legal community, the results suggest that while these aren’t boom times, they are good times for certain segments of

Good news on hiring for the legal sector: survey

See Survey Page 7

THE LAWYERS WEEKLY

VOL. 22, NO. 27 NEWS FOR THE LEGAL PROFESSION DECEMBER 6, 2002

Great
apps for
lawyers

PAGE 22

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