Information About Modern Law
Recent Posts
Below is a preview of the five most recent posts from the blog Modern Law. To read these posts in their entirely or subscribe to future updates from this blog, please visit their website!
- Plain language (or, Eschewing unnecessary obfuscation in juridical discourse)
Why can’t lawyers and judges just say what they mean? Legal documents – statutes, contracts, court decisions – are infamous for being dense and full of jargon (not to mention Latin). But a growing community of legal professionals is advocating plain language as a way to make the law more accessible, … Read more »
- “So fundamentally wrong”: Alexandre Forest and Stéphane Beaulac on Quebec’s constitution bill
In the coming days, Quebec’s National Assembly will hear testimony about a proposed new provincial constitution, known as Bill 1. Alexandre Forest, President of the Canadian Bar Association’s Quebec Branch, will attend and argue that the legislation should be withdrawn in its entirety for reasons of … Read more »
- Expanding notwithstanding rebranding? (from the archives)
The taboo once associated with Section 33 (the notwithstanding clause) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms seems to be fading. In recent months, Alberta has used it to end a teachers’ strike and pass bills affecting transgender youth and adults. Saskatchewan invoked it in 2023 to prevent … Read more »
- Bye-bye to the bar exam? Jennifer Pink and Jordan Furlong
Passing the bar exam has long been accepted as a natural step for new lawyers. But in Canada, that seems to be changing. The Practice Readiness Education Program (PREP) has already replaced bar exams in PEI, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, and Nunavut. British Columbia is set to make t … Read more »
- A chat with Margaret Satterthwaite, UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers
NYU professor Margaret Satterthwaite has been monitoring threats to the rule of law on behalf of the UN Human Rights Council since 2022. She has seen autocrats around the world unleash assaults on their legal systems, but now she finds herself writing to the government of her own country about attac … Read more »