The COVID-19 pandemic has forced governments, non-profit organizations and other justice sector stakeholders in Canada to innovate. As their focus shifts from short term survival to rebuilding for a post-COVID world, how can they best contribute to creating a more just society?

Trevor Farrow has carried out ground-breaking research on the costs that society incurs when Canadians cannot access justice. Joshua Sealy-Harrington’s research and practice explores how the justice system systemically marginalizes racialized Canadians. Hear them together in conversation with the University of Alberta Faculty of Law’s new dean, Barbara Billingsley, as they discuss what access to justice means, how best to promote it in a post-COVID world, and what role law schools can play in creating a more just society.

Presenters:

Trevor C.W. Farrow, AB (Princeton, politics), BA/MA (Oxford, jurisprudence), LLB (Dalhousie), LLM (Harvard), PhD (Alberta, politics), is a Professor and former Associate Dean at Osgoode Hall Law School. He is the Chair of the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice and was the founding Academic Director of the Winkler Institute for Dispute Resolution and the Director of the York Centre for Public Policy and Law. Professor Farrow’s teaching and research focus on the administration of civil justice, including access to justice, legal process, legal and judicial ethics, advocacy and globalization. His scholarship is published widely in Canada and around the world. He has led and collaborated on numerous major research projects, including a $1 million SSHRC grant – the “Costs of Justice” – for which he was the Principal Investigator. Professor Farrow was formerly a litigation lawyer at the Torys law firm in Toronto and has received teaching awards from Harvard University and Osgoode Hall Law School.

Joshua Sealy-Harrington is a doctoral candidate at Columbia Law School, lawyer at Power Law, and former law clerk at the Supreme Court of Canada (for Justice Clément Gascon) and at the Federal Court (for Justice Donald J. Rennie, now of the Federal Court of Appeal). His research interrogates the complex relationships amongst law, identity, and sexuality, while his practice explores the intersection of these relationships with public, constitutional, and criminal law. In practice, Joshua has appeared before all levels of court, including the Supreme Court of Canada. His writing has been published in various law journals, The Globe and Mail, The Walrus, and Newsweek, and has been cited in several textbooks, as well as in judgments of the Federal Court, Federal Court of Appeal, and Supreme Court of Canada.

Moderator:

Barbara Billingsley became dean of the University of Alberta Faculty of Law and Wilbur Fee Bowker Professor of Law on July 1, 2020. She is the Faculty of Law’s 13th dean and the first woman to be appointed to the position in the Faculty’s history. She is a proud alumna of UAlberta, who earned her LLB and LLM here in 1990 and 1995, respectively, and her BA in political science in 1987. Before joining the Faculty, Dean Billingsley practised civil litigation in Edmonton, primarily in the area of insurance defence. She has been a full-time faculty member since 2001, after joining as a sessional in 1996. Her areas of research and teaching include insurance law, civil litigation processes and constitutional law issues pertaining to private law matters.

The Canadian Red Cross, University of Alberta Faculty of Law and Law Students for Human Rights Club will be hosting the 2020 International Humanitarian Law conference titled Healthcare, COVID-19 and Armed Conflict on October 22, 2020. The Conference will explore the new challenges that COVID-19 presents to medical professionals in conflict zones, and the role of International Humanitarian Law in safeguarding medical facilities and healthcare workers.

This event is free of cost.

For more information or to register, please visit their website.

Times:

• 11:30am-12:15pm MDT: Intro to International Humanitarian Law (IHL)
  • Optional introduction to the rules of armed conflict
• 12:30pm-2:00pm MDT: Main Event
  • Panel Discussion on Healthcare, COVID-19 and Armed Conflict

Panelists include:

• Alex Breitegger, Thematic Legal Advisor, International Committee of the Red Cross
• Hossam Elsharkawi, Regional Director, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

Please join the Practice Management Team as we discuss retiring from the practice of law. Do you have questions about the process and timelines for winding up your practice? Our Team has strategies, resources and more to help you navigate this new stage of your career.

The webinar will be held at 12 p.m. on September 23, 2020.

Are you thinking of running in the 2020 Bencher Election? Join Law Society President Kent Teskey, QC, and President-Elect Darlene Scott, QC, as they break down some of the key elements of the Bencher role, including governance, adjudication, time commitments, policy making and some of the strategic goals of the Law Society in the next 3-5 years.

Bencher Election 2020 – Candidate Q&A Session
Wednesday, August 19, 2020
3 p.m. – 4 p.m.

A moderated Q&A will follow a short presentation; please come with any and all questions you may have on the role of the Bencher.

Register Now

The #LNFB National Forum 2020 Law Needs Feminism Because forum is moving West! It will be hosted by Calgary Women Studying Law Association in Calgary, Alberta, on March 6th & 7th.

The theme of this year’s forum is Innovative Intersectionality.

Introduced by Kimberlè Crenshaw in 1989, intersectionality has become paramount in the feminist movement. It has helped us change the way we think about how political, social, and legal institutions interact with our communities and the individuals within them. The 2020 forum will look towards how change-makers in the legal industry are wielding intersectionality as an innovative tool to create equitable change. In a time where the issues facing our society have become increasingly complex, the 2020 forum will focus on how we can overlap diversified ways of thinking, varied experiences, and multiple knowledges to create new understandings in law, and better solutions to the problems we see surfacing in the Canadian legal sector.

The Practice Management team is offering a webinar on the basics of effective practice strategies from the beginning of a file through to the end. Join them for a discussion on these strategies that will increase your efficiency and decrease your risk.

Join CPLED CEO, Dr. Kara Mitchelmore for an information session on the Practice Readiness Education Program (PREP) Bar admission course to University of Calgary law students and faculty on Tuesday, October 8, 2019, from 12 to 1 p.m.

Schrodinger’s Senate:  Experiments in Constitutional Reform

Hon. Paula Simons, Senator

5:00 PM – 6:30 PM