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What are some of the challenges and possibilities animating modern Canadian clinical and experiential learning in law? This question was the starting point for our research, which examined two sets of data. In the first part of this project, we analyzed available information on existing clinical and experiential learning programs in Canadian law schools. This data revealed a growing quantity and variety of programs across the country. We then held qualitative interviews with deans, professors, and clinicians across Canada regarding their views of clinical and experiential learning. While the interviews suggested that many of the same financial and curricular challenges that dominated early debates remain stubbornly entrenched, there are also significant promising views and practices. No longer regarded by most as a legal education outlier, clinical and experiential learning has come out of the curricular shadows and taken a prominent place in most law schools in Canada. Nuanced questions now dominate thinking around this generation of clinical and experiential learning. What is the role of community in the creation, decision making, and continuity of clinical programs? How can students balance an increasingly intensive set of learning, professional, and financial challenges? How can clinical and experiential learning be better aligned with the rest of the curriculum, and as accessible as possible? As all respondent law schools but one are expanding their clinical and experiential learning options, these and other questions will continue to animate programs in the foreseeable future.

Article Book Review of J.A.M. A. Sluysmans, S. Verbist, and E. Waring, eds., Expropriation Law in Europe (Deventer: Wolters Kluwer, 2015) was published on August 28, 2017 in the journal European Property Law Journal (volume 6, issue 2).

This paper explores a grey area of psychiatric practice and, as with other challenging practices, the law is called upon to navigate conflicting legal issues. In particular, this paper explores the covert administration of medication: the concealment of medication in food or drink so that it will be consumed undetected. Rights-based approaches support nuanced understanding of the practices. Few policies, protocols or guidelines govern the practice in Ontario's psychiatric settings. While covert medication is understood to have “something to do” with rights, there is confusion about how those rights play out on the ground. Institutional silences underlie and reinforce the practice. Most pressing, the covert administration of medication warrants an overt discussion, including of its impact on the rights-experience of persons in psychiatric settings.

The Accessibility for Manitobans Act (AMA) was enacted in December, 2013. Manitoba is the second Canadian province to enact accessibility standards legislation. The first province was Ontario, which enacted the Ontarians with Disabilities Act in 2001, and, later, a more fortified and enforceable Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005. The AMA presents a strong set of philosophical and social goals. Its philosophical goals mark accessibility as a human right, and aim to improve the health, independence and well-being of persons with disabilities. The AMA’s social goals have the potential to make a positive impact on the development of equality law norms within the context of disability discrimination. Nevertheless, the AMA would be strengthened with a more robust and explicit appreciation of how disability discrimination issues are experienced. The Act should show a greater recognition of the relevance of embodied impairment to individuals with disabilities, and there should be more significant scope for the statute to address intersectionality within disability discrimination. These two challenges replicate the two principal critiques of the social model of disability –the model of disability on which the AMA is based. Finally, for the legislation to be successful, issues of compliance and enforcement that require positive uses of discretion on the part of the civil service should be addressed early on. The findings of this article may be useful for the implementation of the AMA and for the design of future accessibility legislation in Canada and elsewhere.

When lawyers elect the leaders of their self-regulatory organizations, what sort of people do they vote for? How do the selection processes for elite lawyer sub-groups affect the diversity and efficacy of those groups? This article quantitatively assesses the demographic and professional diversity of leadership in the Law Society of Upper Canada. After many years of underrepresentation, in 2015 visible minority members and women were elected in numbers proportionate to their shares of Ontario lawyers. Regression analysis suggests that being non-white was not a disadvantage in the 2015 election, and being female actually conferred an advantage in attracting lawyers’ votes. The diverse employment contexts of the province’s lawyers were also represented in the elected group. However, early-career lawyers were completely unrepresented. This is largely a consequence of electoral system design choices, and can be remedied through the implementation of career-stage constituencies. The Law Society’s “benchers” are more demographically diverse than other elite lawyer sub-groups, such as judges, and the open and transparent selection process may be part of the reason. , Lorsque les avocats élisent les chefs de leurs organismes d’auto-réglementation, quel genre de leader choisissent-ils? Quelles sont les répercussions des processus de sélection des sous-groupes d’avocats élites en ce qui concerne la diversité et l’efficacité au sein de ces groupes? Le présent article effectue une évaluation quantitative de la démographie et de la diversité professionnelle du leadership du Barreau du Haut-Canada. Après de nombreuses années de sous-représentation, en 2015, des membres de minorités visibles et des femmes ont été élus dans une proportion représentative de leur importance dans la profession en Ontario. Une analyse de régression permet de conclure que, dans l’élection de 2015, ne pas être de race blanche n’était pas un handicap, et qu’être femme était avantageux en ce que cela suscitait davantage de votes. La diversité des contextes d’emploi des avocats en Ontario était également bien représentée parmi les élus. Par contre, les avocats frais émoulus n’étaient pas représentés du tout, du fait de décisions prises dans la conception du système de vote. Cet inconvénient peut être remédié par la création d’une catégorie correspondant aux étapes de carrière. Les conseillers au barreau du Barreau du Haut-Canada constituent un groupe plus diversifié sur le plan démographique que d’autres sous-groupes d’avocats élites, notamment les juges, ce qui pourrait relever en partie du processus de sélection ouvert et transparent.