September 03, 2026
A Jan. 13 issue of the Ottawa Citizen reported on the sentencing of Alam Buoc, who had been found guilty by a jury of second-degree murder. Superior Court Justice Robert Maranger described the crimes in exceptionally harsh terms, calling Buoc a “homicidal maniac” and “a monster.” He characterized the July 2017 killings as “cold-blooded and ruthless” and said the motive appeared to be trivial. It involved an alleged dispute over a bullet that Buoc believed one of his friends had taken. The sentence imposed was the same as if the crime had been first-degree murder: life imprisonment without parole eligibility for 25 years. Buoc appealed, and the Ontario Court of Appeal delivered its reasons on July 6, 2026 (R. v. Buoc, 2026 ONCA 492).
September 03, 2026
Within the legal community, there is growing recognition that the billable hour can negatively impact lawyers’ lives. Billable-hour culture can lead lawyers to make judgments about the value of activities based on whether they are billable. If you are spending the day with your children, your mind might start to calculate how many billable hours you are missing out on. Time becomes a commodity, and you may begin to view meaningful activities as wasteful.
September 02, 2026
The B.C. Court of Appeal has issued a practice directive adopting the Canadian Open Access Legal Citation Guide (COAL), a free, publicly accessible legal citation guide, as its preferred method for civil and criminal filings in an effort to advance access to justice.
September 02, 2026
The Canadian Bar Association, B.C. Branch (CBABC) has a new face at the head of its leadership table.
September 02, 2026
There is something profoundly unsettling about a society that regards prolonged solitary confinement as unconstitutional in prison yet appears prepared to tolerate the same isolation when the person behind the locked door is a psychiatric patient.
September 02, 2026
Bennett Jones has appointed Hennadiy Kutsenko, Quentin Vander Schueren, Elad Travis and Samantha Weng as counsel in Toronto.
September 02, 2026
Jonathan Herman is retiring as CEO of the Federation of Law Societies of Canada at the end of 2026, following 20 years in the role. He will remain through year-end to support the leadership transition.
September 02, 2026
“Alle Menschen werden Brüder” translates to “all people become brothers” and is one of the most recognizable lines from Friedrich Schiller’s poem Ode to Joy, immortalized in the final movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. In modern, inclusive language, its meaning might be expressed as “all people become kin.”
September 01, 2026
Saskatchewan’s Loreley Chekay, who assumed the leadership of the 40,000-member Canadian Bar Association (CBA) today, says she is striving to move the needle forward on the legal profession’s shared goals of attaining more resources for courts and defending the independence of lawyers and judges.
September 01, 2026
Private equity is beginning to enter the legal industry with transactions such as Uplift’s acquisition of Dudley DeBosier Personal Injury, Trive Capital’s acquiring Massumi + Consoli, and Morgan & Morgan’s hiring of JPMorgan to explore a private equity sale.