/BarTalk/Articles/2024/December/Columns/Transforming-Justice-Through-Indigenous-Laws-and-K
In a room softly lit by the sun and the warm scent of cedar, an Elder leads a quiet prayer, creating a safe space for the client, a young Indigenous man caught in the cycle of the colonial justice system. Enveloped in understanding and respect, he is beginning a new journey o...
/BarTalk/Articles/2024/December/Columns/BarTalk-Enters-the-Modern-Era
If our weekly screentime notifications are anything to go by, you’ll know we’re consuming more and more content on our phones, laptops or iPads. Whether we’re in between the courthouse, networking lunches, or the office, it’s no secret lawyers are busy. We want content that ...
/BarTalk/Articles/2024/December/Columns/All-Good-Things
Well, after almost 22 years, this is my last column for BarTalk . It’s time to retire. Twenty-two years is a pretty good run for Nothing Official. Since 2003, I’ve written at least 129 columns in BarTalk . At approximately 650 words per column, that’s around 84,000 words. ...
/BarTalk/Articles/2024/October/Columns/Nos-Disparus
When I was called in 1986 and started receiving copies of “The Advocate,” the first place I went to was the “Bench and Bar” section where I saw who was moving firms. Now, as my career inevitably shuffles off into the sunset, I look to see who is on the cover in the unlikely e...
/BarTalk/Articles/2024/August/Columns/The-Truthiness-is-Out-There
In 2013, when I was writing a biweekly business and legal column for the Globe and Mail , one of my columns went totally viral. It was called “ Don’t Get Taken by Cheap “Canada Goose” Parkas (like I was) .” It told my story of how I mistakenly trusted a very authentic look...
/BarTalk/Articles/2024/June/Columns/The-Demise-of-Self-Checkout-Counters
A couple of years ago, I was in the lineup at Save-on-Foods, Safeway or Superstore (I can’t quite remember). The lineup was getting long, and the customers were getting edgy because there weren’t enough cashiers. The manager came out and politely suggested that “ self-checkou...
/BarTalk/Articles/2024/April/Columns/Power-Corrupts-and-Absolute-Power-Corrupts-Absolut
Russians who oppose the regime of Vladimir Putin seem to be falling out of windows, tumbling down stairs or dying for no discernable reason these days. For example, in 2022, defense official Marina Yankina was found dead after falling out of a window in St. Petersburg. The fo...
/BarTalk/Articles/2024/February/Columns/Any-Book-Worth-Banning-is-a-Book-Worth-Reading
Recently, Steve Martin discovered that his 20-year-old novel Shopgirl was banned from school libraries in Collier County Florida as a result of a new State law that’s part of Gov. Ron DeSantis’s “Don’t Say Gay” agenda. Under the new law, it takes only one complaint to restr...
/BarTalk/Articles/2023/December/Columns/Truth-or-Consequences
I follow an eclectic group of right-wing conspiracy theorists on social media, not because “ I go where they go ” (which is my own contraction for QAnon’s “WWG1WGA” motto), but because I’m genuinely fascinated by conspiracy theorists, how they come to believe what they believ...
/BarTalk/Articles/2023/October/Columns/The-Summer-of-Climate-Hell
There’s a recent cartoon in the New Yorker where two frogs are sitting in a pot of hot water on a stove and the pot is getting hotter. One points to the temperature knob. The other says, “ yes… but how can we be sure that the temperature increase was caused by man? ” In anoth...