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Isthatlegal.ca Mission Statement"In furtherance of the fundamental democratic principle of access to justice, to create and maintain extensive online Ontario and Canadian-based legal resources."
Winter's here!First snow yesterday, and today woke up to a beautiful snow-covering of the crabapple tree in my front yard (and the noise of my neighbour's ambitious snow plow).
About Isthatlegal
(and more!)The Origins
The brief history of the Isthatlegal website is that I started writing legal 'Guides' (really, online textbooks) about 30 years ago in the areas of my initial legal-political interests - which were social assistance, tenancy, small claims court and employment law. The Guides eventually expanded to about 15 different topics, most of which are still being maintained (they are located alphabetically in the left 'Topics' sidebar).
In about 2007 I then started to use these Guides as the basis of establishing one of the first (the first?) entirely online legal practices, which I then took 'on the road' internationally, fulfilling a lifelong dream to see the world (by bicycle no less!).
Then in about 2015 (expanded in 2020) while living in Greece I started regularly reviewing cases from the four Canadian and Ontario appeal courts [Supreme Court of Canada, Federal Court of Appeal, Ontario Court of Appeal, Ontario Divisional Court] for interesting and useful 'dicta' from our hard-working and conscientious judges. Over time, the process of organizing these increasingly voluminous case dicta into topical categories has resulted in rich new resources - which is what you will find (growing daily) in the 200+ sidebar topics.
Recent Developments
More recently, in the past 6 years I've minimized my practice (due to disability, older age and choice), and the website is once again turning back more to it's socio-political-purposed roots (from which I seriously doubt that law can be realistically-divorced). In the last few years I've started to branch out into broader socio-legal issues, as you can see from the newer topic entries for: climate change, cryptocurrency, homelessness, homophobia, internet, opioid crisis, poverty, racism, sexism, sexual orientation and transgender.
Even more recently I've added inarguably political content with my new Something Big (SB) project, which I now mean to allow access only through the below link (so if you spot a prior SB link in Isthatlegal.ca legal content, please let me know and I'll edit it). It's tempting to blame Trump's 'interesting times') for this, but the truth is I've always hankered after expressing my politically-philosophified self - and I ain't getting any younger.
Given recent case law (where a doctor had their license revoked for COVID opinions, made while citing their professional status) it's prudent to caution readers that this Something Big content is not made by me in my professional lawyer capacity - it is content made by me as a politically interested citizen, which I think all of us should be.
If you are interested in this 'professional/freedom of expression' issue further, see: Professionals - Public Statements (Freedom of Expression), which extracts relevant recent case law [I expect to add extracts from the key cases of Dore (SCC, 2012) and Loyola (SCC, 2015) soon].
Simon Shields, LLB
(yes, Lawyer too)
simonshields@isthatlegal.ca
01 December 2024
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