We’re making some changes to the site, including a new banner and headshot.

Special thanks to Moshe Glickman of the University of Maryland School of Law.

Posts have been placed in a new subdirectory, which will probably orphan some incoming links.  We apologize, but it shouldn’t be a major concern.

More changes will be rolled out over the next few months.

The Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers (FACL) held their 2009 annual conference at UofT.

After a welcome by Jason Leung, the FACL President and Conference Co-Chair, Professor Anita Anand of UofT Law provided some opening remarks.

A judiciary panel chaired by Justice Maryka Omatsu, and consisted of The Honourable Justice Russell Juriansz of Court of Appeal of Ontario; the Honourable Justice Shaun Nakatsuru of the Ontario Court of Justice; and the Honourable Justice Manjusha Pawagi of the Ontario Court of Justice.  They addressed the subject of, “Is Justice (Colour) Blind?”  They addressed issues raised previously on Law is Cool, such as by Bertha Wilson’s paper Will Women Judges Really Make a Difference?, and the study by Yahya and Stribopoulos, Does a Judge’s Party of Appointment or Gender Matter to Case Outcomes? An Empirical

The Keynote Address was delivered by the Honourable Frank Iacobucci, former Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, on residential schools.  A summary of the talk is found on Law is Cool and Slaw.

Honourable Frank Iacobucci, former Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada

The afternoon consisted of a series of workshops on legal updates, which included Visha Sukdeo, Roslyn Tsao, Kathy Laird, Professor Poonam Puri, Carolyn Chambers, Teresa Cheung, Ron Choudhury, Jason Leung, and Dee Rajpal.

A subsequent workshop focussed on Bay Street Initiatives on Diversity, chaired by Fred Gerra , featured
Tariq Remtulla of Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP, May Cheng of Fasken Martineau Dumoulin LLP, Kate Broer of Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP, André Bacchus of Heenan Blaikie LLP, and Kevin O’Brien of Stikeman Elliott
LLP.

A concurrent panel, chaired by Deanna Santos, looked at the experiences of sole practitioners Jacqueline An, Ramon Andal, Peggy Chooi and Amer Mushtaq.

From the Wise Law Blog:

…Michael also recently completed an interesting personal profile of intrepid law student and Slaw and Law is Cool blawger, Omar Ha-Redeye.

I have learned quite a bit over two recent dinner discussions with Michael and Omar, who are both extremely insightful and knowledgeable about just about everything.
They are among the leaders of a creative, new breed of tech-savvy legal thinkers who are guided by a genuine understanding of how emerging web-based technologies are changing the way lawyers and our clients can and will interact.
Quite a few ideas came out of those two discussions, and Omar, Michael and I will have something very interesting in store for you in the very near future… (shameless teaser alert)…

Dr. Manuel Carballo spoke on Displaced / Migrating Persons & Health Issues.

Prof. Frederick Burkle gave a keynote on Public Health Emergencies: The Common Thread.

Dr Andrew Robertson spoke on the Consequences of Economic Crises.

Dr Debarati Guha-Sapir spoke on the Myths and Realities of Disaster Epidemiology. Dr. Gupta was presented with the Safar Award.

Roche hosted a special session on H1N1 virus, and generously made the slides available to the public:

The 2009 World Congress on Disaster and Emergency Medicine (WCDEM) started off with a speech by the Hon. Stephen Point, the first Aboriginal Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia.

Mr. Point emphasized the wisdom of the elders, and noted that he was repeatedly being warned that we are entering a time of increasing disasters.

A 1st Nations song and dance was also performed for the attendees.

Dr. Jonathan Patz gave a plenary talk on Health and Climate Change, pointing out that America and Canada were consumers of the largest amount of resources in the world, and therefore also had a responsibility to tackle the upcoming challenges of climate change.

Omar Ha-Redeye was interviewed by CPAC on the issue of Arctic sovereignty at the Policy Plenary of the 2009 Biennial Liberal Convention.

Omar Ha-Redeye gave a talk on the use of social media in politics, focusing on the Canadian scene, at the Miles S. Nadal Management Centre in the Ernst & Young Tower of the Toronto Dominion Centre.

Audio of the talk available here.

Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party of Canada.

May spoke at Western Law as part of the Distinguished Speaker Series on How to fight climate change while restoring democracy.

See the article by Kamila Pizon on the talk.

Robert Shiller spoke about “Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology caused the Current Economic Crisis” at UWO Law.