Omar Ha-Redeye was interviewed in both the London Free Press and the The Beacon Herald on a conference held at Huron College at the University of Western Ontario where he participated as a teacher,

Recent University of Western Ontario Law School graduate Omar Ha-redeye was attracted to scriptural reasoning when he recognized the similarities with his own profession.

“It’s a very rich and fruitful experience for my practice and study of law,” he said, noting the parallels between scriptural reasoning and the interpretive character of the common law tradition.

Ha-redeye has the advantage of having members of all three Abrahamic faiths in his immediate family, giving him special insight into differences and commonalities among the traditions.

His recent law research in Israel revealed that there are principles of Islamic and Jewish law at the roots of the British common law model. He said recognizing similar common ground in religion helps break down prejudice and “scaremongering” about the beliefs and practices of others.

Ochs, Danaher and Ha-Redeye will be at the conference along with 60 students and teachers from schools such as Yale, Duke and the University of Toronto.

On June 18, 2010, Omar Ha-Redeye officially graduated from law school, awarded with a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree.

An honourary doctorate was provided to Arkadi Kuhlmann of ING Direct, who spoke at the ceremony.

UWO Law June18 Convocation

The Centre for Abrahamic Religions at Huron College is hosting a Scriptural Reasoning conference at the University of Western Ontario. The school is part of the Diocese of Huron.

Omar Ha-Redeye is slated as a teacher for the session.

The Honourable Madam Justice Marie Deschamps of the Supreme Court of Canada spoke to law students at the University of Western Ontario on “Jumping at the Chance,” exploring her career path that took her to Canada’s highest court.

She spent some time with law students discussing these issues in further depth at a subsequent session.

The Honourable Madam Justice Marie Deschamps of the Supreme Court of Canada

William M. Kaplan, a lawyer and arbitrator in Toronto, spoke at UWO Law about his new book, Canadian Maverick: The Life and Times of Ivan C. Rand.

Justice Rand served on the Supreme Court of Canada until his retirement at age 75, after which he moved to London, Ont. and founded the law school at Western.

Check it out in this issue of Amicus Curiae on the UWO Law website or hyperlinked on Law is Cool:

Torys LLP picked up on a post about pension law reform from Slaw and posted it on their site:

Canadian Constitution Foundation held its Third Annual Law Conference on Race, Religion, Equality and Freedom: Current Canadian Legal Controversies.

The first panel was titled, Is there a human right to be free from offence?

Debating the restrictions on free speech in human rights legislation
Grant Huscroft, University of Western Ontario, Faculty of Law
Richard Moon, University of Windsor, Faculty of Law
Philippe Dufresne, Canadian Human Rights Commission, Ottawa

The second panel on Intellectual property law featured Howard Knopf of Macera & Jarzyna, and  Richard Owens of Stikeman Elliot LLP.

The third panel addressed, The legal status of polygamy

Debating whether polygamy should be a Criminal Code offense
Martha Bailey, Queens University, Faculty of Law
Nicholas Bala, Queens University, Faculty of Law
Lorraine Weinrib, University of Toronto, Faculty of Law
Bradley Miller, University of Western Ontario, Faculty of Law

Keynote speaker over the lunch was Supreme Court of Canada Justice Louis LeBel.

Justice Louis LeBel of the Supreme Court of Canada

An afternoon panel looked at the recent decision in R. v. Kapp,  Racial equality, aboriginal rights, and Section 15

Dwight Newman, University of Saskatchewan, College of Law
Bryan Finlay, Weir Foulds LLP, Toronto
Craig Jones, Office of the Attorney General, British Columbia
Jonathan Kay, National Post, Toronto

The kenynote speaker over dinner was George Jonas of the National Post.

Justice Louis LeBel of the Supreme Court of Canada

In his regular column for Lawyers Weekly Magazine, freelance technology writer Luigi Benetton quoted Omar Ha-Redeye in Draft, edit docs in real time, in the Aug. 21, 2009 edition.

Omar Ha-Redeye, a University of Western Ontario law student, shares Smith’s point of view. “It’s all incredibly inefficient, especially in light of the technology we have today,” he says, adding that lawyers will need to better their productivity using such measures. “If they don’t, their competitors will,” he says.

…“The majority of graduating lawyers are now female, and the majority of practising lawyers are not,” Ha-Redeye notes. “Legal practise is not conducive to having a family, picking up kids, dropping off kids and those types of responsibilities, which are not necessarily gender-specific but tend to be, given our history.”

…Ha-Redeye believes that collaboration systems might strengthen groupthink in organizations as hierarchical as law firms.

“They’re different from anonymous tools like Wikipedia,” he says. “People may be highly deferential to those higher in a hierarchy than they are.”

Reviews on Slaw and Law is Cool.

Glenn Kauth of Canadian Lawyer magazine mentioned Omar Ha-Redeye in the current June 2009 issue,

Even law students are using the Twitter-blog combination to get their names out there and position themselves in the field. Omar Ha-Redeye, a second-year student at the University of Western Ontario law school, has garnered a lot of attention through his blog as well as through the web sites Law is Cool and Slaw, too, which he says is already benefiting him as he develops a reputation well before he graduates. “I have lots of informal mentorships with lots of lawyers practising in the field.”

The article also interviewed Erik Magraken of MacIsaac & Co, Deborah Glendinning of Osler Hoskin & Harcourt LLP, Rick Powers of the Rotman School of Management, Simone Hughes at Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, Michael Rabinovici of AR Communications Inc, Dan Michaluk and Susan Carnevale of Hicks Morley Hamilton Stewart Storie LLP, Michael Rynowecer of BTI Consulting Group Inc., and David Diamond of Diamond & Diamond Lawyers.

A review of the piece by Omar Ha-Redeye can be found on Slaw.