Opinions & Discussion

Post by Sarah Kaabar

In light of this week’s lecture topic about the relationship of In-House Counsel and professional sports, I found it necessary to post about the turn of events that occurred this weekend in regard to Don Cherry.

Don Cherry was fired on Monday November 11th by Sportsnet due to his comments he made on Saturday November 9^th on Hockey Night Canada. Sportnet confirmed that Don Cherry’s comments were offensive to Canadians and and do not represent the values of what Sportnet stands for.

What is interesting in this situation is I presume that the general counsel for Rogers Communication (owner of Sportsnet) advised the decision makers of Sportsnet to fire Don Cherry because of various factors. First, the public backlash was extreme (it apparently overloaded the internal motherboard of the The Canadian Broadcasting Standards Council); politicians such as Jagmeet Singh and other prominent individuals condemned the comments from Cherry;  keyboard warriors and twitter/instagram/tiktok/youtube/facebook and all other social media platforms took off with this story and threatened to stop supporting Sportsnet; and overall this was sufficient grounds to fire Cherry.

If I was general counsel of Rogers Communications, I would be worried about how Cherry’s comments could potentially affect the ratings of Sportsnet, which can have domino effects on sponsorship opportunities, broadcasting deals, and overall brand recognition. Rogers already gets enough complaints on their phone plans (*from me occasionally*), this is why from a business perspective Rogers Communications had no other choice to fire Cherry for the sake of their business.

In this video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0tQMiecfTE , the lawyer highlights really well the fundamental mistake society makes in confusing freedom of speech vs freedom of consequences from a workplace perspective. At the end of the day, my speculation is that Rogers Communications did not want to fire 85 year old Don Cherry who has been with them for 40 years, because if they did they would of done so a long ago since Cherry has a history of making a whole array of offensive comments during Hockey Night segments (https://www.ctvnews.ca/sports/don-cherry-s-history-of-controversial-comments-1.4680505) .

However, because these offensive comments “caught wind” and propelled throughout social media, I suspect general counsel for Rogers Communications advised the decision makers that in order to protect shareholders money and the company’s brand, it was necessary to fire Don Cherry. Also (again from a general counsel perspective) perhaps due to his age Rogers Communications knew he may decide to retire from this segment within the next few years and therefore they decided this was also the right time to rebrand the segment or try something new (not sure about that.. just a thought).

When White House counsel learned about the whistleblower’s complaint did they have an ethical duty to distance themselves from POTUS? Or did they have a responsibility to the President (their client) to help mitigate any adverse implications to him, thereby justifying their attempt to cover up Trumps conversation with Ukraine?

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/09/26/white-house-lawyers-trump-ukraine-scandal-004146

You were a truly remarkable class. We built a new course and we really did it together. It was a terrific experience. Each of you brought your best to every class and we accomplished a lot. So congrats. And thank you….However the course evolves, it started here. So thank you!

Jon

P.S. Don’t forget to check in to this website from time to time to see what’s new…

Aan Malahia Chaudhry

It is perhaps obvious that after a century long prohibition, the legalisation of marijuana would foster many questions on the legality of it all. In a recent article, Canadian Lawyer reporter Jennifer Brown, sat down with Mariana Fonar, legal counsel for Lift & Co. (an online source that reviews and clarifies developments in the Cannabis industry).  The article spoke about how the Cannabis Industry is working with Health Canada to interpret the Cannabis Act in a way that speaks to the purpose and objective of the Act. Further, it discussed how social media marketing of Cannabis needs to be regulated and how the marketing of alcohol and tobacco offer guidance on this. While Lift & Co. does not itself sell cannabis products, it will be interesting to see the very innovative role in-house counsel will play within this industry in the coming years.

Link to article: https://www.canadianlawyermag.com/author/jennifer-brown/providing-clarity-in-the-cannabis-sector-17009/

Aan Malahia Chaudhry

In an episode of the hit tv show Suits one of the characters, develops a device called ‘The Donna’ – essentially a law-oriented version of Alexa or Siri. This development perhaps was a subtle nod of acknowledgement to the incoming role of technology in the field of law.

Recently, I came across an article in Canadian Lawyer which spoke about the use of AI for in house counsel. According to the article about 53% of in-house counsel felt that they spend to much time on repetitive tasks. The inclusion of AI for in-house counsel use would reduce the amount of time that in-house counsel would need to expend on mundane tasks. Instead, it would allow them to focus on innovative work. As Elisabeth Demone, chief legal officer at Symcor, stated: “We’re looking to use this type of tool to get the more mundane tasks out of the way so that the lawyers can be free to do strategic, analytical work that they are trained for.”

As the article purports, legal professions are slow at grasping new technology, however as an innovative field in itself, perhaps in-house counsel can play a prominent role in developing and utilizing more AI technology within the field of law?

Link to article: https://www.canadianlawyermag.com/author/luis-millan/sizing-up-ai-for-in-house-17006/

Aan Malahia Chaudhry

I recently came across an article in Canadian Lawyer Magazine which discussed the need for having more in-house counsel representation within the Law Society of Ontario. Jayashree Goswami, an in house counsel, spoke about this, stating: “Because they haven’t been represented in Convocation, in-house are very isolated from the law society. There is a general problem of lawyers not being engaged enough in the profession, and I feel in-house counsel feel disconnected from what’s happening in the profession and, in my view, the law society has to make more of an effort to reach out and better represent in-house counsel.”

As I am currently taking ethics, the important role of a law society on a lawyer’s professional work is something that I am coming to understand. While, not in the field myself, I understand Goswami’s concern with the lack of engagement between law societies and in-house counsel. I think both the law society and in-house council should make an effort to be more engaged and more communicative with each other.  While not discussed in the article, a further issue, potentially, is that as in-house counsel increases should the composition of hearing panel tribunals (which currently consist of a bencher chair, lawyer wingman, and a member of the public) be remediated to include the already sidelined in-house counsel demographic?

Link to article: https://www.canadianlawyermag.com/author/jennifer-brown/corporate-counsel-candidates-bring-diverse-perspective-to-election-16981/

By: Evan Drygas

Human Rights codes across Canada prohibit discrimination in employment advertisements. Section 11 of the BC Human Rights Code states:

“A person must not publish or cause to be published an advertisement in connection with employment or prospective employment that expresses a limitation, specification or preference as to race, colour, ancestry, place of origin, political belief, religion, marital status, family status, physical or mental disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or age unless the limitation, specification or preference is based on a bona fide occupational requirement.”

Yet, Facebook allows employers to select some of these groups as target audiences when advertising these jobs. Facebook will prevent U.S. employers from this kind of ad targeting by the end of next year, but this change won’t apply to Canada.

Who’s advising Facebook on this? Who’s advising the employers posting these ads. Why is Facebook waiting until the end of the year to make this change? I’m sure they have the ability to implement this change right away. Why won’t Facebook ban discriminatory ad targeting by Canadian employers?

By continuing to allow Canadian employers to target certain groups it seems to me that Facebook is exposing themselves and their advertising customers to risk.

Original article: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/facebook-employment-job-ads-discrimination-1.5086491

The board of Directors of the Canadian Women’s Hockey League (CWHL) decided to discontinue operations effective May 1, 2019, as they deemed the business operations to no longer be economically sustainable.

CWHL, founded in 2007, had a mandate to grow the sport of women’s hockey, and to that extent it more than achieved its goal.

The board includes two lawyers who have different capacities within the organization; one works as  Counsel and Director of Risk Management, whereas the other brings in her experience as corporate counsel. It is interesting to see what their role will be going forward as the organization ceases its operations.

http://www.thecwhl.com/the-canadian-womens-hockey-league-to-discontinue-operations

I found a list of top blogs to follow for in-house counsel (posted in 2016):

https://www.simplelegal.com/blog/top-in-house-legal-blogs-to-follow

There is also a  recommended reading from each blog site.

Submitted by Kimberly Gee

A snip-it from an article in Canadian Lawyer magazine entitled, “To be a modern in-house counsel” by Marc Le Blanc

I invite the class to ask as individuals, how T-shaped you are?

“Many of these skills are best described as those of the T-shaped lawyer. The deep stem of the T is formed from hard legal skills. The more shallow but broader cross of the T represents risk management, budgeting, data analysis, managing a team, project/process management, design thinking, change management and other skills. These new skills of the T-shaped lawyer are applicable for all lawyers but critical for the in-house lawyer. Without them, you will not be able to contribute to solving the problems of your organization.”

Link: https://www.canadianlawyermag.com/author/mark-le-blanc/to-be-a-modern-in-house-counsel-16824/?fbclid=IwAR2z0H0nMVjr1_ADhJTUiwkxXk3T3fHuWkyFDrvssT0ZGikpsuywoukejr4

“Mark Le Blanc is General Counsel at TVO, where he is responsible for overseeing legal matters and balancing corporate risk.   He is a key player on the strategic team as TVO shifts from a legacy broadcaster to a digital product organization.  He has a BA in Economics from Queen’s and a JD from University of Victoria.  His background is in IP and media law.  He is a business first lawyer and is relied upon for his judgement.  His focus has always been to leverage his legal skills and experience to advance the business of the organization.   He is most interested in the evolution of the business of law, and in particular the evolving business/legal role of in-house counsel.”