Law Times

LAW TIMES 16 COVERING ONTARIO'S LEGAL SCENE | FEBRUARY 11, 2019 www.lawtimesnews.com newest islands and discovered the three-year-old land mass is now covered in a sticky, mysterious mud. The volcanic island sprang up in the ocean surrounding Tonga three years ago, one of only three new islands to emerge in the last 150 years that have survived more than a few months. Dan Slayback of Nasa's God- dard Space Flight Center was desperate to visit the remote location, because scientists still have scant knowledge about how and why new islands form. The island erupted from the rim of an underwater caldera in early 2015, and it remains unnamed. Slayback and his team landed on what had looked like a black- sand beach on satellite, but it was actually made up of pea- sized gravel that made walking painful. Vegetation was discovered beginning to take root — with the seeds likely deposited by birds f lying overhead. A light-coloured, sticky, clay- like mud continues to "baff le" Slayback and his team as to ex- actly what it is, what it is made of and where it is coming from. "In the satellite images, you see this light-coloured material," he said. "It's mud, this light-coloured clay mud. It's very sticky. So even though we'd seen it, we didn't re- ally know what it was, and I'm still a little baff led of where it's com- ing from. Because it's not ash." Rock samples were collected for mineral analysis. Slayback and his team aim to return next year for further study. STINKY FRUIT PAYS OFF JAKARTA — An Indonesian variety of the durian — a pun- gent, spiky fruit considered a delicacy across many parts of Asia — has been sold in a store on the island of Java for more than $1,000 per fruit. The "J-Queen" durian was selected by a panel of farmers in a region of central Java because it was deemed to have a special taste and texture, said Sudarno, a farmer who grew the fruit, reports Reuters. Two of the rare durians, which were displayed in a perspex case in a store in Tasikmalaya in the neighbouring province, were sold for 14 million rupiah ($1,318) each, said Sudarno, who uses one name like many Indone- sians. Asked why anyone would pay such a high price, he said the harvest from this particular tree had failed in past seasons, but a new fertilizer helped to produce fruit this year. "It's sweet . . . f luffy and delicious," Sudarno said by phone, describing the texture as creamy like butter. Durian are often grown in family orchards or small-scale farms and are hugely popular in many parts of Asia. Sometimes described as smelling like an open sewer or turpentine when ripe, durian are banned in some airports, public transport and hotels in Southeast Asia. Sudarno said most of the 20 durians produced by his tree were premature, but four were offered for sale. Two were sold and the others pulled from display after their quality faded. He did not know who bought the fruit. LT PBSC NAMES NEW DIRECTOR Brittany Twiss will be the new national director for Pro Bono Students Canada starting in April. Twiss' appointment ends the search to fill the vacancy left by Nikki Gershbain, now senior director of inclusion and com- munity engagement at McCar- thy Tétrault LLP. Since 2013, Twiss has been the executive director of Level, a non-profit charity that works to reduce barriers to access to jus- tice and advance human rights. Here, she developed a justice education program for Indigenous youth in Canada, initiated a pro- gram for legal professionals to train them on empathy and inter-cultural competency and constructed a mentorship and human rights research program for law students to increase access to justice. Upon starting her work with the national 22-chapter organization, Twiss says she intends to start her first few months learning and lis- tening to current staff and law students and gauging how communi- ties view the organization. Once she gets a firm grasp, she says, her next steps will be to search for opportunities for further growth, expansion and impact. "Most lawyers that I know don't find great meaning or joy in how many hours they bill a year. "That's typically found in the important work that they've done for their community and the positive differences they've been able to make in people's lives," says Twiss. "Teaching law students that early on will hopefully benefit both them and the communities that we're aiming to serve." CHALMERS, O'BRIEN JOIN BENCH William Chalmers, a 30-year veteran of Hughes Amys LLP, will take up a new role on the bench at the Superior Court of Justice of Ontario in Toronto, the minister of justice said in a Jan. 31 an- nouncement. Shaun O'Brien, executive director at Women's Legal Educa- tion and Action Fund, will also be a judge of the Superior Court of Justice of Ontario in Toronto. LAFORME WINS LGBTQ2 AWARD The Canadian Bar Association will present Justice Harry LaFor- me the SOGIC Ally Award at the CBA's President's Dinner on Feb. 12 in Ottawa, the organization announced on Feb. 6. The CBA said the award honours LaForme's "commitment to advancing the cause of equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and two-spirited people with the Canadian legal profession." LAW TIMES POLL Young lawyers who hope to be benchers at the Law Society of On- tario told Law Times that unpaid work, student debt, the partner- ship path and costs of running an election are some of the issues that face new calls run- ning for representation. Law Times asked readers if a lack of young benchers has a harmful effect on the gov- ernance of the Law Society of Ontario. A majority, 63 per cent, said there is a harmful effect on the LSO's governance due to this. A minority, 37 per cent, responded that the lack of young benchers is not something that is problematic. LT The Inside Story BY VIOL A JAMES BURGER EMERGENCY MANCHESTER — A McDonald's customer in the U.K. was arrested after he dialled 999 to complain that kitchen staff had put onions on his Big Mac burger, according to Metro. Leslie McDonagh, 53, told the emergency operator he had got the "wrong meal" and could not eat onions due to a "severe allergy." Officers arrived at the Oxford Road branch in Manchester city centre to discover McDonagh had also challenged the res- taurant's manager to a fist fight over the order. When the officer asked him to leave, he fell to the f loor then grabbed an officer's leg as they attempted to get him to his feet. He subsequently spat in the PC's face as he was being escorted out of the premises. McDonagh claimed to have drunk six cans of beer prior to the incident. At Manchester magistrates court, McDonagh admitted assault by beat- ing of an emergency worker and be- ing drunk and disorderly in a public place. He was ordered to complete a 12-month community order plus 120 hours unpaid work. He was also fined £190 ($324). BORN WITHOUT CONSENT MUMBAI — Raphael Samuel is planning to sue his parents for bringing him into this world without his consent. He believes that no human has the right to 'force life' on another human, ac- cording to The Times of India. Samuel isn't launching the lawsuit because he doesn't have a good relationship with his parents but because he thinks that people should not give birth to a child just for the sake of their pleasure. "I want to tell all Indian kids that they don't owe their parents anything," the 27-year-old "an- tinatalist" from Mumbai told The Print. "I love my parents, and we have a great relationship, but they had me for their joy and their pleasure. "My life has been amazing, but I don't see why I should put another life through the rigama- role of school and finding a ca- reer, especially when they didn't ask to exist." REALLY BAD DATE TULSA — Her first error came in shooting a deer out of season at night with a spotlight. Her sec- ond error came in boasting about the poaching crime in conversa- tion with a potential beau on a dating app, who turned out to be an Oklahoma game warden, ac- cording to Newser. "It definitely was a shock," Mc- Intosh County warden Cannon Harrison tells the Tulsa World of matching with the unidentified woman on Bumble, then hearing how she'd shot her first buck ever with the use of a spotlight. "Pretty happy about it," she wrote, according to the Wash- ington Post. Provided with a photo from the hunt, Harrison, whose pro- file doesn't mention his job, did some digging. The next day, game wardens showed up at the woman's door. "I'm pretty sure a court date wasn't the type of date she was looking for," reads a comment on the Oklahoma Game War- dens Facebook page, following the woman's guilty pleas to im- proper possession of an illegally taken animal and hunting game out of season. She and a male ac- complice were fined US$2,400. MYSTERY MUD BAFFLES SCIENTISTS ISLAND NEAR TONGA — Nasa scientists have landed for the first time on one of the world's Brittany Twiss says she hopes Pro Bono Students Canada can inspire students to have a lifelong commitment to serving the community. Bizarre Briefs CREDIT: YELLOWLINE/SHUTTERSTOCK How the legal community in Ontario gets its news @lawtimes Canlawyer.lawtimes@thomsonreuters.com | 416.609.3800 | 1.800.387.5164 Online www.lawtimesnews.com/subscribe Free preview bitly.com/LT-FreePreview-1 SUBSCRIBE TODAY AND RECEIVE: • 40 issues a year covering Ontario's legal landscape • FREE digital edition and unlimited online access to past issues • FREE Canadian Legal Newswire, a weekly e-newsletter from the editors of Law Times and Canadian Lawyer Subscribe to Law Times today! Untitled-3 1 2019-02-05 3:07 PM 63 % YES, I AGREE 37 % NO, I DO NOT AGREE

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