Law Times

$3.55 • Vol. 19, No. 30 ntitled-1 1 9/22/08 9:21:35 AM he Ontario Council of Law Deans is col- lecting data on law students to decide what steps the educational wing of the profession can take to tackle issues that have led to propos- als for new law schools in the northern part of the province. "The law deans are united 'Pressing' issues tackled by deans T OCLD collecting data on law students BY ROBERT TODD Law Times in the view that there is a real problem in terms of the gray- ing of the northern bar, and the lack of legal representation in aboriginal communities," Ian Holloway, dean of the University of Western Ontario Faculty of Law and chairman of the law deans, tells Law Times in an interview. "We weren't of the view that the best way to solve this problem was to create a new law school at Lake- head [University] or Laurentian [University], or anywhere else," he says, adding the deans want to discuss the issue with interested parties. The deans met via teleconference recently, and concluded the problem must be researched further before a solution can be proposed, says Holloway. Specifically, he said it's unclear whether the problem is due to student recruit- ment — that too few northerners are coming to law school — or if it's a placement problem, and northerners are coming to law schools, but prefer to practice in the south. Holloway says the deans will generate data- 'The law deans are united in the view that there is a real problem in terms of the graying of the northern bar, and the lack of legal representation in aboriginal communities,' said Dean Ian Holloway. from their individual faculties on questions such as the number of northerners enrolled, the number of applications from northern- ers, and the number of students who have expressed interest in articling in the north. Holloway says "very few" students at Western discussed last week at Convocation. The report, an advance copy of which Law approach may also depend on a report from the law society's licensing and accreditation task force, which was to be article in the north, and it's unclear why that is. While there's no specific timeline for ac- cumulating the data, he says the deans view it as a "matter of pressing concern." They meet again in November at the annual meeting of the Council of Law Deans in New Brunswick. One idea that has been speculated on in the media, prematurely according to Holloway, is the creation of a satellite campus of a southern law school at a northern uni- versity. That idea is similar to one carried out at Akitsiraq Law School in Iqaluit, Nu- navut. A one-time program there saw several Inuit stu- dents receive law degrees in a partnership with the Univer- sity of Victoria Faculty of Law and Nunavut Arctic College. "It's not for us to decide what the solution is," says Hol- loway. "But the deans talked about a number of possibilities, including the Akitsiraq model, including other models as well. But it's premature to make a decision about one or the other, because we want to find out what the problem is." Holloway says the deans' Covering Ontario's Legal Scene September 29, 2008 dvocate-right_LT_Sep29_08.indd 1 9/24/08 10:44:24 AM Inside This Issue 3 Women In Law 9 Legal Suppliers Guide 17 Focus On Insurance Law Quote of the week Times received and had yet to be considered by Convocation come press time, recommends re- tention of the 10-month articling requirement. The report called for a number of measures to make the articling program more effective, however, including the creation of an online registry of articling opportunities. An apparent lack of articling placements was one reason cited by Ontario Minister of Train- ing, Colleges and Universities John Molloy in July for announcing the government won't fund See Government, page 2 Lawyers surprised top court denies leave in ABCP E BY JULIUS MELNITZER For Law Times Court of Canada's refusal to hear the legal challenge to the Purdy Commit- tee's $32-billion asset-backed com- mercial paper rescue plan. The high court's Sept. 19 rul- ven the lawyers whose clients benefited from it were sur- prised to hear of the Supreme ing leaves in place the Ontario Court of Appeal's unanimous August 2008 decision uphold- ing Superior Court Justice Colin Campbell's approval of the plan almost three months earlier. "At the outset, when the ap- plication for leave was filed, my guess would have been that the Supreme Court would hear the appeal," says Kevin McElcher- an of McCarthy Tétrault LLP's Toronto office, who represented five Canadian chartered banks who supported the bailout. He probably wasn't the only one: to begin with, the stakes were huge. And this proceeding was so complex that understanding it represented a learning curve for Canada's finest corporate commer- cial and banking lawyers. Indeed, although McElcheran's factum op- posed the granting of leave, it ac- knowledged the case as "unique." Then there was the law. "ABCP brought together a half- dozen issues on the leading edge of insolvency law," notes Craig Hill of Borden Ladner Gervais LLP's Toronto office, a member of the firm's Montreal and Toronto- based legal team who were coun- sel for Ernst & Young, the moni- tor in the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act-based scenario. The issues included the pro- priety of converting the debtor trust to corporations, so that the CCAA would apply to them; the court's power to consolidate the proceedings by bringing in all the troubled entities into a single ap- plication; and the legality of the third-party releases demanded by certain parties as the price of facilitating the market funding necessary for the restructuring. Still, 96 per cent of the note- holders by number and value vot- ed in favour of the plan in April 2008. And none of the 60 groups "The decision means that the claim advanced is just an alternative category of loss . . . Justice Low doesn't open the door for double recovery |at all; to the contrary, he closes it." –– Christine Fotopoulos, lawyer, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP See Stickel , page 20 of stakeholders involved in the litigation objected to the plan in its entirety. But the broad third party including ABCP sellers, liquidity participants, releases built into the plan proved the major sticking point. The re- leases operated in favour of most third party market We still have conflicting approaches, and sooner or later, the issue has to be resolved. support providers, and asset pro- viders, all of whom were third par- ties in relation to the debtor trusts. Yet, however surprised McElch- eran may have been, its intensity pales beside the shock the refusal to grant leave engendered in James See Issue, page 2 Maybe you need a better mousetrap. Tel: 416.322.6111 Toll-free: 1.866.367.7648 www.doprocess.com Industry leader in legal software for real estate, corporate and estates for over a decade www.lawtimesnews.com

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