#legal-licensing-ontario

#legal-licensing-ontario

For the first time in three years, more law firms are planning to expand their office footprint, rather than contract, according to a new report from commercial real estate brokerage CBRE.

The legal profession rewards endurance, precision and control. It also quietly normalizes stress, isolation and overextension. For patent practitioners and other IP lawyers, the pressures are uniquely acute: compressed prosecution deadlines, high-stakes litigation exposure, often unrealistic client-driven budget constraints, regulatory whiplash at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and increasingly complex technologies layered with global filing and prosecution strategy.

The rule changes create the opportunity for additional entities to carry out an accrediting and gatekeeping function on behalf of the Court,

Charron, who has been in the motorcoach industry for more than 30 years, will replace François Tremblay on the ABA Board of Directors. Tremblay, president of Prevost, was honored for his nine years of board service at the recent ABA Marketplace in Reno, NV,

Singh "has been placed in a special handling unit and has had limited access to counsel and the outside world since then," his lawyer Christopher Lutes said at a brief hearing on Wednesday. Singh has been held at the maximum-security Toronto South Detention Centre (TSDC) since he was arrested in October 2024 at his then residence, on the 34th floor of Toronto's former Trump Hotel.

Introduced by California Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Tom Umberg, a Democratic state senator from Santa Ana, California, the new bill codifies many guidelines for the use of AI in the practice of law that were published by the State Bar of California's Standing Committee on Professional Responsibility and Conduct in 2023, according to Law.com. Among its provisions, it requires attorneys to remove confidential personal identifying information from AI systems and to verify the accuracy of AI-produced material.

Ontario will consolidate its 36 conservation authorities into nine across the province. Environment Minister Todd McCarthy says there will be no job losses as a result. He says the province listened to feedback after several town halls and 14,000 comments on its plan, which initially proposed having seven conservation authorities.

A 20-year-old man has been charged with threatening Ontario Premier Doug Ford, provincial police said Thursday. The Ontario Provincial Police, which is tasked with protecting premiers, said the investigation began in mid-February and culminated in the man facing one count of uttering threats to cause harm.

The penalty the bureau is proposing would either be three times the value of the benefit derived from Google's allegedly anticompetitive practices or, "if that amount cannot be reasonably determined," three per cent of Google's annual worldwide gross revenues. Google said that could leave it paying up to $91-billion - a sum it described as "shocking, gargantuan" and "unprecedented in Canadian history" because it is hundreds of times larger than the biggest criminal fines ever imposed.

Ontario and Nova Scotia have agreed to let their residents buy alcohol directly from the other's province, part of the premiers' ongoing work to bolster interprovincial trade. Producers of beer, wine and spirits can start applying Tuesday to the province's liquor corporation for authorizations to do the direct-to-consumer sales, a process the premiers say will only take a matter of days.

From law firms to in-house legal teams, the rules of value are being rewritten. The question is: Who's ready to lead the change? In the first episode of 2026 for the UpLevel View podcast, Stephanie Corey and Ken Callander sit down with Rita Gunther McGrath, Columbia Business School professor and Wall Street Journal columnist, to talk about how AI is forcing professional services to price outcomes instead of hours.

"pushed us rather quickly into the 21st century instead."

Ontario's premier, Doug Ford, has warned rye drinkers they will need to stock up if they want to keep consuming Crown Royal, as he promised to make good on plans to banish the iconic Canadian whisky brand from his province. Ford has since September been locked in a simmering feud over tariffs and economic nationalism with the multinational spirits maker Diageo plc.

The inspector general, a relatively new arm's-length position tasked by the province with overseeing policing, was asked to investigate Thursday after eight current and retired Toronto officers were charged in an organized crime and corruption investigation. The case immediately raised questions about whether systemic issues contributed to organized crime's alleged infiltration of the ranks, said Kent Roach, a University of Toronto law professor and contributor to several high-profile police inquiries. Those questions, he said, are best answered by a civilian-led investigation.

The offices "will ensure parents have a direct way to raise concerns, get help, and find solutions faster," Education Minister Paul Calandra said in a message to TDSB families last November.