Future of Law Conference

The Future of Law Conference, part of the University of Saskatchewan College of Law’s centennial celebrations, will take place on November 1-2, 2012. The event will consist of an opening address and reception on the evening of Thursday, November 1, 2012 and a full-day conference and dinner on Friday November 2, 2012.

Registration

Register now online at www.picatic.com/futureoflaw to take advantage of special early-bird rates. Please note that space is limited.

One all-inclusive registration price of $345 ($295 early bird) gives you access to a superb lineup of speakers who will address themes of interest to legal practitioners, academics, judges, students, and others. Registration also includes admittance to the Thursday evening reception, Friday lunch, and Friday evening banquet (supplementary banquet tickets are available for guests).

Accommodation & Travel

It will be a busy weekend in Saskatoon, so for the convenience of those travelling from outside of the city, we have booked a hotel block at the Delta Bessborough. Book your room now at https://www.deltabessborough.com/cguofsco (Booking deadline: Sept. 30)

For those travelling by air, Air Canada, the official airline of the Future of Law Conference, is providing special rates on Air Canada flights to Saskatoon. Use promotion code C4QYGEV1 through your travel agent or on www.aircanada.com.

CPD Credits

This conference has been approved for 8 CPD hours (including 3 Ethics hours) in Saskatchewan. Approval in other jurisdictions is pending.

Confirmed Speakers

• Dr. Richard Susskind, internationally-known author of The End of Lawyers?
• Former Supreme Court of Canada Justice Ian Binnie will speak on Aboriginal rights and the future of law
• Professor Paul Paton (McGeorge School of Law), well-known for his comments on profession issues, will discuss looking beyond the American Bar Association Commission on Ethics 20/20 to think about globalization and technology alongside regulation and legal education.
• Professor Patrick Glenn (McGill), internationally known and prize-winning author, will speak about the profession and legal traditions as well as about his new book, The Cosmpolitan State
• Judge Abdul Koroma, former Judge of the International Court of Justice (‘World Court’), will give the opening address on the future of international law
• Professor Michael Geist (Ottawa) will share his expertise on technology and the law

Scheduled Speaker Panels

• Legal Traditions and Disappearing Jurisdictional Boundaries
  • Patrick Glenn from McGill, Judge Gerald Morin from the Cree Court, Penny Andrews from Albany
• The Future of Legal Education
  • Harry Arthurs from Osgoode, Lorne Sossin from Osgoode, John Whyte from Regina
• Future Models of Legal Services – Readers Meet Author of Avoiding Extinction: Reimagining Legal Services for the 21^st Century
  • author Mitch Kowalski, with Ian Holloway from Calgary, Nancy Hopkins from McDougall Gauley, Tom Schonhoffer from the Law Society of Saskatchewan, and chair Brent Cotter
• Innovations and Future Challenges in Legal Decisionmaking and Dispute Resolution
  • Karim Benyekhlef from U de Montréal, Michael Mills from Neota Logic in New York City, April Grosse from Bennett Jones
• Access to Legal Services and Future Challenges for the Self-Regulating Legal Profession
  • Michael Trebilcock from Toronto, Adam Dodek from Ottawa
• Law Firm Mergers and Ethical and Practice Issues with New Models of Legal Practice
  • Aaron Harmon from North Carolina, Nick Kangles from Norton Rose, Patricia Warsaba from McKercher LLP
• Therapeutic Jurisprudence and the Future for Law as Agent of Human Healing
  • David Wexler from Arizona, Donald Worme from Segamis Worme, Dan Ish from Indian Residential Schools Adjudication Secretariat
• Technology and the Law
  • Douglas Hodson from MacPherson Leslie & Tyerman, Reginald Watson from Miller Thomson, and Brian Pfefferle from Pfefferle Law Office

More conference and banquet speakers to come – check back soon!
_{Speakers are subject to change.}

Conference Theme Statement

Why you cannot miss this event!

The law as practised in Saskatchewan and other common law Canadian jurisdictions has been, and continues to be, buffeted by various forces of change. At the same time, there are obvious ongoing sociological and demographic changes. These changes include technological changes that have begun to and will continue to impact on the nature of legal practice. They include forces of nationalization and globalization that have had effects that some have gone so far as to call “disappearing jurisdictions”. Traditional jurisdictional boundaries may have become less important in light of increased mobility of lawyers, increased mobility of clients and their legal problems, (re)recognition and changing interactions of different legal traditions and sources, and trends to interjurisdictional law firm mergers. They include ongoing pulls and pushes away from traditional modes of adjudicative dispute resolution. They include evolving pressures on the role and structure of legal education and on the regulation of the profession. How do individual lawyers and firms, the legal profession generally, legal academics, law students, and others, best respond to these forces and equip themselves to take up new opportunities within the future of law?

In celebration of the Centennial of the University of Saskatchewan College of Law in 2012, and taking this centennial moment as an opportunity to look forward into the next 100 years from a specific vantage point, but on themes of wider interest as well, the “Future of Law” conference will invite discussion and feature keynotes and panels on the following four themes:

• developing technology and the nature of legal practice
• disappearing jurisdictional boundaries and resulting impacts on the practice of law
• ongoing evolution of modes of dispute resolution and challenges associated with those evolutions
• changing expectations for legal education and the self-regulating profession.

Please check back regularly for updated conference information.

Centennial Academic Conference Sub-Committee:

Dwight Newman, chair
Doug Surtees (faculty)
Greg Walen (Law Society of Saskatchewan)
Curtis Onishenko (CBA)
Chelsea Wilson (student)
Samer Awadh (student)

Thanks to Our Sponsors

The Future of Law Conference appreciates the sponsorships it has received from the College of Law, the Law Foundation of Saskatchewan, CBA Saskatchewan, and the University of Saskatchewan Conference Fund. We also would like to thank Air Canada, official airline of the conference.

Please contact conference chair Dwight Newman if you are interested in sponsoring this event.

Thank you for visiting the online home of Brian Pfefferle, Saskatoon Criminal Lawyer.