Three-legged stools

A play centre says someone demanded US$75,000 because it calls its dirty-toy bin a “yuck bucket” on TikTok. Turns out there’s a trademark for that. Now the centre is going to court over what it can call a bucket of toddler slobber.

Oh, the things we fight about.

— Dylan Gibbs

• Criminalizing sexuality

• Three-legged stools

• A dangerous lapse

• New tech, same bill

• Ill-advised texts

MAKING HEADLINES

🏳️‍🌈 Say goodbye to Trinidad and Tobago’s ban on gay sex. The Privy Council found the ban unconstitutional, though the judges still need to settle the remedy. Canadian lawyers Adam Goldenberg and Grace McDonell were among the counsel who argued for LGBTQ+ groups in the case.

🚚 Canadian importers are getting a longer break from counter-tariffs on U.S. goods. The federal government is expanding relief to cover more imports, including goods used in public education and non-steel goods used in oil and gas extraction. And the relief will now last until June 2028, about six months shy of the end of Trump's term.

💊 Saskatchewan wants opioid companies to cover the federal government's health care bill too. The province is proposing changes to its opioid litigation law that would let the federal government pursue its own costs alongside the provinces in the B.C.-led class action.

🤖 If your expert plans to use AI, you should hear about it before they write the report. That's the advice from English High Court Justice Joanna Smith, who says experts should discuss their plans with the lawyers who hire them. England and Wales is also considering a rule that would require experts to declare when AI helped produce the substance of their reports.

🤖 A new law firm has raised US$6 million to build a practice around AI and ditch the billable hour. Its lawyers handle corporate and commercial work in Canada and the U.S. for fixed fees, using software built in-house. The firm says its lawyers finish tasks in less than half the time they'd take at a traditional firm.

⚖️ A defence lawyer arrested while working inside an Oshawa courthouse is now suing Durham police for $7.1 million. Sudine Riley says officers slammed her head into a desk and knelt on her back and neck after questioning why she was in a courthouse interview room. Police charged Riley with trespassing. York police investigated the officers and found no grounds for criminal charges, but Riley's allegations are now headed to a different forum.

IN FOCUS

Help, I hired my wife

I’ve been running my business alone for three years. What I’ve learned is that being a solopreneur is hard. This newsletter’s publication schedule may have given that away …

This week, though, everything changed. My wife, Dasha, officially joined me as Chief Operating Officer. It took some convincing to get her to leave her VP Marketing job in tech, but here we are. My first hire. Her first week.

For you, dear Hearsay reader, this means a more consistent newsletter. That’s Dasha’s forte.

For members of Inn Laws — our community for entrepreneurial lawyers — it means more opportunities to connect, learn from peers, and soak up educational content that doesn’t induce an unplanned nap.

That’s the theory, anyway. And we put it to the test on Dasha’s very first day with a member-only event on using LinkedIn for business development.

Over the past year, I watched Dasha grow her LinkedIn following from 2,000 to 12,000, land speaking invitations, and become the co-host of a top podcast. When I had time to reflect (between moments of begging her to work with me), I was deeply inspired.

So, as soon as I could, I put her in front of the lawyers in our community.

I want our members’ names to come up when someone needs a lawyer or gets asked to recommend one. And that’s one of the key benefits of posting on LinkedIn.

Dasha described it using the 95/5 principle: roughly 95% of clients (and referral sources) don’t have work to give you on any given day. LinkedIn helps you stay familiar until the moment is right.

Okay, fine, so there might be some value to LinkedIn between all the AI slop and humble announcements. But what should lawyers actually talk about? Should we all turn ourselves into AI-powered thought leaders?

No. Please, no.

Follow Dasha’s three-part plan instead:

1) Pick three recurring subjects

Build yourself a three-legged stool by picking three broad subjects you enjoy and could keep writing about. Spend 90 seconds naming yours. Your practice area might be one of them, but it’s worth thinking more broadly (no one’s ever been hooked on consuming post after post about substantive law).

Our members shouted out some ideas that ranged from legal myth-busting to shaping firm culture. Dasha also threw up some examples for two hypothetical lawyers.

2) Save ideas while they’re fresh

Look for moments that fit those subjects: a question you answered, something you tried, a decision you made or a belief you changed.

What feels routine to you may be new to someone else. Save the idea while you still remember what made it interesting.

3) Narrate, don’t lecture

Pick an idea and try 100–150 words: what happened, what you noticed, and why it matters.

Compare these possible openings:

A) “Every founder needs to understand this: your first hire changes everything.”

B) “My first hire changed my job more than theirs.”

The second makes me want to know what changed. What hadn’t you anticipated? What did you learn? The first sounds like a lecture I didn’t sign up for.

Lead with the observation, then deliver what your opening promised. Read it aloud, rewrite wherever you stumble, and cut anything you wouldn’t miss. If AI helps edit, make sure your experience and voice survive. Then publish.

After the presentation, we shared some extra tidbits with our members, including AI prompts to uncover ideas, edit drafts, and build a reusable voice guide, and advice on whether to post personally or through their firm.

If you’ve been thinking about posting more often, save yourself some research and AI-drafting pain and give Dasha’s approach a try. And if you want to compare notes with other firm owners, apply to join Inn Laws.

FROM THE COURTS

1. A few seconds of inattention can still be dangerous driving
   R. v. Moshfeghi Zadeh, 2026 SCC 35

A driver ran a red light in downtown Vancouver and caused a crash that killed a toddler. The trial judge acquitted him of dangerous driving, treating three to five seconds of inattention as insufficient for criminal liability without something more. The SCC ordered a new trial, saying that the trial judge should have considered the hazards the driver could see, including a light that had been red long before the driver reached the intersection. Four judges would have left the acquittals alone, but all nine agreed that a brief lapse can amount to criminal dangerous driving. As the majority put it:

2. Alleging bad faith doesn't turn negligence into a different tort
   Phixaykoune v. Ontario, 2026 ONCA 773

A prisoner sued correctional officers for negligence after other inmates badly beat him. Provincial employees have immunity for work they do in good faith, so he alleged bad faith to get around that protection. Ontario said that triggered a separate rule: you need a judge's permission to sue the government or its employees for a tort based on bad faith. According to the Court of Appeal, though, that rule only applies when bad faith is an element of the tort itself. Negligence doesn't require bad faith, even if the prisoner needs to prove it to defeat the officers' immunity:

3. Check your cites (and the decision maker's)
   Horvath v. Canada, 2026 FC 1350

According to a refugee claim adjudicator, the Federal Court treats criminal harassment as a "serious non-political crime". The only problem was that he didn't provide a cite for that quote. And it sure seems like it doesn't exist. The federal government called it a typo, but the Federal Court ordered a fresh hearing.

4. Remote work still counts
   Unifor v. Groupe CRH Canada, 2026 QCCA 1460

A cement company had a non-union employee cover locked-out workers' jobs from home. The company argued that Quebec's anti-scab rules only applied to work done on-site, but the Court of Appeal disagreed. The replacement worker still worked at the plant, even though she was sitting at home.

BY THE NUMBERS

46%: the share of law firms whose clients have asked why AI hasn't led to lower fees. The figure comes from a BigHand survey of more than 800 law firm leaders and operations staff in the U.K. and North America.

$15 million: the capital gains a business owner would be able to shelter under the newly proposed Canada Growth Incentive. The exemption would apply to newly issued shares held for at least three years. Before you start pricing your own exit: law practices are expressly excluded.

10 years: the minimum time retired B.C. lawyer Ian Frank McTavish has agreed to stay out of practice after admitting he sexually harassed a family-law client. McTavish sent sexually suggestive messages and made unwanted physical contact with the woman. He said he was trying to build her confidence.

THINGS NOT TO DO 😤

Don't text your disciplinary musings to a colleague.

An Ontario paralegal is getting a new hearing after a member of his disciplinary panel suggested the Law Society should push for revocation. The panel had already found Antonio Caruso guilty of misconduct but hadn't decided the penalty.

Adjudicator Michael Radan texted a colleague shortly after the misconduct finding:

Radan was referring to Glenn Stuart, the Law Society official in charge of discipline prosecution.

The recipient of the text message reported it, which led the disciplinary panel to find a reasonable apprehension of bias. The panel threw out the earlier misconduct finding, recused itself, and ordered a new hearing before a fresh panel.