Registration & Breakfast
Grand Salon

Opening Remarks
Grand Salon

Jonathan Griffith, Conference co-chair, Member, CBA Ethics and Professional Responsibility Committee

Session 1 - Competence and Diversity
Grand Salon

Where do diversity and inclusion fit into a practitioner’s ethical and professional duties? This panel will explore the potential gaps in the regulatory framework, arguments that interrogate a practitioner’s role in diversity and inclusion objectives and potential solutions that may help clarify a duty to be culturally competent.

Moderator: Sunil Gurmukh Assistant Professor and Assistant (Dean, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Decolonization), Western University's Faculty of Law

Speakers:
Noel Semple, Associate Professor, University of Windsor
Alice H. Xiao, Thomson Rogers (Toronto, ON)
Paul Jonathan Saguil, TD Bank Group (Toronto, ON)

Health Break
Foyer

Session 2 – Law and Generative AI
Grand Salon

In this session regulators, academics and practitioners will discuss the impact of artificial intelligence on the delivery of legal services and access to justice. The session will consider the pros and cons of using Generative AI when seeking legal advice or providing legal services and will discuss how Generative AI will impact the work of the justice system.

Moderator: Darcia Senft, General Counsel and Director, Policy and Ethics, Law Society of Manitoba

Speakers:
Abdi Aidid, Assistant Professor, University of Toronto
Maura R. Grossman, JD, PhD Research Professor, University of Waterloo
Art Wilson, Manager, Access to Innovation, Law Society of Ontario

Lunch with Keynote Speakers – Neurotechnology and the Practice of Law: Legal Ethics Intersections

Recent years have seen significant advances in both the technical capacity and commercial accessibility of technological tools that monitor and interact with our brains and nervous systems. What might existing and emerging neurotechnologies mean for the Canadian legal profession? This keynote will seek to answer this question with a focus on legal ethics intersections.

Moderator: Stephen G.A. Pitel, Conference co-chair, President, CALE

Speakers:
Amy Salyzyn, Associate Professor, University of Ottawa
Ian Stedman, Assistant Professor, York University

Introduction of New CBA Toolkit – Artificial Intelligence
Grand Salon

The CBA has been regularly producing online resources tailored for practitioners, including a series of toolkits. This year it is introducing a toolkit on the legal ethics of AI. The toolkit offers guidance on the reasonable deployment of AI in legal practice. It explains and evaluates the impact of assisted/automated legal services delivery. Look for the toolkit on the CBA website and in member mailboxes in the spring of 2024.

Moderator: Stephen G.A. Pitel, Professor, Western University

Speaker: Darcia Senft, Chair, CBA Ethics and Professional Responsibility Committee

Session 3 – The Duty to Report – How Far Does This Ethical Obligation Extend?
Grand Salon

This session will review the current formulation of the duty to report in the Model Code and consider possible changes in light of key current issues. One of these issues is the scope of the duty when the misconduct is discrimination or harassment and whether this duty should extend to lawyers who are the victims of the misconduct or who would be harmed by making the report. A second issue is lawyer wellness, flowing from the first comprehensive national study on wellness in the Canadian legal profession published in October 2022. Is lawyer wellness harmed when there is a broad duty to self-report or to report others, and does this need to be revisited?

Moderator: Carsten Jensen, K.C., JSS Barristers (Calgary, AB)

Speakers:
Brook Greenberg, K.C., Faskens (Vancouver, BC)
Jonathan Griffith, Practice Advisor, Law Society of Alberta
Claire Marchant, Director, Policy & Practice, Law Society of British Columbia
Amy Salyzyn, Associate Professor, University of Ottawa

Closing Remarks

Carsten Jensen, K.C., Conference co-chair, Chair, FLSC Standing Committee on the Model Code of Professional Conduct