As you probably know, 2025 marks the 20th consecutive year in which your esteemed panel of judges has selected a small number of (mostly) Canadian online legal entities to receive a Canadian Law Blog Award (or Clawbie). So much has changed in that time – in the world, certainly, but also in the legal sector, within the legal profession, and in the legal marketing and information space.

We’d like to take a few moments to share with you some observations about what we’ve seen over the years, and where things stand today.

The Democratization of Legal Publishing

It’s difficult for any lawyer called to the bar within the last 20 years ago to fully appreciate how much the arrival of blogging in the early 2000s changed the legal sector. Before then, “legal publishing” was almost exclusively the domain of national companies (Butterworths, anyone? CCH? Canada Law Book?) and then international conglomerates. These corporations published textbooks, case reporters, and weekly newspapers, and their few competitors were mostly large entities like the Canadian Bar Association. Lawyers were consumers of legal information, not creators of it.

That all changed with blogging. Lawyers found a voice they didn’t even realize they had, and discovered the intoxicating thrill of getting their own views and assessments and analyses of legal issues out into the world, without corporate gatekeeping and its artificial scarcity of distribution. We take this for granted today, but it wasn’t always the case. So pour one out this evening for the lawyers and legal professionals (highlighted below) who broke this new ground and showed the legal profession that it had both the right and the capability to tell their clients, their markets, and the world what they thought about the law. We stand on their shoulders.

The Legitimization of Legal Marketing

Another feature of the pre-millennial legal profession was that in many ways, “marketing” was the legal business practice that dared not speak its name. Large law firm partners would reject marketing campaigns on the basis that their competitors in other firms might find it “unseemly.” (True story.) Lawyers have always been weird about promoting themselves – not because they didn’t think they were great lawyers (of course they did), but because of longstanding hangups in the professional culture about self-promotion.

The hard work of legal marketing professionals over the last two decades is the biggest reason why these attitudes have all but faded from the scene. But we believe blogging played a role too, because lawyers themselves were able to engage directly with their desired audiences and tell them what they thought they needed to know. And in so doing, they came to more fully understand the business obligations and opportunities of marketing your legal services – regardless of what anyone else might think.

The Flourishing of Canadian Legal Content

Legal blogging (or “blawgging,” as it was briefly known) was not brand new when Steve Matthews published the inaugural Clawbie Awards in 2006. Pioneers like Dennis Kennedy had been promoting legal blogs and bloggers in the US for several years, including Dennis’s year-end “Blawggie Awards.” The ever-popular Blawg Review also ran a series of year-end awards. But Canadian entries were a bit of a rare commodity, even though many great Canadian law blogs were generating terrific content week after week. Not for the first or last time, Canadian voices needed their own entity to avoid being overlooked.

Today, the Canadian legal publishing ecosystem is crowded, noisy, vibrant, diverse, and tremendously valuable. Lawyers and legal professionals all over the country write, speak, and video-record their views on what’s happening in the legal sector and what it means for lawyers, clients, and the general public. The Canadian “blawgosphere” (we’ll use the old term, even if it’s no longer completely accurate) is not just a tremendous resource for everyone interested in the law; it’s also a lot of fun to be around.

Like we said, this year marks our 20th anniversary of Clawbie awarding. And if you’ll forgive this brief suspension of our famous modesty – we feel pretty good about the contributions we’ve made over the years to that Canadian legal publishing ecosystem. All we ever wanted the Clawbies to do, was to tell Canadian legal professionals, hey: You have a voice! You have legitimate views and important insights, unique to this country and its legal system, and they deserve to be heard. It’s incredibly fulfilling for us to see how amazingly well the Canadian legal profession has heeded that message and embraced that opportunity.

What does the future hold? We can’t say. We believe very strongly that what we wrote last year – about the critical importance of truth-telling by lawyers in an age of misinformation and disinformation about the law and people’s rights to it – applies even more strongly now than it did back then. We want to encourage everyone reading this article, no matter your role in the legal sector, to step up and meet this challenge. Somebody has to stand up for what’s true and what’s just. Lawyers, this starts (and maybe ends) with you.

Beyond that? Well – it might perhaps be the case that after 20 years, the Canadian legal publishing ecosystem has more than enough momentum and strength to carry itself forward on its own, and that the Clawbie Awards might no longer be necessary. The world has changed in  20 years, and what we set out to encourage back in 2006 – diverse Canadian legal voices speaking openly and confidently online – has come to pass. Maybe our work here is done.

But we’ll see. The future could go any number of different directions, and maybe the evolving needs and demands of the Canadian legal sector in the years to come will mean the Clawbies will return, perhaps in a different form or manifested in a different way. We’re not closing or locking any doors today.

What we really want to do, before we finally turn the podium over to this year‘s winners, is to say: Thank you. Thank you for supporting the Clawbies for the last 20 years, as both producers of legal information, as nominators of your colleagues and co-workers, and as consumers of all the great content they’ve provided. Thank you for showing up here every New Year’s Eve for what we still like to call “not necessarily the most important awards of the year, but definitely the last to be handed out.”

It’s been a great ride, and we’re so glad, and so grateful, that you all came along.

À bientot?
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Please join us in celebrating the 2025 Clawbies winners!

1. 2025 Fodden Award 

Since 2010, the Fodden Award (named for Simon Fodden, the legendary founder of Slaw.ca) has been the Clawbies’ top honour for Canadian legal commentary, recognizing a single, outstanding author or publication. This year’s winner is:

Robert Diab

Our Fodden Award winner this year manages the remarkable feat of publishing terrific legal content in two separate legal realms. Launched almost exactly a year ago, Robert’s eponymous Substack (linked above) explores the hot-button issues of constitutional law and digital freedoms in Canada and abroad, with a particular focus on privacy and expression. But Robert also writes a column at Slaw that zeroes in on the implications of artificial intelligence in the legal sector and especially in law school. As a professor in the Faculty of Law at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, BC, Robert speaks to both these issues with incisive clarity and first-hand experience, giving both practitioners and students important insights into two rapidly developing areas of law. We’re proud to give our 10th Fodden Award to Robert Diab.

2. Best Canadian Law Blog

• Bow River Law’s Employment Law Blog – The lawyers at Calgary’s Bow River Law, which specializes in employment law, have one of the best examples of a modern law firm blog that we’ve seen in many years. Written articles and accessible videos from a wide range of personnel show how to leverage a law firm’s collective talents to publish engaging commentary.

• First Peoples Law Blog – A law firm dedicated to defending and advancing the rights of Indigenous Peoples, with offices in Ottawa and Vancouver, First Peoples Law published many excellent posts on its blog from a wide range of lawyers, canvassing news, caselaw, and initiatives related to Indigenous Peoples across the country.

• The John Howard Society Blog – One of the legal sector’s most important organizations gave us a blog with 24 posts this year that covered topics including humanizing criminal records to support employment, how incarceration is strongly linked to homelessness, and why needle exchange programs in federal prisons fall short.

3. Best Substack or Newsletter

• Ian Mackenzie – Formerly an adjudicator for 22 years with Ontario and federal tribunals, and a regular columnist for Slaw since 2012, Ian’s newsletter explores administrative law in Canada from the perspective of a practicing adjudicator. “An Adjudicator’s Toolkit” featured three podcasts this year, too.

• Supreme Advocacy – Consistently one of the most informative legal periodicals in the country, the newsletter of Ottawa’s Supreme Advocacy LLP delivers weekly analyses of Supreme Court of Canada decisions as well as monthly reports on important rulings from provincial and federal Courts of Appeal.

• Lawdroid Manifesto – Vancouver-based legal technology developer and legal AI thought leader Tom Martin delivers one of the best newsletters about the rise and implementation of generative artificial intelligence in the legal system that you’ll find anywhere, not just in Canada. Interviews, profiles, manifestos and more.

4. Best Open Web Publishing

This award recognizes online legal publishing that has a particular focus on improving public legal knowledge and access to justice in Canada.

• CanLII Theses and Dissertations – There are almost too many amazing public legal information resources at CanLII to choose just one, but we want to highlight the newly launched “Theses and Dissertations” search engine, which allows users to find scholarly works from legal academics that haven’t always found a published home.

• SRL Resources – The National Self-Represented Litigants Project has provided immense value to countless self-represented parties with this list of information, tips and other materials for many years.

• Verdicts and Voices – Produced by the Canadian Bar Association in Ottawa, this show explains legal issues for both a public and a legal audience with real care, strong research, and a genuine interest in how the law affects people across Canada.

5. Best Canadian Legal Podcast

• The Canadian Charity Law Podcast – Hosted by Toronto’s B.I.G. Charity Law Group, this podcast explores charity registration, not-for-profit incorporation, charity governance and fundraising, and other charity law issues for a general audience.

• Friends Who Argue — Created by young lawyers at The Advocates’ Society in Toronto, this podcast gives a close look at the practice of litigation in Canada by interviewing litigators  who share real-life stories about the craft, challenges, and the human aspects  of trial advocacy.

• Studying Law Around the World Podcast – Hosted by Claudio Klaus, an articling student at Toronto’s Northview Law, this podcast explores the global landscape of legal education, with insights from more than ten prestigious law schools and discussions with legal professionals from almost 20 jurisdictions.

6. Best YouTube Series

There are so many great videocasts produced by Canadian legal professionals that we decided to create an additional category to honour those that are native to YouTube.

• Cases That Should Have Gone to the Supreme Court of Canada , But Didn’t – Last year’s Fodden Award winner, Kyla Lee of Vancouver, returns to the Clawbie ranks this year with her aptly titled videocast that ought to be required viewing for appellate lawyers across the country (and maybe by the SCC itself!).

• Maya Shukairy’s Law Break – The recently launched podcast of Ottawa criminal defense lawyer Maya Shukairy has already hosted a number of impressive guest interviewees, including Michael Spratt, Alison Craig, Simon Borys, and Peter Sankoff. Her episodes focusing on female defence lawyers were a particular highlight.

• Nuanced with Aaron Pete – Aaron Pete is the Chief of Chawathil First Nation, a graduate of the Peter A. Allard School of Law, and the Manager of Strategic Relationships with Metis Nation BC. His Youtube series Nuanced with Aaron Pete matches elite production quality with incredibly impressive guest interviews, including both leaders of BC’s political parties prior to the last provincial election. Nuanced is also impressive because of its PLE and substantive nature, exemplified by its breakdown of the Cowichan Tribes ruling on property rights.

• Privacy Lawyer – One of Canada’s longest-tenured and most influential legal bloggers, David Fraser of Halifax’s McInnes Cooper, is also host of this insightful podcast that  distills complex privacy issues into understandable terms for other lawyers and members of the public.

7. Best LinkedIn Publishing

With the demise of “LawTwitter” as we once knew it, many legal professionals have taken to publishing more frequently on LinkedIn. Here are two lawyers who’ve made the transition exceptionally well.

• Selwyn Pieters – A securities, human rights, and criminal litigation lawyer in Toronto, Pieters uses LinkedIn’s publishing capacity to its fullest with photos, videos, posts and discussions On a wide range of topics both specific to his practice areas and applicable to the Ontario legal profession in general.

• Colin Lachance – An Ottawa-based legal technology consultant and most recently the OBA’s Innovator-in-Residence, LaChance is one of the most widely read and thoughtful legal tech voices on LinkedIn globally, not just in Canada, leading important discussions in particular on the future of legal AI.

8. The Slaw All-Stars

By longstanding tradition, regular columnists at Slaw.ca have not been eligible for Clawbie awards. While this policy has helped encourage recognition of online legal publishing on other platforms, an unfortunate side effect has been that many brilliant writers for Canada’s online news magazine have not received as much credit and praise as they deserve. We’d like to rectify that today.

We couldn’t possibly recognize every regular Slaw columnist of the last 20 years here, and the following list of columnists is only a partial accounting of the many stalwart writers and contributors who’ve given so much to the Canadian legal information ecosystem over the years. But we wanted to turn the spotlight on these five people (and one institution) in particular:

• Kari D. Boyle – Kari’s column on dispute resolution never fails to serve up a challenging new perspective or a book worth reading. Kari always points her readers in fascinating and important new directions.

• Melanie Hodges Neufeld – Always a consistent performer, Melanie gave Slaw readers a rockstar 2025, exploring topics like emotional intelligence, plain-language writing, and practical guidance on constructing effective prompts for AI LLMs.

• Gary Rodrigues – Posthumously, we’re proud and grateful to recognize Canadian legal publishing legend Gary Rodrigues, described by many as a walking encyclopedia of stories about Canadian legal publishing. We will miss you, Gary.

• Amy Salyzyn – Over a full decade of Slaw authorship on Canadian legal ethics, Amy has become one of Canada’s leading voices tracking the intersection of ethics, AI, and law practice standards.

• Noel Semple – One of Slaw’s most incisive authors, Noel consistently challenges the “big ideas” of law practice and legal education while asking hard questions about how our legal institutions deliver justice.

• Société québécoise d’information juridique (SOQUIJ) – Simon Fodden once quipped that any Anglo-Canadian lawyer “worth their salt” should read one French-language decision each week. SOQUIJ has been integral to educating Canadian lawyers at Slaw for more than 12 years, to everyone’s benefit.

9. One More Time: The Clawbies Hall of Fame

Several years ago, when we found that certain law blogs and online legal periodicals were placing first, second, or third in so many different Clawbie categories, that we decided we needed a “Hall of Fame” in which to honour these publications and gracefully retire them from competition, in order to help open the door to new winners in future years.

Of course, one problem with a Hall of Fame is that not everyone has a chance to visit! And so these extraordinary online legal periodicals might not be as well-known to current readers as they should be. Accordingly, to round out our 20th anniversary Clawbie Awards, please join us in applauding and honouring this partial list of the very best that Canada’s legal community of online legal publishers has given us over the years:

• ABlawg
• Dan Pinnington & Avoid a Claim
• David Bilinsky
• David Doorey
• David Whelan
• Erik Magraken
• Garry Wise
• Legal Sourcery
• Lisa Stam
• Michael Geist
• Michel-Adrien Sheppard
• Myrna McCallum
• Paul Daly
• Reconcili-ACTION YEG
• Rod Escayola
• Sean Bawden
• Slaw
• The Court
• The Docket
• Will Tao

And that’s all (we) wrote, folks! Congratulations to all our winners and nominees, and keep up the fantastic work, next year and every year. From all of us here at the Clawbie Awards – esteemed alumnus Emma Durand-Wood, judges Jordan Furlong and Sarah Sutherland, and most of all, our founder – the man with the vision in 2006 who made it all come to pass, Steve Matthews – thank you for taking the time to send with us every New Year’s Eve for 20 years. We’ll see you all online!

Where were you in December 2006? Were you listening to speeches from Prime Minister Paul Martin or US President George W. Bush? Just returned from seeing Borat in theatres, listening to Eve Avila or were excited when Justin Timberlake’s ‘SexyBack’ came on the car radio?

It’s possible you might have just joined a new online platform that had recently changed its name from “Twttr.” But you weren’t scrolling through it on your iPhone, because Steve Jobs was still a month away from unveiling that device. Legal technology trends of the day included VoIP, RSS, and Web 2.0.

Perhaps the surest sign that you were a lawyer on the cutting edge was that you were reading the Vancouver Law Librarian Blog, written by Steve Matthews, the Knowledge Services Director at Clark Wilson LLP in Vancouver. Steve was six months away from launching Stem Legal Web Enterprises, his legal publishing and web consultancy.

But in December 2006, Steve was one of a literal handful of Canadian legal professionals to embrace blogging, and sooner than most, he could see the potential of this new platform for promoting legal professionals and creating online communities. And even while legal blogging was growing rapidly, there wasn’t much that was definitively Canadian about it. Almost no recognition for the Canadian pioneers of this new communication form.

And so, almost two years to the day after his own first blog post, Steve published the very first “Canadian Law Blog Awards,” immediately nicknamed the “Clawbies” (in homage to the US-based “Blawggies” and “Blawg Review”). Most of the inaugural winners can now all be found in the Clawbies Hall of Fame: Connie Crosby, Michael Geist, David Fraser, Alison Wolf, and Michel-Adrien Sheppard. And a tradition was born.

Twenty years later, so much has changed. Blogs peaked in the mid-2010s, then plateaued and settled into a graceful decline as Twitter, Facebook, and other social media monoliths took most of the oxygen out of online legal commentary. Large law firms discovered blogging, and while the subsequent explosion of content was mostly welcome, it did feel like something was lost in the migration from individual personalities to corporate LegalSpeak.

Today, the universe of online legal content is so much larger and more diversified than it was when the first Clawbies were handed out. Blogs were joined by social media accounts, podcasts, video blogs (remember “vlogs”?), online newsletter platforms, and even TikTok accounts. Year after year, the Clawbies kept up, adding new categories, sleuthing new voices, and encouraging legal professionals to step out into the spotlight.

In such a diverse and increasingly cacophonous environment for online legal publishing, is there a need anymore for an awards program that highlights the best such publishing in Canada? Probably. But at this, our 20-year mark, it may be time to pause and to take stock of the future.

But we do know this: No matter who you are, turning 20 is a cause for celebration! And so we’re proud and excited to announce the 20th Annual Clawbie Awards! And this year, we’re throwing the doors wide open!

Today, December 1st, we’re seeking nominations for our annual awards seeking the best, most original, and most influential Canadian legal content on the Web. That includes:

•         Blogs;
•         Newsletters;
•         Podcasts;
•         Videos, and
•         Social Media Accounts

But this year, there are no limits on nominees — every great Canadian law blog listed in the Clawbies Hall of Fame is also eligible for nomination! Even classic Canadian law blogs that are no longer active — give them a shout-out! This is a blow-out bash, and we want to invite everyone!

And this is where you come in, faithful Clawbie community! Nominate your own favourite candidates in all these categories, and spread the word among your colleagues and friends that the 20th-anniversary Clawbies — presented, as always, on New Year’s Eve — will be a party for the ages!

Eligibility

The Clawbies celebrate free online Canadian legal content: blogs, podcasts, videos, social accounts, legal newsletters, platform commentary, CanLII Connects, white papers, and more.

Participation

While we always review everyone listed at Lawblogs.ca, we also need you, the Clawbie community, to bring to our attention the most helpful, engaging, and informative Canadian legal content — especially newer publications in their first or second year.

On LinkedIn or BlueSky, we’re still tracking the classic hashtag #clawbies2025 — be sure to include it in your nominations.

Rules

We’re nothing if not consistent! We have the same two rules every year:

#1 “The Humble Canadian”: Please don’t nominate your own publication or project for a Clawbie. The only reliable way to bring your work to our attention is to nominate other candidates — follow this rule, and we’ll take a look at your work too!

#2 “Three and Free”: Nominate up to three digital publications or authors (remember to use the #clawbies2024 hashtag) that are freely available, at no monetary cost. Include a brief explanation of why you think those publications deserve an award.

Nominations will be accepted until the end of day on Monday, December 15th, 2025. Then stay tuned for the big reveal on New Year’s Eve.

Make this one for the record books, folks! It’s the biggest Clawbies part of them all — fill out your invitations today!

They were also teaching us that “the law” – a system of rules and principles that governs a society – should be the core concept around which we could build the institutions and interactions of daily life in a free country. We learned that not only was the law strong enough to bear such a heavy weight, but that it was worthy to be the central gravitational entity around which our society could orbit, fairly, sustainably, and humanely.

We’ve long understood these truths implicitly – but maybe we haven’t always expressed them explicitly. It’s human nature to grow accustomed to even the most extraordinary things if they happen to be in your vicinity. When was the last time you visited a famous historical or natural landmark in your own city or town? Similarly, the law can lose some of its power and purpose for lawyers, simply because we use it every day to make a living.

As you surely know by now, from the news reports coming every day, we are about to enter a period of our history in which “the law” is going to really, really matter. We will witness, and maybe personally experience, not just violations of laws, rules, principles, and norms, but denigrations of them – and of those people who believe that the law has inherent, civilization-level value. We will very quickly come to appreciate that “the law” can’t be taken for granted – it has to be stood up for, justified, defended, advanced.

And we will also look around and realize that standing up, justifying, defending and advancing the law is now down to us.

The power and status granted to the people who practise law comes with an equivalent responsibility and duty: to tell people the truth about the law, to empower people to use the law to improve their lives, and to organize and lead people in defence of the rule of law in our society. The law matters – because the truth matters.

Here at the Clawbie Awards, as we watch the last hours of 2024 tick away, we believe that 2025 will be The Year of the Truth-Teller. This will be the year in which the people who know exactly what the law is, says, and does – that is to say, each one of you and each one of us – make it our mission to ensure everyone else understands these truths too, and can act on them.

In preparation for the work ahead, and to set the tone for this coming mission, we’ll pause here on New Year’s Eve and honour the Truth-Tellers already among us – those members of the legal profession who’ve shown leadership by providing trustworthy, reliable, and actionable information about the law throughout the year.

And so it’s time for the 19th Annual Clawbie Awards, honouring the best online Canadian legal content from the past year. Selected from among your nominations and those of our Judging Committee, we’ve identified what we believe are the best legal blogs, newsletters, podcasts, and other publications and periodicals in the Canadian legal landscape.

We congratulate every one of our winners and nominees, and we urge you not only to read and listen to what they have to say, but to be inspired by them and to become Truth-Tellers yourselves, in 2025 and beyond. We are all part of a movement to make clear and visible the value and importance of the law.

Please join us in celebrating the 2024 Clawbies winners!

2024 Fodden Award 

Since 2010, the Fodden Award has been the Clawbies’ top honour for Canadian legal commentary, recognizing a single, outstanding author or publication. This year’s winner is:

Kyla Lee

At a time when people need courageous voices amplifying their rights and defending their interests, no voice has been stronger or more reliable than criminal defence lawyer Kyla Lee of Acumen Law Corporation in Vancouver. An extraordinarily prolific author and broadcaster year after year, Kyla surpassed even her own high standards in 2024: more than 300 written blog posts, 50 episodes of her “Driving Law” podcast, and 41 editions of her vlog “Cases That Should Have Gone to the Supreme Court of Canada, But Didn’t.” There are well-funded legal media organizations in this country that struggle to match that output. Kyla is the face and voice of legal matters on mainstream radio and TV in British Columbia, speaking directly, accessibly, and informatively to everyday Canadians about the law. She is the modern model of Canadian legal information publishing, and we could not be more pleased to bestow our highest honour, the Simon Fodden Award, to Kyla Lee.

Best Legal Blogs of 2024

Benjamin Perrin

Professor Benjamin Perrin of the UBC Faculty of Law set the gold standard for Canadian law prof blogging in 2024. His blog directly tackled some of the most complex and controversial topics in modern law, with a particular focus on the impact of artificial intelligence on our lives and laws. Especially important were his posts challenging the reliability of AI legal research tools (instigating a defence from a global legal information company) and examining the impact of autonomous weapons on international humanitarian law and the future of war.

Heather Gray Grant
Past Clawbies winners drew heavily from a wide array of Canadian law practice and management blogs, but those publications have dwindled in recent years. So it’s refreshing to see one of the country’s most experienced legal marketers and strategic consultants, Heather Gray Grant of Vancouver, consistently offer practical advice for law firms in 2024. Managing difficult partners, embracing firm failures, and recruiting large teams of lawyers were just some of the topics of Heather’s insightful posts this year.

OKT Writes

Over the years, we’ve scaled back honouring law firm blogs in favour of singling out the voices of individual legal practitioners. But we couldn’t overlook the remarkable collective output of Olthuis Kleer Townshend LLP of Toronto, which works with Indigenous communities to help them get the most out of the legal system. We were especially struck by their moving and insightful collection of stories and reflections upon the recent passing of Senator Murray Sinclair.

Not So Risky Business

Minimizing and managing risk is a necessary part of running a successful legal business, but not one that most practitioners think about or act upon often enough. Canadian lawyers are fortunate to have access to “Not So Risky Business,” the blog of the Saskatchewan-based Canadian Lawyers Insurance Association. In its first year, CLIA’s blog (led by Melanie Hodges Neufeld and her team) touched on cybersecurity risk, AI guidance, lawyer burnout, and many other topics in 66 informative posts.

Best Legal Newsletters of 2024

The Authentic Legal Professional

Aaron Baer, the founder of Toronto-based innovative legal training institution 4L Academy, publishes a newsletter that relates stories from members of the Canadian legal profession whose perspectives are often overlooked or ignored. In 2024, Aaron turned a spotlight on struggling new lawyers, internationally trained practitioners, and neurodiversity in the legal profession (including running a free day-long online conference on the latter topic).

The CELA E-Bulletin

Headquartered in downtown Toronto, the Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA) is a legal aid clinic dedicated to environmental equity, justice, and health. Every month, CELA assembles a solid team newsletter featuring a detailed environmental law news summary, political analyses, case updates, and legislative/regulatory updates.

Durant’s Rants

Erin Durant is a litigator, investigator, and mediator/arbitrator in Russell, Ontario, southeast of Ottawa. She is also the founder and managing partner of Durant Barristers, and her terrific newsletter touches on numerous aspects of running a small law firm. In particular, several recent posts have focused on the author’s sabbatical from leading her law firm, as well as on issues of mental health, bullying, and gender bias in the law.

Hearsay

We received multiple nominations for Hearsay, a remarkably robust free weekly newsletter that highlights important and interesting court decisions and legislative updates from across Canada. Produced by former Supreme Court of Canada clerk and BigLaw litigator Dylan Gibbs of Ottawa, Hearsay not only is an entertaining and accessible read, but its scope and volume rivals or surpasses what more established legal news periodicals generate each week.

Best Legal Podcasts 2024

Canada’s Court

Produced by the Criminal Lawyers’ Association (CLA), this podcast features select oral hearings from the Supreme Court of Canada. Each episode includes a brief case summary and explanation of why the case is notable, followed by the audio recordings of the SCC hearing. It’s a great example of making legal information more accessible via a popular and widely-used medium.

The Future of Law Podcast
Returning in September after a two-year hiatus, Toronto-based Goodlawyer’s weekly “Future of Law” podcasts feature conversations with trailblazers and change agents in the Canadian legal sector. Host Chad Aboud and guests talk about career paths (particularly decisions to leave BigLaw), industry issues, and how to find fulfillment and meaning in a modern legal career.

Hull on Estates
If there was ever an online Canadian legal publication overdue for a Clawbie win, it would certainly be “Hull on Estates.” Lawyers from Toronto firm Hull and Hull LLP have been creating short and sweet (always under 20 minutes) podcast episodes continuously since 2006! Lawyers and laypeople both benefit from tuning in for caselaw updates, practice tips, and discussions on all things related to estate planning.

Migration Conversations
In her podcast, now in its fifth year, University of Ottawa Law School Professor Jamie Liew speaks with fascinating guests, including lawyers, researchers, writers, and everyday people whose lives have been shaped by the migration experience. There might never be a more opportune time than right now to listen and learn more about history, human rights, colonialism, and refugee and immigration law.

Best Legal Papers, Reports, or eBooks of 2024

Canadian Open Access Legal Citation Guide
A Canada-wide volunteer team led by Professor James Bachmann of UBC Law School has created the first “COAL Citation Guide,” with two goals: to create a citation guide that will better meet the needs of Canadian legal writers and researchers, and creating a guide that will be accessible to everyone via an open access publishing model.

Decoding the Court: Legal Data Insights from the Supreme Court of Canada

Edited by University of Ottawa Faculty of Law Professors Wolfgang Alschner, Vanessa MacDonnell, and Carissima Mathen, this new work combines state-of-the-art legal data analytics with in-depth doctrinal analysis to study the Supreme Court of Canada, making it possible to investigate thousands of judicial decisions.

Exploring AI at High-Risk Legal Institutions

This concise new report, written by Daniel Escott of the Bellissimo Law Group in Toronto, sets out to “inform high-risk legal institutions like Canadian courts and tribunals of the best practices and procedures for identifying, evaluating, and implementing tools that incorporate AI into their operations.” Daniel will be presenting his extremely timely work at the 2025 Law & Society Association Annual General Meeting in Chicago this coming May.

Parental Rights Over Transgendered Youth: Furthering a Pressing and Substantial Objective

In April, Professor Florence Ashley of the University of Alberta Faculty of Law in Edmonton published this cogent challenge to the requirement of parental consent before transgendered youth can change their name or pronouns at school under the Charter of Rights. “Blanket veto and disclosure laws are constitutionally and politically deficient,” she persuasively argues.

Best Innovative Publications 2024

Le Carnet de droit pénal

Halifax-based public prosecutor Peter Dostal’s latest ambitious project is a French version of his wiki-style “Criminal Law Notebook” (a 2022 Clawbies winner). “Le Carnet de droit pénal” is a continuously evolving work, with over 1,000 pages to date being translated from English since its inception in July of this year. Bravo, Peter!

Clicklaw

Founded 15 years ago by Courthouse Libraries of British Columbia as an online library of public legal information, Clicklaw has become a powerful tool for the public to self-navigate towards their legal solutions. This includes aggregated resources, original ebooks, and an innovative program for distributing core legal materials in print to public libraries around BC and providing professional development opportunities to local staff.

The Conflict Analytics Lab, Queen’s University

Since 2018, the Conflict Analytics Lab housed at Queen’s Law School and Smith School of Business in Kingston, Ontario, has been exploring how data science and machine learning can be used in dispute resolution. The Lab is engaged in researching ways that analytics and AI tools can reveal patterns in negotiation strategies and predict dispute outcomes, including several publicly available access-to-justice tools to help people navigate employment, securities, and vaccine safety law.

Best Social Voices in 2024

Florence Ashley has the academic chops to fight for trangender rights in ways that few can.  While their Twitter show might be slowing, the action on Bluesky looks to be taking full flight! Smart, informed and no suffering of transphobic fools. Let’s go!

Joshua Lenon has long been a leader in legal tech social circles, but his early adoption and nearly 20k posts on Bluesky has had a huge influence on transitioning Canadian legal twitter folks over to the new platform.

Chris Sewrattan kicked off his new Bluesky account with a ‘test’ post one month ago. Since then he has rattled off dozens legal decision screen caps and substantive discussions. Strong start.

Best Multi-Platform Presence 2024

The LawDroid Manifesto

In our multi-media age, traditional award categories like “Best Blog” or “Best Podcast” run the risk of overlooking outstanding publications that straddle many different media types. Our Fodden Award winner Kyla Lee is one such example, but another is the winner of our Multi-Platform Presence Award, Tom Martin of Vancouver. Tom’s “LawDroid Manifesto” features fascinating blog posts and video interviews with North American experts on the subject of AI and its impact on law and society. Tom, founder of Legal AI provider LawDroid, also offered a free day-long online conference on these topics back in January.

2024 Clawbies Hall of Fame Inductees

In 2016, we began “retiring” a handful of past multiple-year winners into the Clawbies Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame recognizes the hard work of these authors and also makes space for new voices in the main awards. Inductees are no longer considered for annual Clawbies, but are recognized with a Hall of Fame badge for their use, as well as a notation of the honour at lawblogs.ca.

The 2024 inductees are:

Administrative Law Matters
University of Ottawa Law Professor Paul Daly is still going strong after more than 12 years of blogging. From being named runner-up to taking the Fodden Award, Paul’s stalwart dedication to blogging year after year exemplifies why we began the Clawbies in the first place. Published nearly weekly, Paul’s case analyses and general commentary are beautifully written, with an engaging and genuine voice — a tall order in general, and one that is especially valuable in an AI-saturated world. Congratulations, Paul!

The Trauma-Informed Lawyer
After more than four years of podcasting and three Clawbies wins (including the Fodden Award in 2022), BC-based Cree and Métis lawyer Myrna McCallum continues to shine a light on the critical ethical competency missing from law school: trauma-informed lawyering. McCallum and her guests explore the toll that trauma takes, how lawyers can learn to do no further harm, and how to manage vicarious trauma in their own lives. Keep up the brilliant and vital work, Myrna!

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And so we come to the end of the 19th Annual Clawbie Awards! Congratulations to all the winners, and our sincere appreciation to all our BlueSky and LinkedIn nominators. From all of us on the Clawbies team (Steve Matthews, Emma Durand-Wood, Jordan Furlong, and Sarah Sutherland), we want to extend to everyone who created and supported great Canadian legal content in 2024 our heartfelt appreciation and our best wishes for a happy and rewarding 2025!

If you’re one of the millions of people who’ve recently joined the social network BlueSky, you’ll recognize that opening statement as an in-joke among new arrivals, who often use it for their first post at their new home. And yes, you’ll also find us there, relocating (as so many of us have) from the website sadly no longer known as Twitter.

Joining the X-odus, as necessary as it felt, still wasn’t an easy decision for us, since we’ve been using Twitter to promote the best Canadian legal content online ever since it was founded in 2008. But platforms change, and life goes on.

What matters is that through all the upheaval of recent times, Canadian lawyers and legal professionals have continued to create high-quality, trustworthy, and incisive online materials to increase people’s understanding of and accessibility to the law. And once again, we are here to recognize and celebrate the very best achievements in this area.

So even if you’ve recently traded in your bird for a butterfly, it’s still time to spread your wings! It’s time to prepare for the 19th Annual Clawbie Awards! Today, December 1st, we are pleased and proud to throw open nominations for our annual awards seeking the best, most original, and most influential Canadian legal content on the Web.

Every year, we invite all our friends, acquaintances, and colleagues in the Canadian legal sector to share their favourite online publications. That includes:

• Blogs;
• Newsletters;
• Podcasts;
• Videos, and
• Social Media Accounts

But this year, we especially need your help! As we migrate away from Twitter, we are focusing our promotional efforts on two other social media platforms — LinkedIn and BlueSky — that traditionally have received less Clawbie traffic.

So we need you, faithful Clawbie community, not only to nominate your own favourite candidates, but also to spread the word on these platforms that the Clawbies are back! We’re hopeful that publicizing the awards on these two sites will further invigorate the already robust discussion of the best in Canadian online legal content.

With your contributions and collaboration, we are absolutely confident that this year’s awards, presented as always on New Year’s Eve, will be the best ones yet! Will you join us? Here’s how:

Eligibility

The Clawbies celebrate free online Canadian legal content. Like we said, everything is available: blogs, podcasts, videos, social accounts, legal newsletters, platform commentary, CanLII Connects, white papers, and more.

Participation

While we always review everyone listed at Lawblogs.ca, we also need you, the Clawbie community, to bring to our attention the most helpful, engaging, and informative Canadian legal content — especially newer publications in their first or second year.

Whether on LinkedIn or BlueSky, we’re still using the classic hashtag #clawbies2024 — be sure to include it in your nominations.

Rules

The same two as every year:

#1 “The Humble Canadian”: Please don’t nominate your own publication or project for a Clawbie. The only reliable way to bring your work to our attention is to nominate other candidates — follow this rule, and we’ll take a look at your work too!

#2 “Three and Free”: Nominate up to three digital publications or authors (remember to use the #clawbies2024 hashtag) that are freely available, at no monetary cost. Include a brief explanation of why you think those publications deserve an award.

Nominations will be accepted until the end of day on Monday, December 16th, 2024. Then stay tuned for the big reveal on New Year’s Eve.

Happy nominating!

Did you like that introduction? Did you find it inviting and engaging? We kind of hope you didn’t, because it was written by ChatGPT-4, based on all the previous Clawbie Awards introductions here. If we hadn’t told you that, you might never have suspected that paragraph was written by a machine. And that’s the foundational challenge of this crucial moment in our collective history: the issue of trust.

Generative AI can easily pass for human work. Misinformation and disinformation routinely masquerade as the truth. Social media platforms like Twitter (we refuse to call it anything but that) are dissolving in a sordid soup of “Verified” self-promoters and fear-mongering conspiracists. It seems like nobody knows what’s reliable anymore – no one knows who to trust.

We aim to help change that.

Here at the Canadian Law Blog Awards, we’ve been recognizing and celebrating the best of Canadian legal publishing for 18 years, expanding our ambit over time from blogs to social networks to new forms of written, audio, and audio-visual content. We’ve done this to reward the efforts of all these volunteer authors, podcasters, and videographers, and to encourage more publishing that enlightens, informs, and entertains people about the law.

The pinnacle of our efforts, our favourite moment of the year, is this annual announcement of the Clawbies winners on New Year’s Eve (as we always say, we might not be the best awards of the year, but we’re definitely the last). But our celebration this year is tempered by the hard reality of our times and real anxiety about what might lie ahead in 2024 and beyond. How can we stand up to so many bad actors so committed to spreading falsehoods and misleading the public?

As far as we’re concerned, we do it by doubling down on the truth and on trustworthiness. This year, underlying our choices of Clawbies winners is a decision to especially recognize and reward those individuals who have put in the hard work, year after year after year, of bringing light to darkness and order to confusion. We honour the heroines and heroes, frequently unsung and invariably uncompensated, who explain and analyze and demystify the law for both professionals and the public, for no other reason than that “truth about the law” is just about the most important truth there is.

If you find yourself looking out over the chaos of the modern media landscape and asking yourself, “Who can I trust?”, our humble suggestion is that part of the answer can be found below. Trust the people who want you to know the truth about the law – what the law says, how it works, what it can do for you, and why it should do more for you. Trust the people who care enough about the law, and about you, to bring you the incredible published works you’ll find here.

“You cannot ask the darkness to leave,” the Tibetan Lama Sogyal Rinpoche once said. “You must turn on the light.” Here’s to all the lamplighters of the law – those recognized below, those nominated but not recognized this time, and all those who are working hard, right down to these last hours of the year, to keep the light on. Join us in celebrating the 2023 Clawbies winners!

2023 Fodden Award

Since 2010, the Fodden Award has been the Clawbies’ top honour for Canadian legal commentary, recognizing a single, outstanding publication. This year’s winner is:

Blogue du CRL
This year, we are excited to be honouring one of the country’s longest-running and most successful group blogs: Blogue du CRL, published by the Jeunne Barreau de Montréal’s Research and Legislation Committee.

For well over a decade, Blogue du CRL has been the go-to current awareness tool for Quebec professionals, publishing an ample and steady stream of case summaries and legislative developments.

The scale of the blog is huge, with more than 50 volunteer writers, and also featuring case summaries from SOQUIJ and occasional contributions from Jeune Barreau’s other committees.

Congratulations to all Blogue du CRL participants, present and past, for their remarkable dedication and achievement!

Best Blogs

Litige municipal au Québec
Alexandre Thériault-Marois, Pascal Marchi, Alexandre Paul-Hus, and Anne-Marie McSween – all lawyers working for municipalities in Quebec – have been publishing their collaborative blog since 2018. From planning to property assessment, elected officials to ethics, the blog features succinct and easy-to-digest caselaw summaries and commentary on all aspects of municipal law. We’ve had a lot of Clawbies winners in the municipal law niche over the years, and it’s a pleasure to recognize one publishing exclusively in the French language.

Librarian of Things
In a sea of ever-evolving publishing platforms, Windsor Law librarian Mita Williams’ Librarian of Things is refreshing in its embrace of classic blogging, with thoughtful professional reflections, annotated link roundups, presentation slides and more.

Sport Law Blog
We’ve always loved a good niche blog, and Toronto firm Sport Law’s blog is a great example, showing (not just telling) the firm’s expertise by covering a wide range of topics, some expected (codes of conduct, fraud prevention) and others surprising (grief and loss; the meaning of hope). The blog reflects the mammoth challenge of improving the culture of sport at all levels in Canada.

Best Newsletters

The Authentic Lawyer
Ontario lawyer/entrepreneur Aaron Baer and his US counterpart, Dhawal Tank, have created a Substack newsletter that’s jam-packed with candid and engaging pieces that push back on conventional practice management, marketing, and work-life balance strategies.

Canadian Law Library Review (CLLR)
Since 1970, the Canadian Law Library Review has been the voice of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL/ACBD), sharing news, happenings, expertise and book reviews from law library professionals across the country. In 2018, the publication became open access, with 10 years’ worth of searchable archives on CanLII. An invaluable contribution to the Canadian legal infosphere!

Sunday Night Administrative Review
Mark Mancini’s weekly Substack newsletter, Sunday Night Administrative Review (SEAR), is a perennial reader favourite. The Allard Law PhD candidate shares insightful and authoritative case comments along with detailed analysis and predictions. This year, SEAR fans also had the option to tune into audio versions via Apple Podcasts or Spotify, thanks to a partnership with legal tech startup Dicta.

Best YouTube 

Women in Canadian Criminal Defence
Established in early 2022, WiCCD (pronounced “wicked”) has produced a huge amount of excellent video content in just the past year, with two standout video series hosted by Maya Shukairy. The ‘Who Cares?’ series explores the issues of the day with a wide cross-section of legal professionals, and ‘Find Your Niche’ is a celebration of accomplishments of women in Canadian criminal defence.

David Fraser
Halifax privacy lawyer and professor David Fraser is a long-time blogger who has recently added video to his content repertoire. With a knack for distilling complex privacy issues into easy to understand terms, Fraser’s videos are playful and conversational, but always based in fact and real-life relevance.

Cases That Should Have Gone to the SCC, but Didn’t
Showing no signs of slowing down, Vancouver criminal lawyer Kyla Lee is creeping up on 300 episodes of her YouTube series, ‘Cases That Should Have Gone to the SCC, But Didn’t.’ These succinct (under 4 minutes) weekly videos give Lee’s passionate take on why certain cases should have been heard by Canada’s highest court.

Best Podcasts

Modern Law Podcast
Thoughtfully hosted by Yves Faguy of CBA National, the Modern Law Podcast features interviews in English and French with a fascinating variety of lawyers, profs and thought leaders from across the country. As a bonus, full transcripts for many episodes are available.

In All Fairness
Brought to us by the CIAJ, In All Fairness explores how we can all contribute to improving the administration of justice in Canada, through much-needed interdisciplinary discussions on topics of harm reduction and drug toxicity, wrongful conviction, A2J collaboration, rooted constitutionalism, and much more.

Indictment: Criminal Justice System on Trial
A companion podcast to UBC prof Benjamin Perrin’s new book of the same title. Indictment asks “What can people who were incarcerated, and survivors of violent crime teach us about improving the justice system?” and looks for answers with a series of raw and frank interviews with people who have experienced the system first-hand.

The Art of Persuasion
Ontario lawyer Guy Pratte gets the goods on what it takes to master the art of convincing others. Season 1 of his new podcast has excellent production values and an all-star cast of guests that includes legendary litigators, past prime ministers, iconic actors and more.

Best TikTok

By chance, an all-Toronto edition ;)

@empathylawyer
Toronto human rights lawyer Nicole Biros-Bolton brings 20 years of front-line experience as a counsellor and advocate for women and children to her TikToks, which focus on demystifying the legal system, educating on human rights, and connecting followers to local resources.

@canadianimmlawyer
Toronto immigration lawyer Paul Vitti shares tons of practical tips and insider info to make the immigration process go smoothly, from study permits to sponsorships, border crossings to citizenship, and frauds and scams.

@employmentlawyerwalt
Using lots of real-world examples from his own practice, Toronto employment lawyer Walter Yoo offers guidance on all sorts of work-related topics on everything from employment law myths to privacy rights, and benefits fraud to off-duty conduct.

Best Blogger on a Group Platform

As one of the longest-standing columnists on Slaw.ca, John Willinsky has traditionally covered the intersection between scholarly publishing and open access. With 85 columns over a span of 15 years, John cut new ground in 2023, tackling the impacts on authorship and original writing by LLM AI technology. John’s take was anything but protectionism. He pushed back at the US Copyright Office and those quick to cry ‘infringement’, and encouraged LLM access to a greater volume of the often closed scientific literature.

Best Innovative Projects

Abajignmuen
From Dalhousie University’s Schulich School of Law, Abajignmuen (whose meaning is “giving back” in Mìgmaq) is a portal that highlights student, faculty and staff work in aboriginal and Indigenous law, with a special focus on A2J projects. Kudos to the site’s creators for the great concept and execution.

AC Friends of Court’s School for Family Self-Litigants
BC-based Amici Curiae Friends of Court has been offering practical and much-needed support to self-represented litigants since 2011. Inspired by a national version offered by NSRLP, this year they offered BC’s first family law course geared towards educating self-litigants who are navigating their own family law case, through a free 12-week live online course series. Best of all? The recordings are being added to YouTube so that they will have an even greater reach.

CCLI Knowledge Hub
The Canada Climate Law Initiative’s Knowledge Hub is dubbed ‘Canada’s one-stop-shop for everything related to climate governance’ for good reason. This is a comprehensive collection of publications ranging from discussion papers, reports, case studies, guides and more, plus the ability to filter by audience, topic, jurisdiction and resource type.

Notes Between Us
With both a website and LinkedIn presence, this international collaborative law librarian project includes a strong Canadian contingent and a safe space to have nuanced conversations on everything from workplace ethics to soft skills to career development and beyond. With some social platforms (no names!) imploding under aggressive or abusive remarks, it was natural for smaller communities to emerge and fill those gaps. Like-minded interest groups, or even professional groups like NBS, seem to be leading the way. If this is your crew, be sure to check them out in 2024!

Report on Civility and Professionalism in the Legal Profession
The Toronto Lawyers Association has produced a timely report on civility and professionalism in the legal profession, the result of many months’ of consultation with TLA members through surveys and facilitated discussions. This highly readable and well-organized report explores causes, effects, and potential solutions, concluding that “Whether incivility is empirically greater or less than before the pandemic or just…different…ultimately does not matter. What does matter is the strong sense that the situation is “bad enough.”

2023 Hall of Fame Inductee

In 2016, we began “retiring” a handful of past multiple-year winners into the Clawbies Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame recognizes the hard work of these authors and also makes space for new voices in the main awards. Inductees will no longer be considered for annual Clawbies, but are recognized with a Hall of Fame badge for their use, as well as a notation of the honour at lawblogs.ca.

The 2023 inductee is:

Vancouver Immigration Blog
It’s hard to find a better example of great legal blogging than three-time Clawbies winner Vancouver Immigration Blog, by Will Tao.

Having won in 2015, 2019 and 2021, Tao’s posts on the intricacies of the Canadian immigration system are full of practical information and industry analysis. And yet, despite being packed with technical information, the Vancouver Immigration Blog is anything but dry, thanks to Tao’s use of first-person voice and the palpable sense of humility and collegiality in his writing.

Congratulations – your place in the Clawbies Hall of Fame is well-deserved!

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And with that, the 18th annual Clawbies are on the books! From all of us on the Clawbies team (Steve, Jordan, Sarah, Emma), thank you to everyone who created and supported great Canadian legal content this year, and best wishes for a happy and healthy 2024!

In that spirit, despite (or maybe even because of) all the challenges around us, we’re breaking out all the balloons, candles, noisemakers, and treats we can find to announce: It’s time to prepare for the 18th Annual Clawbie Awards! Today we open nominations to our annual awards seeking the best, most original, and most influential Canadian legal content on the Web.

Once again this year, we are inviting our friends and colleagues in the Canadian legal community (hint: this includes you!) to share your favourite blogs, social media accounts, podcasts, newsletters and more. We always marvel at the enthusiasm with which you’ve responded, and how gladly nominators spread the word about content providers who they feel deserve attention and recognition. That’s how we discover new publications every year, and we’re just as enthused to share the very best of them with everyone.

So pull out your party clothes, put on your favourite tunes, and get ready for our annual New Year’s Eve Party, the announcement of the winners of the 2023 Clawbies. But remember: The party can’t get started until you get nominating! Here are all the details:

What’s eligible?

The Clawbies celebrate free online Canadian legal content. It’s all fair game: blogs, podcasts, videos, social accounts, legal newsletters, platform commentary, CanLII Connects, whitepapers, and beyond.

How can I participate?

While we review each publication listed at Lawblogs.ca, we also rely on the community to surface the most helpful, engaging and informative Canadian legal content through our social nomination process.

Tell us who made the world a little better with their content in 2023. Using your Twitter account (with hashtag #clawbies2023) or law blog, help us identify your best of 2023!

As usual, we’ve really only got two rules.

Rule #1: Our “humble Canadian” rule: don’t nominate your own publication or project for a Clawbie. It doesn’t work that way. The only surefire way of getting your work on our radar is to give props to other commentary authors. Follow this rule and we’ll take a look at your work too!

Rule #2: Nominate up to three digital publications or authors via blog post or tweets (using the hashtag  #clawbies2023). They must be freely available at no cost. Be sure to include a brief explanation of why you think those authors deserve an award!

Nominations will be accepted until the end of day on Friday, December 15th, 2023. Then stay tuned, because this year’s winners will be announced on New Year’s Eve.

Happy nominating!

Now, upheaval isn’t necessarily bad – we’re fans of innovative disruption, after all. While hardly anyone is happy with the mess being made of Twitter, there’s something to be said for trying out new spaces and places to share our knowledge and ideas. But we can also agree that all the chaos and commotion has been discombobulating.

So how do we recombobulate ourselves? How do we bring some order to the chaos, or at least some control? Well, we’re also sci-fi fans here, and science fiction has provided us imaginative examples of such devices, from the Infinite Improbability Drive to the Flux Capacitor to the Heisenberg Compensators. But who needs fiction when we’ve got fact? We have our very own real-world system for unifying all the disparate strands of 21st social media in one convenient place.

That’s right – it’s time for the 17th annual edition of the Clawbie Awards, where we honour the very best Canadian online legal content! Wherever and however Canadians have produced online information, insight, and commentary about the legal sector in the last 12 months, the Clawbies are here to sort through it all and declare the best of the best.

Your intrepid panel of judges has once again rung out the old year and welcomed the new with what everyone agrees are – if not the most important awards of the year – absolutely the last awards of the year. And so, with no further ado, please put your hands together for the 2022 Clawbie Awards winners!

Fodden Award 2022

Since 2010, the Fodden Award has been the top Clawbies honour, recognizing the very best in Canadian legal commentary. This year’s winner is:

The Trauma-Informed Lawyer Podcast

We’re hard-pressed to name a legal publication that focuses on more important and pressing issues in 2022 as Métis-Cree lawyer Myrna McCallum’s Trauma-Informed Lawyer Podcast.

Having won Clawbies in the Best Podcast category in both 2020 and 2021, the Trauma-Informed Lawyer features fascinating interviews with judges and lawyers, profs and educators, survivors and community leaders, experts and everyday people.

In 2022, the podcast tackled topics such as restorative justice, boundary-setting and mental health, vicarious trauma in the courtroom, trauma-informed teaching, decolonization, and much more. Powerful, frank discussions carry out the podcast’s mission to build critical competencies that are missing from law school and bar course competency requirements. Transcripts for most episodes also increase accessibility.

Congratulations to Myrna for her essential contributions to the Canadian legal infosphere. We’re looking forward to Season 3 with a major new investment from the BC Law Foundation!

Best Blogs

The OG Clawbies category! Our appreciation for the humble blog has never waned, and it’s heartening that so many different types of organizations are still embracing the medium. Here are our top five blogs for 2022:

Blogue SOQUIJ
Celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, Blogue SOQUIJ is a wonderful complement to Quebec’s main primary law and commentary source. SOQUIJ staff lawyers share clear and concise case summaries, topical roundups, and new English translations of French-language cases, while the SOQUIJ editing team contributes language tips. We love the blog’s attractive visual layout and how it engages with the community and in self-reflection.

Flex Legal Blog
The Flex Legal Blog demystifies freelance lawyering (both in retaining freelance lawyer services and providing them), delves into finances and equity, and “consistently provides helpful information and creative ideas” to the legal industry. It’s no surprise this blog works so well – Flex Legal founder Erin Cowling is a three-time Clawbies winner herself.

Stewart Sharma Harsanyi Immigration Law Firm Blog
Raj Sharma, KC’s blog isn’t flashy, and that’s exactly what we love about it. The Calgary lawyer shares observations on the Canadian immigration system, case comments (including his own matters), interview transcripts, and reflections on his own lived family experiences. A true old-school blog, exactly the sort that inspired the Clawbies so many years ago.

Barry Sookman
Toronto tech, IP and privacy lawyer Barry Sookman was one of Canada’s earliest law bloggers covering computer, internet, copyright and general technology law. His timely aggregation of new caselaw and weekly news roundups are often among the fastest to production. Barry’s extensive archives stretch back almost two decades and show discipline and dedication to his practice area, while serving as an ongoing online complement to his traditionally published treatises and texts.

OsgoodePD Blog
This blog by Osgoode Hall’s Professional Development arm paints a vibrant picture of the various programs and certifications on offer and the professionals who study there. Alumni profiles, course spotlights, and event recaps succeed in showing, not just telling, how learners benefit from taking part in the OsgoodePD learning community.

Best Blogger on a Group Platform

This category allows us to recognize new and long-term individual author contributions to larger group blogs that have been retired to the Clawbies Hall of Fame. This year, we honour:

Susannah Tredwell on Slaw
Vancouver law librarian and seasoned legal researcher Susannah Tredwell has been producing original monthly tips for Slaw since 2015!

From basics how-tos and best practices, answers to common questions and how to tackle the trickiest legal research tasks, Susannah has generously shared nearly a hundred bits of wisdom – the kind of information you learn through years of hands-on practice and by paying attention to which challenges come up over and over again.

Susannah’s tips are essential reading for anyone who does legal research, especially law library staff, articling students and new lawyers. As Slaw Tips evolves into Tips Tuesday, you can find an archive of Susannah’s contributions here.

Best Podcasts & Video

2022 was another big year for legal commentary in podcast and video form. Here are our top picks:

The Law Garage Podcast
Now in its third season, host Marco Sciarra took the reins of this biweekly criminal law podcast when creator Paul M. Cooper was appointed to the bench. A listener favourite, the Law Garage teaches new lawyers the stuff they didn’t learn in law school and acts as a “tune-up” for experienced lawyers. A standout episode this year: Guests answer the perennial question “How do you defend those people?”

FACL BC Podcast
Highlighting the diverse and unique members of the Asian Canadian legal community, the FACL Podcast features candid conversations with lawyers in every type of practice, on topics ranging from career development to practice management, equity and diversity, breaking barriers, and more. Guests wear many hats: litigators (featured in an “Asian Litigators” mini-series), in-house counsel, small business owners, recruiters, Benchers and life coaches, to name just a few.

Family Law Now LIVE
Russell Alexander Collaborative Family Lawyers has long been a prolific content producer. During the pandemic, the Ontario firm began hosting this free, bi-weekly virtual event series as an extension of its Family Law Now podcast. Webinars broadcast live panel discussions and Q&A to an audience of family law practitioners, law students, and the general public. Events are recorded on Zoom, and later published to YouTube and as audio via podcast.

Best Social Media Accounts

By popular request, we created a new Clawbies category for best Twitter accounts in 2019. With so many different social platforms in use (and in flux!) in 2022, we’ve named standout accounts for Facebook, TikTok and LinkedIn too:

@RyanHClements (Twitter)
In a country where one or two provinces (not naming names) get a lot of attention, Ryan Clements has developed a loyal following for his case summary tweets, which feature criminal appeals from across the country and are later compiled into his popular “Cross-Country Note-up” blog & CanLII Connects posts.

Onus Probandi (Facebook)
Founder Léo Fugazza and co-author Gabrielle Perron post a steady stream of original criminal case summaries, legislation updates, news about the profession and access to justice, with opinion and analysis from time to time. The self-described “micro-blog” recently celebrated five years – and now, its first Clawbie!

Charmaine Panko’s @commonsenselawyer (TikTok)
Saskatchewan family lawyer and mediator Charmaine Panko delivers practical tips, law developments, and encouragement with humour and a warm yet authoritative style. Charmaine also answers questions from followers, and makes us laugh with relatable life moments.

The Scheffette (LinkedIn)
Charlene Scheffelmair’s biweekly LinkedIn newsletter details her journey to building a successful legal practice in Alberta and provides public legal information in an un-intimidating tone and format. Whether it’s sharing how she overcame a serious fear of public speaking or thoughts on “quiet quitting” and the legal profession, Charlene’s chronicles are a pleasure to read.

Best Innovative Projects

Our most inspiring category – what a pleasure to honour five of 2022’s most novel, creative and exciting projects!

The Criminal Law Notebook
Nominators called Peter Dostal’s wiki-style Criminal Law Notebook a go-to resource that “achieves the difficult feat of being all at once expansive, painstakingly sourced, accessible, and short.” Generosity and knowledge sharing are core to the Clawbies, and this website is a textbook example of these values in action.

Obiter AI – Supreme (AI) Transcripts
Lawyer and PhD student Simon Wallace has developed an AI transcriptionist that automatically generates transcripts of SCC proceedings from its webcasts (read the explainer here–it’s fascinating!). This is an exciting project that increases accessibility and the ability to analyze proceedings quantitatively.

Equilawbrium
IP lawyer and mother Prudence Tsui’s Equilawbrium website tackles the “Dual 10 challenges”: the steep learning curve inherent to both the first 10 years of law practice and the first 10 years of your children’s lives. The site features interviews and resources that explore how to manage a work-life balance without losing sight of what’s important to you.

AC Friends of Court – Multilingual Everyday Law Series
AC Friends of Court is always striving to increase access to justice in BC, and now they’re doing that by making their materials available in languages other than English. Several of their Everyday Law Series public legal education videos have been made available in Mandarin, and the organization has also created A2J awareness tools in Japanese, Tagalog and Portuguese.

Madam Justice Project
A collaboration of the CBA’s Women Lawyers Forum and Judges Section, the Madam Justice Project “celebrates diversity on the bench by showcasing advice and perspectives from women judges across Canada.” Sit down with these engrossing profiles (45 of them and counting) and you may soon find an hour or more has elapsed.

Best Multi-Platform Presence

Each year, we honour an individual, firm or organization that masters multiple mediums with a “something for everyone” online presence.

Provincial Court of BC
In the notoriously reserved world of courts, the Provincial Court of BC has long been a trailblazer when it comes to accessibility and transparency online. The Court has been doing a commendable job at proactively educating and interacting with British Columbians. You may remember their groundbreaking #A2JChatBC Twitter town hall, which won a Clawbie in 2019.

Today, the Provincial Court of BC offers a wide variety of resources in various mediums and on multiple platforms, to reach people wherever they are. Content is created not just to educate, but to interest and engage (e.g., “What podcasts do you listen to, Judge?”; “Why did Provincial Court judges draw lots to decide municipal elections?”)

The Court’s website and other public materials are written with the principles of plain language in mind. From its robust website, to its eNews service (previously a Clawbies winner), to its friendly and approachable Twitter account, podcasts in partnership with Legal Listening, and videos on Vimeo, the Court embraces new types of content, formats and mediums. When it comes to online presence, courts everywhere would do well to take a page from the Provincial Court of BC’s book.

Best Long-Form Publications

With this category, we recognize two important, longer contributions to the Canadian legal infosphere. This year, we’re celebrating an open access textbook and a collaboratively written legal writing guide.

Tort Law: Cases and Commentaries, 2nd edition
Allard School of Law prof Samuel Beswick’s open access casebook Tort Law: Cases and Commentaries, designed for teaching Canadian common-law torts courses, is a resounding hit. Nominators call it “clearly and elegantly presented,” “a joy to use,” and “a clear winner with students.”

Gender Diversity in Legal Writing: Pronouns, Honorifics, and Gender-Inclusive Techniques
This guide from the BC Law Institute is a timely, well-written, and important new language resource that reflects a modern understanding of gender and gender identity. The guide is based on the premise that “gender-inclusive legal writing speaks to more people,” and includes a pocket guide version as well as a helpful glossary or terms and common misconceptions.

Hall of Fame – 2022 Inductee

In 2016, we began “retiring” a handful of past multiple-year winners into the Clawbies Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame recognizes the hard work of these authors and also makes space for new voices in the main awards. Inductees will no longer be considered for annual Clawbies, but are recognized with a Hall of Fame badge for their use, as well as a notation of the honour at lawblogs.ca.

The 2022 inductee is:

Library Boy
Easily one of the longest-running Canadian law blogs, Michel-Adrien Sheppard’s Library Boy launched in 2005 and won a Clawbie in the inaugural awards the following year, when Steve praised Sheppard for “constantly relaying content that librarians can rely on.” Congrats to Michel-Adrien for serving up his signature “law library blogaliciousness” for more than 15 years!

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And that’s a wrap on the 2022 edition of the Clawbies – congratulations to all the winners! We are sincerely grateful to everyone who submitted nominations: seeing so much mutual
appreciation, respect and admiration within the community is a truly satisfying and uplifting way to end the year.

Best wishes for a happy and healthy 2023 – may it be writer’s-block-free!

Every year for 16 years running, December 1st has marked the opening of nominations for the Clawbies awards: an opportunity for Canadian legal folks to reflect upon their most influential legal content and varying forms of digital discourse. But as we prepare for our 17th annual ritual, well–the world feels a bit up in the air, doesn’t it?

Is the pandemic actually over? How high can inflation go? Will geopolitical unrest settle? And of course…whether the most open of the major social platforms, Twitter, will last long enough to get us through it all.

But in spite of the uncertainty in so many aspects of life (not to mention we use Twitter as our primary vehicle for nominations!), we’re going to test the waters anyway! The Clawbies always feel like an opportunity to refocus on something real and something positive.

Each year, we ask colleagues in the Canadian legal community to share their favourite blogs, social media accounts, podcasts, newsletters and more, and every year they deliver. Every year, we delight in seeing the genuine admiration and appreciation that authors and readers have for each other. And every year, we discover new publications and are honoured to help boost their profiles, just as we add more lions of Canadian legal commentary to our Clawbies Hall of Fame.

We can’t know what the future holds or what the social media landscape will look like even a few months from now. But we can be sure of one thing: that the year will end on a high note in our little corner of the internet, with the announcement of the 2022 Clawbies winners on New Year’s Eve.

Let’s get those good Clawbies vibes going!

What’s eligible?

The Clawbies celebrate free online Canadian legal content. It’s all fair game: blogs, podcasts, videos, social accounts, legal newsletters, platform commentary, CanLII Connects, whitepapers, and beyond.

How can I participate?

While we review each publication listed at Lawblogs.ca, we also rely on the community to surface the most helpful, engaging and informative Canadian legal content through our social nomination process.

Tell us who made the world a little better with their content in 2022. Using your Twitter account (with hashtag #clawbies2022) or law blog, help us identify your best of 2022!

As usual, we’ve really only got two rules.

Rule #1: Our “humble Canadian” rule: don’t nominate your own publication or project for a Clawbie. It doesn’t work that way. The only surefire way of getting your work on our radar is to give props to other commentary authors. Follow this rule and we’ll take a look at your work too!

Rule #2: Nominate up to three digital publications or authors via blog post or tweets (using the hashtag  #clawbies2022). They must be freely available at no cost. Be sure to include a brief explanation of why you think those authors deserve an award!

Nominations will be accepted until the end of day on Friday, December 16th, 2022. Then stay tuned, because this year’s winners will be announced on New Year’s Eve.

Happy nominating!

Okay, so it turns out that was 2021. Sorry about that. We’re getting intense deja vû vibes these days, and we’re sure you must be as well. But we stand by our praise to you and to everyone – we have gotten through another year, and while these might be tough times, we’re impressed (but not surprised) that you’re all proving even tougher.

What has also impressed us is the unbelievable resilience, originality, and commitment of the Canadian legal content community. Even during some of the most trying times any of us have encountered, Canada’s legal bloggers, podcasters, vloggers, Tweeters, and other content creators have managed to up their games even more. You’ve done us all proud, and we’re very happy to recognize the best of the best of this community.

Because it’s time once again for the Annual Clawbie Awards, handed out each year on New Year’s Eve by your intrepid panel of judges. We might not be the most important awards of the year, but we’re ….? That’s right — the last awards of the year! And we have an outstanding lineup of winners just waiting to be announced.

So why wait any longer? Here are your 2021 Clawbies!

Fodden Award 2021

Since 2010, the Fodden Award has been the Clawbies’ top honour for Canadian legal commentary, recognizing a single, outstanding publication. This year, our “best of the best” award goes to…

The Lash Condo Law Blog
From timely advice to evergreen guidance, with an approachable, accessible style, the Lash Condo Law Blog has it all. We’re hard-pressed to find a better current example of a law firm blog that people will actually want to read. (Funny accompanying images help, too!)

Denise Lash and her colleagues write in an engaging and enjoyable way that is surprisingly rare these days, and their COVID content was particularly invaluable in 2021.

Best Blogs

Since their inception, the Clawbies have sought to highlight the best law blogs of the year. With so many competing mediums, it’s not an easy task to stand out as a blogger, but these publications shine.

CELA Blog
On their blog, the Canadian Environmental Law Association (a specialty legal aid clinic in Ontario) examines a remarkable range of topics through an environmental law lens, from lead in drinking water and environmental racism to energy justice and carbon pricing. Canada’s environmental challenges are daunting, but this blog reminds us there are dedicated professionals working for change.

BC Estate Litigation Blog
James Zaitsoff and Duncan Manson have created a reliable and informative niche blog, posting legislative updates and case comments with takeaways on BC estates decisions. They also share monthly reading roundups of interesting estate litigation news and content from colleagues across the country.

Know How: The Blog of the Great Library at the Law Society of Ontario
Through the Know How blog, the staff of the Great Library at the Law Society of Ontario provide an ongoing stream of quality current awareness tools, regulatory updates, and legal research primers that tackle the mundane to the esoteric, with a side of interesting seasonal content. Mini-series like “Myths of Legislative Research” and “Legal Research Survival Guides” were standouts this year.

Vancouver Immigration Law Blog 
Will Tao dives deep into the intricacies of the Canadian immigration system and shares step-by-step guidance on how to navigate it, alongside reflections on what it means to be an immigration lawyer in a colonial system. Tao’s contributions to the immigration law sphere are prolific and long-standing (he’s also got a new podcast, Imm Light of All Circumstances).

Best Newsletters

Over the last few years, email newsletters have been gaining popularity as a medium. These three winning publications are must-subscribes, but also reside online for the benefit of future searchers. 

Ronalee Carey Law Newsletter 
Ronalee Carey’s monthly newsletter has many fans, who praise its accessibility, timeliness and wit. From the nominations: “It’s quoted/shared internally by IRCC because it’s that good.”

Sunday Evening Administrative Review
Mark Mancini’s Sunday Evening Administrative Review (SEAR for short) provides summaries  and analysis of new caselaw and is a weekly goldmine for admin law geeks. The in-depth content is thorough, insightful, and conversational.

First Peoples Law Report
From First Peoples Law, the First Peoples Law Report is a comprehensive weekly newsletter that includes a categorized roundup of news from across the country, caselaw and case comments, firm and lawyer news, initiatives, and events. From the nominations: “I rely on it for authoritative national Indigenous content.”

Best Bloggers on a Platform/Group Blog

Although group blogging giants like ABlawg and Slaw have been retired to the Clawbies Hall of Fame, this category allows us to continue to recognize both new and long-term contributors to mutli-author publications.

Marcelo Rodriguez
Tweeted nominations admired Marcelo Rodriguez’s advocacy for legal information in Central America. We might take that a step further and say Marcelo’s Slaw column has its eyes around the globe! From Afghanistan and Iran, to Haiti and the Canadian Territories, Marcelo watched the “big picture” issues in 2021. Going beyond how jurisdictions created and managed their research material, Marcelo wrote about barriers to dissemination, justice issues, pride in the courts, and use of social media. And yet, it feels like he’s just getting started!

Michael Erdle
Coming up on his tenth year writing at Slaw,  Michael Erdle’s writing continues to stand out for its passion about Canadian dispute resolution! He was one of the earliest choices for a Slaw-CanLII ebook and isn’t afraid to explore (and sometimes challenge) the latest decisions, dispute methods, or technology. The Clawbies always try to notice authors who are passionate about their topic – and it continues to be a pleasure to watch Michael explore!

Best Podcasts/Video Series

Podcasts continue to be an in-demand format for legal commentary. Anecdotally, it seems that more people are starting podcasts than starting blogs these days! Here are our favourites for 2021. 

Translating Criminal Law (TCL)
The TCL Podcast has the distinction of being the first father-daughter publication to win a Clawbie! Using pop culture and goofy characters to explain concepts, Peter Sankoff and his 12-year old daughter Penny have created a delightful (and G-rated) podcast that’s at once entertaining for adults and educational for kids.

Justice in Pieces
When remote learning hit in early 2020, JP Rodrigues called up some friends to serve as guest speakers to his paralegal students at TriOS College. Nearly two years in, Justice in Pieces has a massive archive of lively interviews with everyone from mere mortal legal professionals to MPs, mayors, benchers, and judges. Incredibly, JP continues with *daily* live interviews, weekdays on YouTube Live. Talk about lemons into lemonade!

Off the Tracks Podcast
Only a year into the pod game, Erin O’Rourke and Piper Riley Thompson’s Off the Tracks Podcast has already released nearly two dozen engaging episodes on “doing law differently.” Interviews with guests explore law school debt, entering or leaving law mid-career, interesting jobs in law, and more.

Trauma-Informed Lawyer
For a second year, listeners found Myrna McCallum’s Trauma-Informed Lawyer podcast to be an invaluable resource, saying it “should be mandatory listening for the profession.” This year, McCallum and her guests delved into MMIWG, mental health courts, trauma and resilience in policing, privilege and oppression in law school, and more.

Best Twitter Accounts

Proof that good things come in small packages (280 characters, to be precise!). This year’s winning Tweeps are: 

@AtrishaLewis
Litigator and LSO Bencher Atrisha Lewis (@AtrishaLewis) is a powerful voice for equity and diversity, amplifying BIPOC voices and creating a more transparent and just legal profession.

@corollaryrelief
Family law Twitter says Shmuel Stern’s (@corollaryrelief) curated family law case summaries are a “consistent, reliable resource” that make “solo practice easier with every tweet.”

@SainiLaw
Followers appreciate Harpreet Saini’s generosity, humour and warmth, calling him “a force for kindness and positivity about private practice, full of gems of wisdom and encouragement.” Come for the law and you’ll enjoy the pop culture and funny kid stories, too.

@sewrattanlaw
Back again for a second year, folks can’t get enough of Chris Sewrattan’s (@sewrattanlaw) ONCA case summaries. One nomination admitted “I don’t even practice criminal law and still read each of those case summary tweets.”

Best Innovative Projects

Though these four projects defy categorization, they have one thing in common: an fresh and innovative use of format, theme, medium or content.

Black Femme Legal Toolkit
We love a good niche, and the Black Femme Legal Toolkit is a perfect example from Samantha Peters and their team. This is an online resource for Black queer women, femmes and gender diverse folks across the 2SLGBTQI+ spectrum who need workplace-related support in Ontario.

Happy Lawyer Profiles
The Happy Lawyer profile series from Not Your Average Law Job bring “much-needed positive vibes & authenticity to the profession” and shine a light at the many different paths to career contentment. With 30+ profiles from across Canada (and counting), that’s a lot of inspiration.

“But I Look Like a Lawyer”
The Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers BC’s half-hour video documentary “But I Look Like a Lawyer” captures personal stories of discrimination, stereotyping, and bias experienced by members of the Pan-Asian legal community in British Columbia from every level of experience and practise area.

Legal Listening
Back in the Clawbies for a second year, Legal Listening gets even better with age. This year, Karly Lyons and Zach Battiston continued with interesting collaborations to produce audio versions of notable cases and delved into new areas, like recordings of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action.

Best Multi-Platform Presence 

This category recognizes an author who stands out because of their willingness to experiment with media and bring those platforms together to deliver commentary in a unique way.

Erin Durant caught our attention in 2021 because of the honest and genuine introspective voice that she writes with. From controversial topics in sports, to documenting her firm’s committed support of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the Durant Barristers blog is varied and reflective. Add in a media mix of LinkedIn publishing (her candid February 2021 post detailing her mental health crisis went viral) and Twitter (@ErinDurant42), and chances are, Erin’s digital presence has a little something for you too!

Best Long-Form Publications 

Open access legal information grows each year, often in longer formats, involving collaborative teams, and creating innovative digital products. Here are two excellent additions to the Canadian legal information landscape for 2021.

The Gladue Principles: A Guide to the Jurisprudence

One of the longer discourse nominations that caught our eye this year was The Gladue Principles: A Guide to the Jurisprudence and its accompanying guides. USask PhD student & sessional lecturer Benjamin Ralston’s free ebook was worthy of its own accord, but the additional guides for judges, crown counsel, defence counsel, and report writers delivered a unique lens for each audience group to reflect upon.

Civil Procedure and Practice in Ontario (on CanLII)
Following up on last year’s award-winning collaborative effort for British Columbia, CanLII partnered with Windsor professor Noel Semple to produce Ontario’s “first and only guide to Ontario’s Rules of Civil Procedure, Courts of Justice Act, and Limitations Act”. Written by a sizable group of practitioner specialists, Civil Procedure and Practice in Ontario delivers a significant addition to the free law movement for the province of Ontario.

Hall of Fame

In 2016, we began “retiring” a handful of past multiple-year winners into the Clawbies Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame recognizes the hard work of these authors and also makes space for new voices in the main awards. This year’s inductees will no longer be considered for annual Clawbies, but they are recognized with a Hall of Fame badge for their use, as well as a notation of the honour at lawblogs.ca.

Here are the 2021 inductees:

ReconciliACTION YEG

The University of Alberta Faculty law blog won its first Clawbie as a humble faculty-led law blog back in 2007. A decade later, the blog went through a pleasant rebirth to become ReconciliACTION YEG, and went on to pick up three more Clawbie awards in short order! ReconciliACTION YEG (which moved to a new website home this fall) is authored by a team of law students in the University of Alberta Faculty of Law and focuses on a new theme related to reconciliation each year. Students grapple with complex Indigenous issues and current events, resulting in sometimes uncomfortable but overdue and necessary analysis and introspection.

O’Faolain
David Whelan’s blog O’Faolain has always delivered the best of what first person narrative has to offer. David “thinks and writes” in a fluid motion – about legal information services, workplace issues, or his comfort level with a vendor taking him out to lunch. We’re reminded that “blogging” gives glimpses inside the person we’re reading with real-world anecdotes we wouldn’t find in any other medium. A winner of eight Clawbie awards, including the Fodden Award in 2018, O’Faolain might be our most decorated HOF winner to date.

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And there you have it – the 2021 Clawbies are in the books. Our congratulations to all the winners, and our sincere gratitude to everyone who nominated an entry or was nominated for one – even if this wasn’t your year, please keep writing, recording, podcasting and Tweeting for your audiences. Everything you say and do makes a huge difference for the readers, listeners, and content consumers of Canadian law.

And even though it’s been a long December, we have reason to believe, like Counting Crows once sang, that this year will be better than the last. So celebrate the good times that have gone and even more, the great times that will come, and we’ll see you in 2022!

Maybe you’re cautiously optimistic about spending the holidays in person with friends and family. Or you’re still working remotely (a little too comfortable in your athleisure?) and itching to get back to an office with real people. Or maybe you’re marking the end of 2021 with some long-awaited travel!

Whatever your plans are, it will be of great comfort to know there is one thing about this December that will be the same as the past 15 Decembers… it’s Clawbies season!

Once again we’re asking for a few moments of your time to engage in that time-honoured, good vibes-generating, uplifting tradition of telling the world (or at least, the internet) all about your favourite Canadian legal content creators.

That’s right–the Canadian Law Blog Awards are here for our 16th year of being 100% pandemic-proof!

Ready to participate? Here’s what you need to know.

What’s eligible to win?

The Clawbies celebrate free online Canadian legal content. It’s all fair game: blogs, podcasts, videos, social accounts, legal newsletters, platform commentary, CanLII Connects, whitepapers, and beyond.

How can I participate?

Tell us who made the world a little better with their content in 2021. What content helped you see something in a new way or grow as a professional? Saved your bacon with exactly the  information you were looking for? Or compelled you to engage or share?

Using your Twitter account (with hashtag #clawbies2021) or law blog, help us identify your best of 2021.

As usual, there are only two rules, but they’re important. .

Rule #1 (aka “the humble Canadian rule”):

Do not nominate your own publication or project for a Clawbie. It doesn’t work that way. The only surefire way of getting your work on our radar is to write a post about other commentary authors. Follow this rule and we’ll take a look at your work too!

Rule #2:

Nominate up to 3 digital publications or authors via blog post or tweets (again – don’t forget to use #clawbies2021). Please include a brief explanation of why you think those authors deserve an award!

Are there prizes?

There are no prizes (or invoices!), but winners are welcome to bask in the warm glow of appreciation and admiration from their peers, and get a badge to add to their website. Everyone who participates benefits from a little boost in exposure, and is often making someone’s day.

(Also: there is no Zoom or hand sanitizer involved. Isn’t that reward enough these days?)

Sound good? Then let’s go!

From now until the end of the day on December 17th, nominate generously and humbly, and then tune in on New Year’s Eve for the 2021 Clawbies winners reveal.

Happy nominating!