Seminar for New Federally Appointed Judges 2021
All new federally appointed judges attend this pair of seminars within a year of their appointment, with one held in the spring and one in the fall.
Number of Participants: 149
Date: April 12-16, 2021
Common Law Judges
Number of Participants (including faculty): 149
Civil Law Judges
Number of Participants (including faculty): 41
Date: October 25-29, 2021
Common Law Judges
Number of Participants (including faculty): 84
Civil Law Judges
Number of Participants (including faculty): 18
Overview
All new federally appointed judges attend this pair of seminars within a year of their appointment, with one held in the spring and one in the fall. They are organized jointly by the National Judicial Institute and the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice.
Objectives
The objectives of these seminars are to orient participants in their new role as judges and to initiate their efforts to maintain and enhance their legal knowledge and judicial skills throughout their years on the bench.
Summary
These seminars were led by senior judges, with input from legal academics and experienced lawyers. A number of learning tools – including lectures, courtroom roleplay videos and small-group discussions – were deployed to help convey the knowledge and skills judges require to be effective in their new role. Some of the sessions were addressed to all judges, while some were tailored to common law judges, others to civil law judges, and others to judges sitting in federal court.
All participants jointly attended sessions on judicial independence and judicial ethics, judgment writing, civility in the courtroom, strategies for ensuring equal access to justice for persons with disabilities, as well as the relationship between judging and social context, with a particular focus on the law of sexual assault and cases involving indigenous peoples. Judges from all jurisdictions also attended sessions on applications for injunctions, the preparation and delivery of oral judgments, the law of evidence, civil procedure, judicial review of administrative action, self-represented litigants, and courtroom and case management. Finally, a suite of sessions for common law judges dealt with family law and criminal law topics ranging from jury selection to sentencing, including questions specific to sexual assault trials. Civil law judges spent time working on family law matters, effective communication in the courtroom, regulatory offences, and the law relating to consent to medical care.