On the fifth day The Public Eye gave readers .....!

Truth To Power (www.accesstoinfo.blogspot.com; vicpopuli1@gmail.com)

Good Day Readers:

Mr. Populi has given you the following article. As is his custom he has included a metaphorical image. Anyone know it's significance?

Osgoode Hall Law School at York University located in Toronto was named after the first Chief Justice of Ontario, William Osgoode established (1889) by The Law Society of Upper Canada and was the only accredited law school in Ontario until 1957.

The school was at the centre of the debates over the principles of modern legal education in the 1950s providing many of the founding members of the bar in the prairie provinces. Today it offers a professional degree in law accepted for bar admission in every province with the exception of Quebec, as well as, Massachusetts and New York.

Additionally, it has three joint degree programs and is Canada's largest graduate program in law. Also available at Osgoode is a United States JD degree in conjunction with New York University School of Law. It adopted the Juris Doctor degree designation which has replaced the previous Bachelor of Laws designation. (Wikipedia)

Osgoode Hall Law School has the largest law library in the Commonwealth

Dean Patrick J. Monahan

BA (Ottawa), MA (Carleton), LLB (Osgoode), LLM (Harvard) of the Bar of Ontario

Seasons Greetings!
Clare L. Pieuk
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29 December 2009
On the Fifth Day: The System

Subject: Au contraire Dean Monahan
From: CLARE PIEUK < pieuk@shaw.ca >
Date: Wednesday, January 9, 2008 12:37 pm
To: lawdean@osgoode.yorku.ca
cc: cchisick@osgoode.yorku.ca, jnieder@shaw.ca

Dear Dean Monahan:

Thank you for your recent e-mail to www.CyberSmokeBlog.blogspot.com suggesting one of our postings (copied to Mr. Chisick) might have been sent by mistake. Au contraire:

(1) The defamation lawsuit we are profiling (Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench File Number CI 05-01-41955) is being contested in real time on the internet. As educators, we both appreciate the veritable treasure-trove of learning it potentially offers law students particularly those interested in intellectual property jurisprudence. We were advised by an articling student (University of Manitoba) an affidavit filed in this case has already been the subject of discussion at a Robson Hall lecture

(2) The case has just about everything you could possibly ask save for a first degree murder charge:

(i) A taxpayer funded organization (Manitoba Metis Federation) suing private citizens for alleged defamation (January, 2004 article posted on www.CyberSmokeSignals.com). Ostensibly is the legal system being manipulated to harass, bully, threaten and intimidate self-represented defendants for displaying material clearly embarrassing and damaging to its current leadership? Is freedom of speech really the issue?

(ii) A Winnipeg Metis lawyer who, when asked publicly, agreed to serve pro bono as General Legal Counsel for CSS.com after it became aware it had been placed on a “defamation watch” by the Federation

(iii) Hard to believe but said lawyer not only wrote the allegedly defamatory material (a petition calling for financial reform of the organization’s election process) but encouraged its verbatim posting at no time advising/instructing it be removed. More than sufficient black print (e-mail) exists to fully document and substantiate this claim

(iv) Unbeknownst at the time, said solicitor simultaneously entered into a retainer agreement with the MMF ($2,500 monthly – subsequently saw unsigned copy of contract) yet miraculously avoided being named a co-defendant. Although the subject of a lengthy, well documented complaint before the Manitoba Law Society (not his first), he was not disciplined lending further credence to Philip Slayton’s comments in, Lawyers Gone Bad: Money, Sex and Madness in Canada’s Legal Profession referencing Law Societies in general and the MLS in particular

We ask this be kept confidential for now, however, the attorney in question is being seriously considered as the subject of a public prosecution among other reasons over a false and misleading affidavit he filed

(v) A minimum $250/hour prosecuting attorney who epitomizes everything Philip Slayton suggests is wrong with lawyers having billables in this case since 2003 well in excess of $100 thousand

One could go on ad nauseam, however, suffice it to say there is more than enough for three best selling full-length novels.

I would particularly like to thank Jeff Niederhoffer who has spent many, many countless hours showing me how to prepare, file, and present affidavits and pre-trial motions, as well as, teaching proper court procedure. But most of all for his encouragement to write you. He still talks about how much he enjoyed Mr. Chisick’s lectures while studying law at the University of Manitoba.

Sincerely,
Clare L. Pieuk

Transport Institute
Asper School of Business
Faculty of Management
University of Manitoba