On Saturday, September 4, Vintages is presenting a new release of wines, with a focus on reds from the Southern Rhone Valley. At its best, the South Rhone produces rich red wines with the savoury character of herbs, game and earth. In the most traditional and rustic bottles, this earthiness ripens into a fecund aroma that most critics euphemistically call barnyard (having never stepped into a barnyard myself, I prefer the term scat).

In any case, you have to watch your step in this particular barnyard because the Rhone also produces a lot of mediocre table wine. So, here are the Short Cellar’s top picks:

Pierre Amadeiu “Romane Machotte” 2007 Gigondas ($22.95, Vintages #017400)
Gigondas is a high and hot sub-appellation in the Rhone. This terroir gives the wine a molten character that is developing a strong cult following among oenophiles. The 2007 Romane Machotte is a classic Gigondas with rich and spiky juxtapositions of flavour. The nose is like a peony dusted with freshly ground black pepper. The flavours are deep, coarse and complex, featuring a lovely cherry/blackberry fruit spiced with garrigue (the flavour of wild herbs and lavender). This is a perfect cellar wine and it will continue to improve toward 2018. 91/100

After the jump: More picks from the South Rhone, including the best of the bunch.

Every weekday morning, Precedent scours the headlines to find stories likely to be today's hot topics.

• Manitoba Judge Lori Douglas has agreed to be removed from the bench while a review is underway concerning the exposure of sexually explicit photographs of her. Douglas will continue to work in an administrative capacity. [National Post]
• Christie Blatchford: “A judge’s credibility depends on legal knowledge, fairness, experience and courtroom manners, not what he does with his member, or what she does with it.” [Globe and Mail]
• Heather Mallick: “[F]ind me a judge with a pristine private life. Such an animal would be incapable of understanding the human condition.” [Toronto Star]
• Havi Alizadeh — one of the people arrested last week on terrorism charges — and his lawyer, Sean May, plan to fight for the release of secret evidence gathered about Alizadeh by Canadian intelligence. The tactic could delay Alizadeh’s trial for years. [Globe and Mail]
• A conservative California lobby group is calling on Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown to testify when the Proposition 8 gay marriage trial reaches U.S. federal court. [Wall Street Journal — Law Blog]
• Quebec Premier Jean Charest is being tried in the court of public and media opinion in the face of Marc Bellemere’s influence-peddling allegations. [Globe and Mail]
  

The CBC reported yesterday that the husband of a Manitoba judge showed sexually explicit photos of his wife to another man, in an effort to convince him to have sex with his spouse.

Alexander Chapman filed complaints with the Canadian Judicial Council and Manitoba Law Society earlier this summer, naming Justice Lori Douglas and Winnipeg lawyer Jack King. Chapman claims King, who he retained to handle his divorce proceedings, showed him more than 30 photographs in 2003, posted to the website Darkcavern.com. Douglas was appointed to the bench two years later.

The post on CBC.ca is accompanied by sidebars explaining the ethical rationale for reporting the story, and providing quotes from legal scholars on the ramifications of both the story and the photos themselves.

Should the exposure of sexually explicit photos affect a judge’s standing? Take our latest poll, to the right of this post, and let us know what you think.

Every weekday morning, Precedent scours the headlines to find stories likely to be today's hot topics.

• Former Quebec Justice Minister Marc Bellemere testified Tuesday that he told two staff members he was under pressure to let Liberal fundraisers influence judicial appointments. It remains to be seen whether these people will be called to testify. [Toronto Star]
• Editorial: “The allegations [that Jean Charest’s government appointed party backers as judges] strike at the very integrity of the justice system. But they are not, at the moment, a criminal matter....[The public] should wait to hear Mr. Charest's side of the story before issuing their verdict.” [Globe and Mail]
• Jim Middlemiss: In-house lawyers are finding savings for the companies by demanding fixed rates, hiring smaller firms, setting strict deadlines, and using new reporting systems. [National Post — Legal Post]
• The B.C. Supreme Court judge presiding over the Air India perjury trial of Inderjit Singh Reyat told jurors to resist the natural urge to research the case on the Internet. The trial begins September 9. [Globe and Mail]
• Omar Khadr’s trial will resume on October 18 at Guantanamo Bay. [Toronto Star]
• The federal government will appeal the recent staying of extradition proceedings against Abdullah Khadr, Omar’s older brother. Khadr family lawyer Dennis Edney said yesterday that the government “has shown little respect for the judiciary” throughout the case. [Toronto Star]
• Saskatchewan securities watchers are bracing for the province’s first “poison pill” hearing, stemming from the $38.6-billion takeover bid of Potash Corp. by Australian mining company BHP Billiton. [Globe and Mail — The Law Page]
• Bar Talk:
  • The Magna buyout approval was attended by 18 robed lawyers, and more in the gallery.
  • Margot Patterson has been hired by FMC, and will join the firm’s Ottawa office. Patterson was the general counsel of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters. [Globe and Mail — The Law Page]
• Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said that the lawsuit filed against him by a man who claims to own more than 80% of the company is trying to move the case to state court in New York only to “burden and harass” the social media titan. [National Post — Legal Post]
• A young Pakistani lawyer successfully petitioned the Lahore High Court arguing that cricket players involved in match-fixing could be charged with treason. [Globe and Mail]
  

Torys has just announced that Robert Prichard has been hired as the firm's new Chair. Prichard, who is also president and CEO of Metrolinx, begins his new role at the firm on September 4.

"I have tremendous respect for Rob and look forward to working with him," says Torys Managing Partner Les Viner. "His broad experience in law and business makes him a terrific resource as an advisor to our clients, a mentor to our younger lawyers and a member of our leadership team. We are all very pleased that Rob is joining us at Torys."

Read the full press release here [PDF].

Photo courtesy of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce

From the “Didn’t your high school teacher tell you about this?” file: the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) in the Philippines recently lost an appeal because their argument cited a Wikipedia article.

According to a post on the Philippine Daily Inquirer website (h/t: Slashdot), the OSG was attempting to cast doubt on the testimony of an expert witness in a marriage annulment case. (The Pacific Rim nation’s government intervenes in annulments in an effort to, according to the  post, “preserve and protect the sanctity of marriage and the family.”)

It was the ex-wife who alerted the court to the source of the OSG’s information. The decision called the evidence “unacceptable” and the attempt to use it “haphazard,” especially given the official resources available: “The Republic has access to government institutions, i.e., National Center for Mental Health, which has qualified psychiatric experts whose opinion it could have sought.”

It seems the Spirit of Ontario I — the now-defunct high speed ferry that ran between Toronto and Rochester in 2004 and 2005 — continues to haunt people living and travelling in New York state.

According to a New York Times article by Nina Bernstein, the Border Patrol station opened in Rochester to process ferry users has since grown significantly and shifted toward a new role: arresting people travelling on buses and trains in the state who cannot produce proper citizenship documents. Rochester-based agents made 1,040 arrests in 2008 — one of the highest rates in the country, according to the Times.

So why the focus on Rochester, and other cities in upstate New York? Because they’re less than 100 miles from the U.S. border, and therefore within the Border Patrol’s enforceable area. “The little-publicized transportation checks are the result of the Border Patrol’s growth since 9/11,” writes Bernstein, “fueled by Congressional antiterrorism spending and an expanding definition of border jurisdiction.”

Every weekday morning, Precedent scours the headlines to find stories likely to be today's hot topics.

• The man killed by police on Victoria Park Avenue Sunday afternoon had mental health issues, and his family was in the midst of trying to find treatment. Glenn Stuart, lawyer for the family, said this “may be another telling example of someone who the system failed.” [Globe and Mail]
• Former Blue Jays pitcher Roger Clemens pleaded not guilty in a Washington court yesterday to lying to Congress about using performance-enhancing drugs. [National Post]
• The Clemens defence team includes Michael Attanasio, a San Diego lawyer and son of a well-known sports agent. [Wall Street Journal — Law Blog]
• Ontario Chief Justice Warren Winkler is calling for more judges to act as mediators in civil cases — and for courts to be renovated to accommodate the official integration of this responsibility. [Lawyers Weekly]
• The B.C. government has been handed a $172,643.41 legal bill for the services of special prosecutor Robin McFee. The lawyer was hired to investigate whether charges should be laid against former solicitor general John Les and Chilliwack one-time Chilliwack public servant Grant Sanborn. [Globe and Mail]
• Paul Feldman: 1947-2010. [Globe and Mail]
• A woman has been removed from a Detroit-area trial after she posted a message on Facebook saying it was “gonna be fun to tell the defendant they're guilty.” She may face contempt charges. [Toronto Star]
  

Are we on the cusp on a “brain gain”? Given the state of the U.S. legal job market, it would hardly be surprising to see some American lawyers coming to Canada in search of work. But they’ll have to jump through a few hoops before they can begin their practice.

Yesterday, in a post on Slaw about a recent uptick in the number of U.S. medical professionals moving to Canada, Omar Ha-Redeye wondered rhetorically about whether this trend might soon extend to lawyers. “Unlike the U.S., we haven’t had massive lay-offs of lawyers from major law firms,” he writes. Canadian recruiters I’ve spoken to have described more of a massive hiring slow-down. But could some of these hires be American counsel seeking greener pasture north of the border?”

Linelle Mogado surely hopes so. After graduating from Northeastern University’s law program and being admitted to the California bar, Mogado moved to Canada. According to a first-person account posted yesterday on Law is Cool, the Ontario-lawyer-to-be has spent the last two and a half years navigating the channels set up for international lawyers to be called to the bar in this province. Mogado writes that the process, which includes numerous forms, exams, and a three-day “Professional Conduct and Practice in Ontario” course, has cost more than $6,000 and will hopefully end with the Call to the Bar ceremony in January 2011. (The Articling Requirement was waived in Mogado’s case; international lawyers can ask that the Law Society consider their professional experience in lieu of an articling year.)

Mogado’s post is worth a read — it breaks down, in detail, exactly what a U.S. lawyer needs to do (and how much it will cost) to be eligible to practice in Ontario.

Photo by Saeed Jahed

Every weekday morning, Precedent scours the headlines to find stories likely to be today's hot topics.

• Richard Morris, the lawyer representing the fourth person charged in the RCMP’s latest terrorism probe, is accusing police of adding unrelated domestic abuse charges against his client, in order to allow more time for the Mounties’ investigation. [Toronto Star]
• The Obama administration is growing increasingly wary of the optics surrounding Omar Khadr’s trial. [New York Times]
• Norman Spector: Two sources in the New York Times piece critical of the Khadr trial were both high-ranking members of the Bush administration. [Globe and Mail]
• Michael Geist: Conrad Black’s Internet-defamation suit over press releases posted on Hollinger’s website will proceed despite jurisdictional objections by the defendants. It’s a case that “merits closer attention.” [Toronto Star]
• Dahlia Lithwick: As U.S. Supreme Court justices “continue to decide the cases that affect the ways in which women in America are educated, hired, compensated, and afforded control over their bodies, it can only be a good thing to have three voices at the table with actual experience in the field.” [Slate]