And so here we are – New Year’s Eve 2025, the end of an extraordinary and turbulent year whose passage many of us will be happy to celebrate, as we equally fervently welcome the hope and potential of 2026. It’s a time for looking back and reflecting – and also for handing out some awesome awards, but we’ll get to that shortly.
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:
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 at the University of Windsor Faculty of Law 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!
