The Notarial Chair: A Successful Year in Review

The mission of the Notarial Chair of the Université de Montréal is to support the development and influence of the notarial profession. The Chair carries out its mandate by organizing scientific activities at the Université de Montréal and providing financial support for similar activities hosted by five other universities: Laval, McGill, Ottawa (Civil Law Section), Sherbrooke and UQAM.

The 2005-2006 academic year was a busy one and it is my pleasure to report on the activities that took place.

Activities at the Université de Montréal

On November 21, 2005, Mr. Denis Mazeaud, a professor at the Université Panthéon-Assas (Paris II), presented the fourth Roger-Comtois Conference. His speech on the ten principal rules governing contracts today and in the future, entitled Les dix commandements du droit des contrats aujourd'hui et demain (lecture française et européenne), will be published shortly in the Edition Thémis and will be available at the Chair's future events. The participation of Professor Mazeaud solidified the tradition of alternating between Québec-based and foreign lecturers as part of this annual conference series.

Six other activities were held at the Université de Montréal: four lectures and two mini-conferences of half a day each. The topics addressed in the lectures related to several areas of the law: bankruptcy law, security instruments, trusts, and the legal status of companion animals in comparative law. The mini-conferences dealt, respectively, with elder abuse and end-of-life wishes. These two activities drew jurists and participants from the fields of health and social services and planned giving, as well as individuals, such as retirees, who had a personal interest in the topics discussed.

I remind you that attendance at all of the Chair's activities is free and on-line registration is available at the following address: www.chairedunotariat.qc.ca.

Activities at the Other Universities

Each of McGill University, the University of Ottawa, the Université de Sherbrooke and UQAM hosted one activity with the financial support of the Chair. The University of Ottawa invited a foreign lecturer (Me Jean-Luc Ledoux, notary practising in Tamines, Belgium, and professor at the Law Faculty of the Université catholique de Louvain) as did UQAM (Mr. Éric Millard, professor at the Jean Monnet Faculty, Université Paris Sud (XI)). The conference at McGill University was presented by Me Robert P. Godin, an associate professor at the university's Law Faculty. The Université de Sherbrooke welcomed Me Danielle Robitaille, notary and property manager for a Québec-based enterprise. For a second year in a row, the Université Laval organized two activities, inviting Professors Pierre Ciotola and Diane Bruneau.

The topics discussed at these conferences were wide-ranging: co-ownership through the holding of shares, the law of trusts and security instruments, the consequences of harmonizing European notarial law and university training throughout the European Union, and family law.

As of the 2006-2007 academic year, the Chair will provide more significant financial support to each of the universities with a view to having them host larger events: conferences, mini-conferences and more substantial activities. Therefore, a lump sum will be granted to each university, on an alternate basis over a period of five years. The Université Laval will inaugurate this program by hosting a conference on corporate law this coming year, under the stewardship of Professors Charlaine Bouchard and François Brochu.

The Chair's Publications

The Chair's publications ensure its outreach beyond the universities. In this vein, the text of the third Roger-Comtois Conference, presented by Me François Frenette and entitled L'influence de la pratique quotidienne du notariat sur l'évolution de la législation québécoise (Influence of the Day-To-Day Practice of the Notarial Profession on Changes in Québec's Legislation), was published and distributed, among other things, to every judge of the Québec Court of Appeal and of the Supreme Court of Canada.

The book entitled La Faculté de droit de l'Université de Montréal et le notariat: 125 ans de formation (The Law Faculty of Université De Montréal and the Notarial Profession: 125 Years of Training), written by Professors Pierre Ciotola and Jean Hétu with the financial support of the Chair, was awarded the 2005 Rodolphe-Fournier Prize by the Chambre des notaires du Québec and the Fédération des sociétés d'histoire du Québec. This award of excellence underscores the quality of the research set out in this book which traces the history of the notarial profession.

The Research Team

The mission to develop the notarial profession requires that the Chair have researchers. Professor Claude Fabien of the Université de Montreal's Law Faculty and a member of the Chair's Scientific Committee since its creation, joined the research team during the year. Professor Fabien, already highly involved in the Chair's projects, will present the first fall lecture, addressing the need for further refinement of the institution of the mandate in the event of incapacity, in a speech entitled Le mandat de protection en cas d'inaptitude: une institution à parfaire.

Thus, the research team is now comprised of Professor Brigitte Lefebvre (Chairholder and principal researcher), Professors Pierre Ciotola, Claude Fabien and Alain Roy (Associate Researchers) and Mrs. Sylvie Berthold (Research Officer). The team is very active. Several of its research papers were published during the past year.

Mrs. Lefebvre's focus is on contractual justice and family property law.

Professor Ciotola's research deals with the law of security instruments and the law of gifts. He will present the fifth Roger-Comtois Conference in October on the theme of suspicion and the law.

Professor Claude Fabien's principal areas of research fall within the sphere of the civil law: liability, evidence, contracts (employment, services, mandate) and protective mandates.

Professor Alain Roy's work centres around family law and the law applicable to children. He is also working on the topic of the legal status of companion animals in comparative law.

Mrs. Sylvie Berthold's work focuses on bankruptcy law.

International Activities

The reach of the notarial profession extends beyond Québec's borders. During this second year of my mandate as Chairholder, I further strengthened ties with the Private Law Centre of the Université libre de Bruxelles in the field of family property law.

The Chair also maintained ties with the ARNU (Association Rencontre Notariat-Université), a French association whose goal is to provide for the better training of notaries and develop legal research and the practice of the profession. The ARNU seeks to benefit both the notarial profession and universities by strengthening and enhancing the relationship between them, in France as well as abroad.

Activities Involving Students

Promoting the notarial profession among students is an important undertaking for the Chair. To this end, for a second consecutive year, the legal clinic of the Université de Montreal's Law Faculty offered a notarial component. This is a pedagogical activity for students in their second and third year of the bachelor's program, which is combined with a legal consultation service. The purpose of the activity is to teach students the skills required by a notary (public officer, jurist and officer of the court) when providing legal advice, drafting notarial acts or carrying out non-litigious proceedings. Notary Stéphane Brunelle supervised this activity.

This was the first year in which the Chair awarded a prize in connection with its legal writing competition for undergraduate students. A selection committee comprised of Professor Claude Fabien and Notary Christine Gagnon, under the chairmanship of Professor Pierre Ciotola, awarded a $1,000 prize to Véronique Racine, a student at the Université Laval, for her text entitled Le notaire à la rescousse des sols contaminés (Soil Contamination: Notaries to the Rescue). This work was supervised by Professor Marie-Ève Arbour.

The competition will take place again in the 2006-2007 academic year. Two prizes will be awarded: a first prize of $1,000 offered by the Chair and a second prize of $500 offered by the Québec City firm of Côté, Taschereau, Samson, Demers, s.e.n.c.

In order to accentuate its presence among students, the Chair launched a second legal writing competition for students registered in a graduate law program in a Québec university or in the Civil Law Section of the University of Ottawa. Every text written within the scope of a course or supervised by a professor will be eligible, except for a master's thesis. The Chair will award a prize of $1,500 to the participant whose text is chosen by the selection committee.

For three years, the Notarial Chair has been awarding six merit bursaries of $1,000 each to students registered in the DDN (diploma of notarial studies) program at the Université de Montréal. Three bursaries were awarded to the three students with the highest academic record upon admission to the DDN program for the 2005-2006 academic year. The recipients were Marie-France Benoît, Rosie Chiasson and Jean-Pierre Vianna. Three other bursaries were awarded to the three students who obtained the highest DDN scores in 2004-2005. The recipients were Keri Clair-Bookalam, Audray Cloutier and Simon D'Aoust.

In order to encourage holders of a diploma of notarial studies to pursue graduate studies, the Chair created a $4,000 merit bursary offered to holders of a DDN who register in the master's program at the Université de Montréal or at one of its affiliated colleges. Exceptionally, this year, two bursaries were awarded. The recipients were Notary Marie-Pierre Duchaine and Mrs. Mélany Duquette (DDN 2006). It should be noted that the diploma of notarial studies may have been earned at another university.

Web Site

The Chair has a Web site at: www.chairedunotariat.qc.ca. It contains details of all the activities as well as the texts of certain lectures and conferences. In addition, the section entitled Quoi de neuf, which is updated weekly, contains a summary of legal developments and news of interest to the notarial profession. Do not hesitate to visit the Web site.

Conclusion

As it appears, the Notarial Chair takes great care in fulfilling its mission to promote and spread awareness about the notarial profession among the academic community and the general public, by organizing activities of all types: lectures, mini-conferences, legal writing competitions and merit bursaries. I have no doubt that all of these efforts will bear fruit.

Brigitte Lefebvre, Notary
Chairholder