MONTRÉAL, QC
MCGILL UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF LAW ~ FACULTÉ DE DROIT DE L’UNIVERSITÉ MCGILL
The Quid N LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
AKA Letter from the Lorax Catherine Zhang | 3L
Ah yes, winter. Seasonal sadness. Vitamin D. Frantic and half-devout rewatching of the “My cousin Oskaar” video on YouTube.1 All these things come into my lif e, and likely yours too, dear reader, at this most wonderful time of year. Well, okay, maybe the Oskaar video is just a me thing. I wanted for this letter to bring you a moment of sunshine in the darkness, or even just a silver lining to the clouds. This goal made me think back to a f ew years before law school, when I spent eight months working in urban forestry. I learned a great deal about the identification, care, and pruning of trees (and driving of pickup trucks). Those lessons armed me well for my future endeavours. For example, nothing since has f elt quite as real as shuttling branches into the starved maw of an industrial wood chipper. As nerve-racking as law school can be, at least I no longer need accidental death and dismemberment insurance!
25 NOV 2025
47volume vi issue04
But I digress. By f ar the most valuable gain I derived from that job has been a mental catalogue of my f avourite urban winter trees. Though these city mainstays are not your classic beauties of spring magnolia or summer elm, they have brought me consistent joy through the long, snowy winters. In f act, some of them have a unique beauty that only the cold reveals. Unhidden by leaves, the smooth bark and red shoots of young silver maples really shine, and a fluffy cap of snow is the best decoration nature can give to boughs of blue spruce. If you’ve read up to this point, you can probably tell that I really like trees. As you’ll see from the articles in this issue, I’m not even the only one! I do sincerely love them, and I hope that some of you will take more note of your friendly neighbourhood flora the next time you commute to campus or run an errand. But anyone can make their own list of the small joys in lif e, even— especially—the inconspicuous ones. It’s my humble opinion that such an exercise is good for the soul. Happy discovering, McGill Law. And stay warm!
1
Oskaar&Dave, “My cousin Oskaar” (19 March 2009), online (video): <youtube.com/watch?v=q5q77MQzU2Q>.
Cette semaine INSIGHTS
COMMUNAUTÉ
2 | ODE TO STRUGGLE Taking the Hard Route in the Age of AI
8 | DEAR QUID 11 | OVERHEARDS
3 | ENTRE DEUX PAS 4 | THE CLIMATE CORNER COP 30 in Brazil: Did they really cut down 10 000 trees? 9 | MONTREAL MOB LAWYERS 10 | A REVIEW OF THE ALL’S FAIR PILOT
17 | SLANDER AND THE CITY Anatomy of a Good Night 18 | A MONTH IN THE LIFE A Photography Corner 19 | CROSSWORD PUZZLE Both Sides of the Law
11 | QUARTIER LATIN 12 | LEGAL LORE A Conversation with a Legal Aid Criminal Defence Lawyer QUID.LAW@MCGILL.CA
QUIDLAW
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