SML’s Grey Areas newsletter has been in publication since July 1992 and discusses the latest developments in professional regulation. New issues are published monthly – subscribe below to learn more about recent studies, case law and legislative updates in the regulatory world. Explore our catalogue below.
Issues published before 2020 can be found on CanLII.
Risk-based regulation is now the norm. While there are many ways of describing it, Julia Black, Professor of Law at the London School of Economics and Political Science terms it as:
Regulators are called upon to assist registrants to identify and intervene appropriately when they encounter intimate partner violence (IPV) in their practice. The November 2025 report of the Domestic Violence Death Review Committee (under the auspices of the Ontario Office of the Chief Coroner) made several recommendations, including the following:
Few would dispute that a regulator should discipline registrants who engage in overtly racist behaviour. However, beyond overt acts, racism also includes unconscious bias, micro-aggressions, and disparate outcomes for patients/clients. In addition, registrants themselves experience racism from their colleagues and clients. What is the role of a professional regulator in addressing this?
Technology often brings unanticipated consequences. AI is no exception. A recent article called Synthetic Grievances: AI-Generated Bar Complaints and the Chilling of Criminal Defense by American law professor Ashley Krenelka Chase illustrates the point. While the paper has a narrow focus (complaints against criminal defence lawyers), it points to a potentially much larger issue.
Due to some past concerns, the UK regulator for nurses and midwives, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), has done significant work on “safeguarding”. This work is closely scrutinized by an Independent Oversight Group.
Imposing disciplinary sanctions may be one of the more challenging activities for regulators. Discipline panels and the courts have developed a nuanced approach that has three main components: