Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan

Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan is a law-focused program with a strong British Columbia center of gravity and a wider Canadian frame. It turns court rulings, statutory language, and regulatory fights into explanations a general listener can follow. The show is not just about verdicts. It is about how legal systems reach them. Recent episodes spend time on lawyer regulation in British Columbia and Alberta, including the Law Society of British Columbia and Alberta’s Regulated Professions Neutrality Act. They also examine a defamation claim tied to Law Society language, a judicial review involving Vancouver Island University discipline, and the line between expressive conduct and misconduct. Criminal law appears often. So do the details that make it complicated. A manslaughter conviction after an e-bike confrontation becomes a way to discuss reasonableness and self-defence. A conviction overturned because of a judge’s interventions becomes a lesson in the appearance of a fair trial. A private prosecution raises questions about Crown discretion and abuse of process. The show also follows law into less expected places: boat storage after death, damage from a border search, the legal definition of a full-curl thin-horn ram, and whether a vehicle was a gift in a Family Law Act dispute. The pacing is conversational, with room for plain examples and flashes of dry humor. The substance stays lawyerly. Statutory wording, appeal records, evidentiary standards, and deadlines are treated as decisive, not decorative. That gives the show a useful discipline. It explains why a legal outcome may feel surprising while still following a rule. It also makes space for institutional questions: who regulates lawyers, when government priorities enter professional governance, when courts can review decisions, and how new offences might stretch an already burdened justice system. Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan suits a listener who wants Canadian law made legible through real cases, local institutions, and the practical consequences of missed deadlines, unclear evidence, or badly managed proceedings.