That's what extensions are for! I adjourned hearings, got extensions on written submissions and, like Douglas Adams said, listened to the whoooooshing sound that deadlines made as they flew by.
We had our 2 year old home while daycare was closed from mid-March to August. My spouse is a health care professional and she still had a full client-load seeing them over video. Our compromise was that she had to give up Monday so she could be full-time toddler duty Saturday-Monday. The rest of the week, she worked 9-5 doing video sessions and I was on toddler duty. I would work evenings and weekends just to keep up. I only managed (to keep up with work) because I would put in 15 hour days Saturday-Monday and then got in 4-5 hours on days I was on toddler duty after she went to bed. It was an awful grind. It feels like we may be trending back in that direction with cases going up and I don't know how we could manage like that again. It feels harder now - at least when EVERYTHING was closed, opposing counsel, the courts, tribunals, etc. could relate because their kids were home too. Our toddler is back in daycare but we are debating pulling her out with cases on the rise. However, we both feel that people are less understanding now (in terms of extension requests or rescheduling client sessions for her) because it would be our choice to keep her home and they may not relate.
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UofT, Queens, Western, and maybe some other non-Ontario schools all started Fall 2020 in person with masks on. I don't see why this model wouldn't also be used once a decent portion of the population has been vaccinated.Â
Fall 2021 - 75% in person
Winter 2022 - 100% in person
Barring some massive failure in the vaccine roll-out I don’t see a reason to have an online only semester. I personally think it would be safe to have students back even if they haven’t vaccinated our age group. The pressure on the hospitals should drop off significantly once the over 50 population is vaccinated.Â
I know a really smart guy at UofT who was on the varsity rugby team and quit early on because he said it was "absolutely impossible" to balance the two. I also know of a now-graduated student who was a varsity figure skater throughout law school but also had very good grades - everyone on Bay St was after her lol