Here you’ll find a collection of writings going back to law school days, some academic, some professional, some “just for fun”.
If there’s a theme, it’s about exploring our humanity through technology, law, history, biography, and whimsy, and then thinking about excellence. Along the way, it grapples with some of the hard questions of life.
Mostly it has been written to uplift — and to teach how to be better at what we do and say, whether individually, collectively, or in our professions.
Newsletters
It seems I can’t help writing newsletters. Beginning in 1997, I sent out a law firm newsletter by regular mail to clients and friends, three times a year, until my retirement in 2017. The headers vary according to the name of the firm with whom I practiced from time to time, but the style, content, and message was consistent: useful summaries of legal developments, legal “war stories”, and legal tips.
The production and mailing of these missives is a story in itself. From the initial composition, to getting them out to Blake and Bev Feeley at Eastern Ontario Graphics, thereafter a mailing party which usually involved my kids, stuffing envelopes, licking stamps, applying mailing labels, and carting the boxes off to the Russell Post Office where the clerks looked the other way on the matter of mass-mailings. Maybe that’s because they knew me from pre-law days when I originated and published the village newspaper, the Russell Review.
As retirement from law approached and I began contemplating “Career Three” as a writer, speaker, and consultant, I began to produce a weekly email piece named The Friday Briefing, covering mostly topics of interest and value to professionals – practice management, communication, and particularly professional satisfaction. Before long that was supplemented by a Monday mailing called Norm’s Notes, being much more eclectic, “whatever came into my head” at the time of writing.
Law Firm Newsletter Archive
From 1997 to 2017, three times a year, a newsletter went out by mail to clients, colleagues, and friends. The masthead changed as the firm changed — Bowley Cuffari, ultimately Low Murchison Radnoff — but the content didn’t: plain-language summaries of legal developments, practical tips, the occasional war story, and a quote or two worth keeping.
Roughly 45 issues survive in PDF. They are offered here as an archive — a snapshot of two decades of legal practice in Eastern Ontario, and of a profession in transition.
Browse the full archive here.
Friday Briefings
Published weekly since 2017, Friday Briefings is Norm’s letter to the professions — practical, direct, and occasionally sardonic commentary on what it means to practise well. Topics range from client relations and referral strategy to the wider questions of professional identity and career alignment.
Browse the full Friday Briefings archive here.
Norm’s Notes
Launched as a Monday complement to Friday Briefings, Norm’s Notes is — frankly — whatever comes into Norm’s head, which turns out to be quite a lot. Commentary on the society in which we live, observations from the Tay River valley, and the occasional dispatch from whatever rabbit hole he has fallen into this week. Be warned that this is a man with a border collie, a John Deere tractor, and power tools. And over a thousand young evergreen trees under cultivation.
Browse the full Norm’s Notes archive here.
Articles
Various pieces of writing for professional and general publications, covering law, effective communication, technology, the changing shape of professional practice, and thoughts about our place in the world.
The Creative or Collecting Testator — OBA Institute of Continuing Professional Development, 2016
Law360 Canada
Law360 Canada is Thomson Reuters’ premier online publication for Canadian legal professionals — authoritative, widely read, and the publication of record for the profession. Norm is a regular contributor, writing on topics at the intersection of law, professional practice, and the broader questions facing practitioners today.
Is AI Coming for Your Practice? April 7, 2026
Academic
Two serious legal academic works, four decades apart, the first winning the Lieff Prize in 1980, the second being the major paper for the Master of Laws program. Between them they cover family law, tax policy, technology, privacy, and the governance of a democratic society.
Winding Up the Family: Some Tax Implications
Written in 1980 as a student-at-law in Ottawa, this 22-page article examines the intersection of family law and tax policy in the wake of major legislative reform — specifically the collision between the Income Tax Act and the Family Law Reform Act, 1978. It won the Honourable Mr. Justice Lieff Award in Family Law that year. Published in the Ottawa Law Review and subsequently cited in the Reports of Family Law, it remains available via CanLII.
John Norman Bowley, “Winding up the Family: Some Tax Implications”, 1980 12-1 Ottawa Law Review 678, 1980 CanLIIDocs 190; (1981), 20 R.F.L. (2d) 145.
Available in full via CanLII and as a PDF download here.
Alice and Bob in Juristic Park: Can Cryptosaurus Rex Keep a Secret?
Written in 2002 as the major paper for the Master of Laws program at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, this 68-page work examines the intersection of technology, privacy, and democratic governance at a pivotal moment in the development of the internet. It covers surveillance, encryption, biometrics, e-commerce, and the emerging tension between technological capability and civil liberty.
Norman Bowley, “Alice and Bob in Juristic Park: Can Cryptosaurus Rex Keep a Secret?”, LLM Major Paper, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University (2002).
Available as a download here.