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Archive for the ‘Practice of Law’ Columns

Governments: A2J Is Mostly Your Mess to Clean Up

It’s easy to blame lawyers for the failure to provide people with accessible and reliable legal solutions. But truthfully, I’d place only about a third of the responsibility for the A2J at the feet of the legal profession.

Lawyers’ contribution to the access failure in Canada falls into two broad categories:

Regulatory: Lawyers elected by other lawyers constitute the great majority of law society Benchers who have consistently blocked expanding the supply of legal services providers beyond the legal profession.

Commercial: Lawyers in private practice charge fees that are beyond most people’s financial capabilities, both in terms of amount and . . . [more]

Posted in: Practice of Law

Dealing With Sudden Resignations: 5 Tips for the Small Firm Founder

You are in the middle of another busy day of legal practice when your star associate pops their head in your office. “Can I speak to you for a moment?” “Sure,” you say. The next thing you know, the associate is telling you they are resigning from their position and will be gone in four weeks.

This is the reality of the workplace; good associates and staff members move on. Why do people leave? Most often, it is to make a career move that better aligns with their goals. Sometimes, it is also about money. Or it can be because . . . [more]

Posted in: Practice of Law

The Value of the Debrief for Project Success

It’s difficult to find the balance between beating yourself up for a failure and reviewing what went wrong in an attempt to uncover the lessons learned. I try not to stew on past mistakes and quite frankly, rarely categorize less ‘successful’ projects that way. All my project experiences have improved me professionally and helped to fine tune my processes for the next project.

Whether a project is perceived as a success or a failure, I can’t stress enough the value of the debrief. Hindsight really is 20/20. On a project we need a bit of distance to reflect on what . . . [more]

Posted in: Legal Information, Practice of Law

One and Only

The winning strategy of being one of one drives value and growth.

Leading law firm. Full service. Client focused. These throw-way platitudes are hallmarks of those who are indistinguishable in the legal services market and, as a result, are doomed to compete.

Be distinct. Stop competing. Own your market.

These are the hallmarks of smart and sustainable business.

Be Distinct

Distinct means being different from something else of a similar type.

According to the Federation of Law Societies of Canada, “Canada’s 14 provincial and territorial law societies govern over 136,000 lawyers, Quebec’s 4,200 notaries and Ontario’s 10,600 independent paralegals…” . . . [more]

Posted in: Legal Marketing, Practice of Law

The Happiness of Pursuit – an Invitation for Lawyers to Reframe Their Frame of Mind

As a lawyer who wears many “hats” in my work, I like to relax by watching movies.

Recently I watched a movie called “Hector and the search for happiness”.

The title intrigued me.

As a lawyer, mediator, wellness coach, I am always looking for ways to be happier. In fact, I believe that this has been the human condition for generations, wherein people have been striving to find happiness. I hope that this piece will give you some time to ponder ways in which you can increase your happiness and decrease the stress that is omnipresent within the legal profession. . . . [more]

Posted in: Practice of Law

If Articling Didn’t Exist, Would We Invent It?

Two more data points in the legal news recently (Canadian Lawyer, to be precise) to support the idea that we’re going about this “articling” thing all wrong.

  • Former Law Society of Ontario governor Peter Wardle criticized the articling system for failing to ensure sufficient, consistent, high-quality experiential training, as well as the law society for again failing to tackle these problems effectively.
  • The Law Society of Alberta is recruiting law firms to join a new program to place articling students who were driven out of their previous firms by discrimination or harassment, a program that’s straining under increased
. . . [more]
Posted in: Practice of Law

Billable Hours Reset Got You Down? Start the Year Strong With a Reframe and a Refresh

Alex said with a sigh, “January is like Groundhog Day with billable hours reset to zero, and it all starts over.”

This wasn’t the first time I had heard this said. For many lawyers, the New Year comes with a sense of fatigue as the billable hour cycle starts anew.

They have a point. The billing cycle is starting again, and the starting point is zero.

And yet, how we think about the world defines our experience.

If you are interested in coaching yourself through this malaise, read on.

Start with a reframe. “The billable hours may reset, but your . . . [more]

Posted in: Practice of Law

Getting a Non-Marketer to Market

One of those old truisms that floats around, no less accurate for its long tenure: everybody likes buying stuff, nobody likes being sold to.

It’s a seeming paradox – you’d think that buying and selling would be a perfect match. Except that lots of the time, the selling being done is terrible and gets in the way of what would otherwise be a pleasant buying process. See also, buying literally everything online so you don’t have to interact with a salesperson.

Stuff happens in our brains when we shift into sales mode: the other person (the prospect… how’s that . . . [more]

Posted in: Legal Marketing, Practice of Law

Adding a ‘New’ Voice to Loss Prevention

I’ve been fortunate in my career to be part of new innovative projects and to help expand the scope of longstanding organizations. My most recent role is Policy and Communications Advisor with the Canadian Lawyers Insurance Association (CLIA). Never heard of CLIA? For an organization that has been around for 35 years, we have an image problem. Or perhaps a lack of image problem. Many of the lawyers we insure have never heard of us.

CLIA is a reciprocal insurance exchange formed in 1988 as a direct response to a need for more effective professional liability coverage for Canadian . . . [more]

Posted in: Legal Information, Practice of Law

Gratitude: It’s Not Just for Gift Giving

Hello my dear readers.

I have not as yet had the privilege of writing about wellness on this amazing platform, however, I am not new to the topic.

As lawyers and legal professions, we are not very good at taking time to care for ourselves. We are in the business of helping and caring for others and at the end of the day, there is usually very little time left for us.

My goal is to welcome you all into this space and invite you to give yourselves permission to take a few moments to recharge, breathe and find some . . . [more]

Posted in: Practice of Law

The Courts Can Help Solve the A2J Crisis — by Doing Less

In a recent edition of my Substack newsletter, I made eight predictions about what the legal sector would look like in ten years’ time. The eighth entry on that list was titled “Unfulfilled Justice”:

Universal access to justice is still a distant dream. Regulatory change has made it easier for people to become lawyers and para-professionals, so the supply side of the market is growing. But the demand side still suffers from a lack of civic education around legal rights and remedies, and legal institutions (especially the courts) have held out against change.

That last parenthetical observation about the . . . [more]

Posted in: Practice of Law

5 Ways Lawyers Can Stop Avoiding Conflict

“You’re a lawyer — you must like arguing!” While this may be true for some lawyers, when it comes to conflict with their closest colleagues, many would rather avoid the pain and discomfort.

Although interpersonal conflict is often thought of as a battle between two people, I have learned that conflict is about tension between people when they differ in beliefs, behaviours, opinions, or values.

Some lawyers will approach the issue with colleagues, senior lawyers, and partners head-on and in doing so deliver what the other person feels as a gut-wrenching blow. Other lawyers are more passive; they either avoid . . . [more]

Posted in: Practice of Law