On June 6, 2016, the Ontario government announced that changes to the Customer Service Standard under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) will come into force on July 1, 2016, and apply to all organizations providing goods, services or facilities in the province. . . . [more]

In Ontario most court documents are filed in paper, with e-filing appearing mostly to be a distant dream. Similarly, court documents, other than originating documents, tend to be served by fax and not by email. Everyone loves that fax confirmation page despite the fact that emails can come with a read receipt.

So should we be allowed to communicate with the court through email? Should the court be encouraged to communicate with litigants via email?

Email is a blessing and a curse. It is easy to use. It is fast. It is convenient. But on the other hand, important emails . . . [more]

This article is by Ian Hu, Claims Prevention and practicePRO Counsel at LAWPRO.

I recently spoke about preparing your client for trial and avoiding a malpractice claim at the Advocates’ Society “Practice Essentials: Managing Your Way to Trial Success” CPD chaired by Emily C. Cole and Norm J. Emblem. The CPD spurred us to create a Client Trial Preparation Checklist to help you cover the bases with your clients. I hope the thoughts below are helpful.

As you prepare for trial, the tendency may be to overlook your client. After all, you have an opening to prepare for, statements of . . . [more]

“Here I make an intelligent being out of a bunch of old wires, switches and grids, and instead of some honest advice I get technicalities! You cheap cybernetic shyster, I’ll teach you to trifle with me!”
And he turned the pot over, shook everything out onto the table, and pulled it apart before the lawyer had a chance to appeal the proceedings.

– The Cyberiad

Happy Monday! Like F. Tim Knight, I am getting back on the “blogwagon” this morning with an overdue post… also about AI following the session I was a panelist on at the recent Canadian . . . [more]

The Legal Marketing Association recently hosted its annual conference on project management, process improvement and pricing (P3) in Chicago. Billed as a forum where innovative practice management approaches are shared, the event continues to showcase progressive ideas and practical experiences from firms transforming the business of law.

It’s wise to take any presentation of best practices with a proverbial grain of salt. But you also have to give credit to those who proactively invest in new ideas and risk failure. That’s something we don’t see enough of in law.

Here are some of the ideas heard at this year’s P3 . . . [more]

We are excited to announce the recent publication, by Lexis-Nexis Canada Inc., of The Law of Limitations, Third Edition. The first two editions were written prior to the coming into force of the Limitations Act, 2002, so this new edition is the first to cover cases decided under the new Ontario regime.

Although Ontario cases receive the most coverage, the scope of the text is Canada-wide. Since publication of the second edition, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, British Columbia, and Nova Scotia have fundamentally reformed their limitations regimes, and this edition brings readers up-to-date on the related jurisprudence.

The third . . . [more]

The Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench has recently held that a party who held relevant electronic records must produce them in native format, rather than in TIFF format, although producing them in native format (in this case, Excel) could take six months’ work and cost $50,000. Alberta and Canadian law were admitted to require that such production be proportional to the stakes in the dispute and not unduly burdensome, but ordering the production in this case was held to satisfy those tests.

Bard v Canadian Natural Resources, 2016 ABQB 267 (CanLII)

This despite a litigation plan that contemplated production . . . [more]

In Quebec, to practise a profession or hold a professional title governed by the Professional Code, a person must have a permit and be a member in good standing of the professional order that governs the exercise of the profession. Quebec has 46 professional orders that supervise the practice of 54 regulated professions.

In response to recommendations in the Charbonneau Commission report on granting and management of public contracts in the construction industry, on May 11, 2016, the Quebec government tabled Bill 98, An Act to amend various legislation mainly with respect to admission to professions and the governance of . . . [more]

France now has a law against after-hours emails to employees. Does this make sense to you? Could you get your work done on this basis? Is that question your concern, or is it up to the employer to organize your time more effectively?

Can such a law apply to professionals or others who do not punch a clock?

Are the benefits worth the inconvenience … given that the benefits go to the employees and the inconvenience to the employers, to a large extent.

When France legislated its 35-hour week, over 15 years ago, one consequence was that people had a . . . [more]

It’s that time of year again – articling students in Manitoba are wrapping up their year and looking ahead to their Call to the Bar and beginning their careers as lawyers. Some will continue to practice in the firms where they received their articles, while others will move to new firms or set out on their own. Regardless the setting, all will need to develop good practice and time management habits.

I’ve spoken with articling students in the past about the relevance of learning time management techniques at a point in their career when they have so little control over . . . [more]

While lawyers in Canada were debating whether licensed paralegals should have a limited role in family law, and before that contemplating entity-based regulation, alternative business structures, and the articling crisis, change was already happening without them.

This week the century-old American law firm, BakerHostetler, announced they have hired their first digital lawyer, ROSS, the artificial intelligence system based on IBM’s Watson. What can ROSS do for this firm, one of the largest in the country?

According to the ROSS website, it can provide a highly relevant answer to a question posed in natural language. You don’t get thousands . . . [more]

Perhaps it didn’t make as many waves in the rest of the country, but the Quebec legal community has been buzzing about a report on the employment situation among young lawyers in Quebec published by the Young Bar Association of Montreal (YBAM) earlier this year. This organization, which represents close to 5,000 members, compiled impressive amounts of data to establish trends about young lawyers’ job prospects.

Essentially, things are bad for young lawyers in Montreal and they are getting worse. The issue has now made its way into mainstream media, with La Presse running a few articles last week about . . . [more]