Lateral hiring of partners or associates occurs at firms of every size, and is becoming far more common. In addition to reviewing the transferring lawyer’s credentials and suitability, the transferring lawyer and firm will need to identify and deal with potential conflicts of interest that may arise with respect to clients at the transferring lawyer’s previous firm, and in particular, clients for whom the transferring lawyer worked.

This critical task is not as easy as it might seem on first thought. The hiring firm must have sufficient information to complete an internal conflicts check, while at the same time making . . . [more]

The announcement yesterday of the newly minted LeClairRyan Legal Solutions Center should provide another shockwave to an American legal profession that is already in distress.

National law firm of LeClairRyan (22 offices and 350 attorneys) and LPO UnitedLex (1,100 attorneys engineers and consultants), will now collaborate to provide “a wide range of support services and incorporate best-in-class technology and quality control processes which will be uniquely integrated into the law firm’s litigation and transactional practice areas….[allowing clients to obtain]….more comprehensive, value-based services at a lower and more predictable cost.

“The LeClairRyan Legal Solutions Center is an important part of our . . . [more]

As some readers may know, I retain a small commercial real estate practice. I apply as much of my thinking to my practice as workable. The upside is that my practice runs on very low overhead and is cost-effective for me and my clients. It also forces me to assess risk with my clients so that I don’t negotiate every sentence of every document; which is the essence of being a “trusted advisor.”

The downside is dealing with lawyers (most of whom are from Biglaw) for whom concepts of cost-effectiveness, efficiency and thoughtfulness are completely unknown; lawyers who can’t stop . . . [more]

Earlier this month I was invited to the Law Society of Upper Canada’s Alternative Business Structures symposium. It was a bringing together of international speakers, thinkers and interested parties to discuss the possibility of allowing Alternative Business Structures (ABS) in Ontario – read: allowing outside investment in legal services providers, as is permitted in the UK and Australia.

Kudos to Benchers, Susan McGrath and Malcolm Mercer for organizing the event.

For those of us who were there, the consensus seemed to be that if ABS was allowed in Ontario the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse would not descend upon our . . . [more]

When a partner leaves a law firm for another practice, what should happen to his or her email account at the original firm? Should, or must, the original firm continue to read and respond to the emails? Must it forward all or some of the emails to the former partner? Should it say how that person can now be reached? Or should it simply send an automated bounce-back message that the email account is now closed?

These questions were the subject of an official ethics ruling of the Philadelphia Bar Association last month. Here is a news report on it. . . . [more]

Over the last 15 years, praticePRO, LAWPRO’s risk and practice management program, has produced a large collection of tools and resources aimed at helping lawyers avoid malpractice claims. The September 2013 issue of LAWPRO Magazine celebrates practicePRO’s 15th birthday and contains a pull-out (www.practicepro.ca/15thpullout) that has our best claims prevention content in in a convenient 4-page format.

Here’s what you’ll find in the pull-out (which uses ’15′ as a theme):

• The top 15 things you can do to avoid a malpractice claim
• 15 of our most practical and helpful checklists, precedents and resources
• Top 15 Technology articles and

. . . [more]

Once again a Canadian law firm is in merger discussions. The Blog of Legal Times said earlier this week that Dentons is in discussions with US-based McKenna Long & Aldridge to create a firm of 3,100 lawyers – assuming no one leaves.

John Grimley makes a good point on this potential merger – what’s really in it for McKenna?

George Beaton said on Twitter, “Pray, why is bigger better for clients?”

My thought is, “My God, what is with this obsession with size?”

The marketplace for large international firms is pretty small – enough for only a very few players. . . . [more]

The Personal Information Protection And Identity Theft Prevention Act (Bill 211) has recently passed in Manitoba and takes effect upon proclamation.

This Private Member’s Bill was most recently introduced on May 28, 2013 but had been put forward a number of times previously. The Explanatory Note sets out that:

This Bill governs the collection, use, disclosure and destruction of personal information by organizations in the private sector. It also establishes a duty for those organizations to notify individuals who may be affected when the personal information the organization has collected is lost, stolen or compromised.

Winnipeg lawyer Brian Bowman, . . . [more]

MWP. My colleague and her team have started using this acronym to help sort the projects that come to them. MWP stands for make work project. MWPs are the bane of busy people and groups and when analyzed will necessarily fall to the bottom of a pile. A caution though, one person’s MWP may be viewed as a necessary rush by someone else.

Whether you are working in a service department inside of an organization or you are taking in work from clients, some tasks are simply MWPs. From the library side of legal work, some theoretical MWP examples: extra . . . [more]

This article appeared in the September 2013 issue of TitleNews.

Cyber Criminals Steal More Than $1.5 million from California Escrow Company.

California-based Efficient Services Escrow Group was shut down by the state after cyber criminals stole more than $1.5 million from the firm’s trust account and wired the money to China and Russia.

In a petition filed in Orange County Superior Court, the California Department of Corporations (DOC) said the thieves first wired $432,215 to an account in Moscow on Dec 17, 2012. Then, the criminals wired more than $1.1 million on Jan 24 and 30 to a trade . . . [more]

The other day, I was sitting with Phil Brown, of the Law Society of Upper Canada, trying to solve the world’s problems – as we are wont to do from time to time.

I ventured that one of the constraints to access to justice is a lawyer’s overhead. And a large part of that overhead in large- and medium-sized firms, is lawyer salary.

Then I thought, how crazy is it that we live in a world where lawyers can’t survive on a salary of $250,000.00 per year – keeping in mind that this amount is about 5 times what the . . . [more]

“The conundrum that regulators have is that we are to all intents and purposes recognizing entry-level competence,” Tim McGee, CEO of the Law Society of British Columbia told a CCCA lunchtime panel at the 2013 CBA Legal Conference in Saskatoon, discussing what the role of the regulator should be in ensuring competence in the legal profession.

His point was that despite CLE requirements, lawyers aren’t actually assessed by regulators as their careers progress – it’s assumed that if they attend an accredited law school, get a certain degree and pass a bar exam, law students are competent to become lawyers. . . . [more]