In The Lincoln Lawyer, lawyer-hero Mickey Haller learns from his father that “there is no client as scary as an innocent man”. In an interview, author Michael Connelly explained that for the lawyer defending an innocent man there can only be one acceptable outcome: Not guilty. “There can be no middle ground. No deal. No plea bargain.” According to Connelly, this places enormous pressure on the lawyer because if the lawyer fails and the client is convicted and goes to prison, the lawyer “has to live with their own guilt in knowing that an innocent man is in . . . [more]

Each Thursday we present a significant excerpt, usually from a recently published book or journal article. In every case the proper permissions have been obtained. If you are a publisher who would like to participate in this feature, please let us know via the site’s contact form.

ARBITRATION ACT: STAY AND APPEAL ISSUES, FINAL REPORT
Alberta Law Reform Institute
ISBN 978-1-896078-58-8

Excerpt pp. 40-43, 43-45

2. WHEN SHOULD COURT APPEALS BE POSSIBLE?

[124] The decision whether to allow appellate access to the courts has always been a balancing act between competing policy considerations. What are the most prevalent, although sometimes . . . [more]

Formitis [form – eye – tis] To cling blindly and unwaveringly to a document while ignoring reality.

OK – I made that up – but lawyers and clients often get frustrated when the other party to a document steadfastly refuses to change something that makes no sense. It may be presented as a standard form they can’t change, or that their corporate policy dictates that form be used, or they may be reluctant to get legal or senior business advice. On the other hand, the person resisting the change may just be lazy and not want to deal with it. . . . [more]

Stewart Butterfield, a co-founder of Flickr, has taken his communication tool Slack out of beta and opened it up to the rest of us. So far as I can gather, the idea is that if you’re working with a team (however defined) you might wish to have all your communications in one searchable place, whether they originated as emails or SMS texts. Slack is meant to provide just such an all-purpose communication function. The story in Gigaom will explain it better than I can, because I’ve not had a chance to try it yet.

Functionality depends on subscription level, but . . . [more]

I recently had the pleasure of addressing the Edmonton Law Office Management Association, a chapter of the Association of Legal Administrators, on the topic law librarians and the services they provide to law firms. Law librarians most often serve lawyers in firms. I think it is pretty important that the business managers of law firms understand what law librarians do.

Here is a PDF of my presentation on Private Law Libraries. . . . [more]

The day is not far off when the providers of free legal information services will be able to match the services provided by Lexis, Westlaw and Wolters Kluwer.

There was a time when I would have said that this was not possible. My belief was based on the idea that the free services would always be playing catch up to a moving target, as the major legal publishers continued to enhance their products with high quality content and product innovation.

The scenario that makes the seemingly impossible possible is the “attack” on all things “Editorial” in the major legal publishing . . . [more]

Manitoba’s Law Reform Commission is currently seeking input into potential reforms to the environmental assessment process that takes place pursuant to the provisions of The Environment Act.  

A discussion paper, Manitoba’s Environmental Assessment and Licensing Regime, was issued late in January for comment. The paper sets out 18 key issues or propositions for consideration:

Issue 1: Should The Environment Act be amended to establish more direct links between the environmental assessment process and principles and guidelines of sustainability provided in The Sustainable Development Act? Are there particular developments for which sustainability principles are most relevant? How would this change

Commiserating on the demise of giant Canadian law firm Heenan Blaikie in a Letter to the Editor to The Globe and Mail of February 7, 2014, retired lawyer Stephen Barker took issue with referring to the legal profession as the “law industry.” He adds that most “industries” have low standards of public service. 

This is not new news. The law industry, is in fact, an industry; every industry has its own peculiarities.

More importantly, every industry is subject to the laws of economics (laws of supply and demand, market cycles), competition (and competitiveness), and the 4-stage marketing cycle. The fourth . . . [more]

The purposes for which lawyers engage on social media include: boosting visibility, increasing engagement, marketing your services, providing valuable content to your audience, building connections with other lawyers and potential clients, gathering and sharing information about the law and practice. To be a successful social media user, you’ll need to provide content that is valuable, use the right headlines and ‘shareable’ words, include images, vary your post style, and undertake other activities to boost your engagement. But timing your posts properly is another important element of your overall social media strategy.

Ideally, you’ll want to schedule content to post . . . [more]

Each Wednesday we tell you which three English-language cases and which French-language case have been the most viewed* on CanLII and we give you a small sense of what the cases are about.

For this last week:

1. Borowski v. Canada (Attorney general) [1989] 1 SCR 342
   

   SOPINKA J. — This appeal by leave of this Court is from the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal, reflex, [1987] 4 W.W.R. 385, which affirmed the judgment at trial of Matheson J. of the Saskatchewan Court of Queen’s Bench, reflex, [1984] 1 W.W.R. 15, dismissing the action of the plaintiff (appellant in this Court). In

Two weeks ago, I suggested that Ontario’s courts will need to implement serious change if they intend to carry out the Supreme Court’s directive to facilitate access to justice through summary judgment.

Lawyers undoubtedly need to change too. Historically, there have been many amazing advocates like J.J. Robinette and G.A. Martin that all lawyers should strive to emulate. I wonder whether the next generation of amazing lawyers will be cut from the same cloth. It goes without saying that every effective lawyer obviously needs strong advocacy skills. But when “most Canadians cannot afford to sue when they are wronged . . . [more]

A group of law students has drafted an open letter to the Benchers of the Law Society of Upper Canada calling for the repeal of the fee levied on licensee applicants in order to fund the LPP. According to a communication from Christopher Rudnicki, a third year student at Windsor Law:

As discussed in a previous post on Slaw, the Law Society of Upper Canada sent licensee candidates an invoice last week for $3,164 on top of the $1,695 already required to write the bar. The additional fee was levied to fund the LSUC’s new Law Practice Program, an