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Archive for April, 2017

Thursday Thinkpiece: Jordan Furlong’s 3 Key Components of a Client Strategy

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.

LAW IS A BUYER’S MARKET: BUILDING A CLIENT-FIRST LAW FIRM

ISBN: 978-0-9953488-0-6. 244 pgs. Softcover.
© Copyright 2017

Jordan Furlong

Excerpt: Chapter 10, pages 132 – 139.
[Footnotes omitted.]

____

When building a Client Strategy, your firm needs to employ the following three key components of your Client Strategy. These are practical, actionable . . . [more]

Posted in: Thursday Thinkpiece

Wednesday: What’s Hot on CanLII

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. Wall v Judicial Committee of the Highwood Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses, 2016 ABCA 255

[22] Accordingly, a court has jurisdiction to review the decision of a religious organization when a breach of the rules of natural justice is alleged. The respondent’s application raises numerous complaints regarding the process used by the appellants. He contends that he was not provided with particulars . . . [more]

Posted in: Wednesday: What's Hot on CanLII

Canada’s Cannabis Act: A High Level Overview

The Cannabis Act, which will legalize the recreational use of cannabis across Canada, was unveiled by the federal government this past Thursday.

The Act is fairly dense, spanning 226 sections and 6 schedules. While there is a lot of content to digest in the Cannabis Act this is only the tip of the legislative-iceberg. Much of the new law will be encoded in the yet to be drafted federal regulations. Additionally, the provincial and municipal governments across the country have a large role to play as they have been explicitly given authority by the federal government to fill in . . . [more]

Posted in: Substantive Law, Substantive Law: Legislation

Tips Tuesday

Here are excerpts from the most recent tips on SlawTips, the site that each week offers up useful advice, short and to the point, on research, writing, and practice.

Practice

Building a Firm of Finders
Sharon VanderKaay

The need for heads-up entrepreneurial lawyers grows as heads-down commodity “grinder” work diminishes. How can we develop more “finders” who see fresh opportunities to attract clients on a daily basis? How can we accelerate this shift in mindset? How can we use every interaction to enhance the firm’s reputation for making clients feel they are in good hands? And how can traditional

. . . [more]
Posted in: Tips Tuesday

The IP Law Malpractice Claims Fact Sheet

With such a large amount of claims prevention information available in LAWPRO Magazine articles and practicePRO resources, we had the idea to create simple fact sheets that CPD providers and others could use in developing their program material for specific areas of law. The latest in our series of “malpractice claims fact sheets” covers IP law.

The fact sheets include quick claims facts, the main causes of claims against lawyers, hot topics in the particular areas of law, tips for avoiding claims and links to practicePRO resources. The sheets can also be used as program inserts in their . . . [more]

Posted in: Practice of Law

Monday’s Mix

Each Monday we present brief excerpts of recent posts from five of Canada’s award­-winning legal blogs chosen at random* from more than 80 recent Clawbie winners. In this way we hope to promote their work, with their permission, to as wide an audience as possible.

This week the randomly selected blogs are 1. Wise Law Blog 2. PierreRoy & Associés 3. Robeside Assistance 4. National Security Law Blog 5. Slater Vecchio Connected

Wise Law Blog
LawFact of the Day: Wills and Estates

Everyone who applies in Ontario for a Certificate of Appointment of Estate Trustee is required to file an . . . [more]

Posted in: Monday’s Mix

Privacy Lessons From the Intimate of Things

The Internet is already everywhere, but we expect it to penetrate our lives even further, interacting with all of the devices, infrastructure, and environment around us. This phenomenon is known as the “Internet of Things” (IoT), described in 2014 by Jacob Morgan in Forbes as follows,

Simply put, this is the concept of basically connecting any device with an on and off switch to the Internet (and/or to each other). This includes everything from cellphones, coffee makers, washing machines, headphones, lamps, wearable devices and almost anything else you can think of. This also applies to components of machines, for example

. . . [more]
Posted in: Substantive Law: Foreign Law, Technology

Seven Years After Bill 168, We Learn It Is Costly Not to Comply With Violence Provisions Under OHSA

It has been a little under seven years since Bill 168 made amendments to Ontario’s Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) by adding employer obligations regarding the prevention of workplace violence and harassment. Considering the release of recent employer convictions for failing to comply with employer obligations to prevent and protect workers from violence under OHSA, we thought it would be good to look at some of these cases and revisit the legislation to help employers understand those obligations and comply. . . . [more]

Posted in: Case Comment, Substantive Law, Substantive Law: Judicial Decisions, Substantive Law: Legislation

No. Small Word. Big Impact. Focusing on What’s Most Important

No. Two letters. One complete sentence.

No. The word we loved to say as kids and have so much trouble expressing as adults.

No. The important boundary we set to protect our values, priorities, and deepest needs.

The solution to many challenges we face in our personal and professional lives is rooted in something called the Positive No.

The term Positive No originates with international mediator and negotiator, William Ury. One of the most important and regular book recommendations I make is for Ury’s Power of a Positive No. I have written about the Power of a Positive . . . [more]

Posted in: Practice of Law

Lessons From the United Passenger “re-accommodation”

The recent United Airlines incident where a passenger was dragged off the plane because United wanted the seat for a United employee is a good reminder of some social media realities.

The obvious lesson is to not bloody your passengers and drag them off your plane. Or that just because you have the right to do something, doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do.

But sometimes bad stuff happens. And often someone is there to record and publish it for the world to see.

When that happens, the social media / public relations lesson is to not react in . . . [more]

Posted in: Miscellaneous

A Duty to Be Technologically Competent: Coming Soon to a Professional Code of Conduct Near You?

When I suggested ten years ago that email would become the principal means by which clients and lawyers would communicate, many people suggested I was dangerous, that I was possibly insane, that I should not be allowed to speak in public, and that I certainly did not understand anything about security or confidentiality but [email] technology and many other emerging technologies have now firmly taken hold.[1]

So much has changed in a relatively short period of time when it comes to our use of technology in delivering legal services. As noted by Richard Susskind above, the use of email . . . [more]

Posted in: Legal Ethics

Wednesday: What’s Hot on CanLII

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. Elmardy v Toronto Police Services Board, 2017 ONSC 2074

[1] On a winter’s evening in Toronto, the Appellant, a black man, was walking on a downtown street when he was stopped by two Toronto Police Service officers. An interaction ensued during which the Respondent Constable Pak punched the Appellant in the face twice, emptied the Appellant’s pockets without his consent and . . . [more]

Posted in: Wednesday: What's Hot on CanLII