The recent announcement that another major Canadian bank is withdrawing from the national banking ombudsman service in favour of a private dispute resolution service for customer banking complaints raises interesting questions about independence and impartiality.

In September, the Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments (OBSI) confirmed that Bank of Nova Scotia will no longer use the service for banking complaints as of November 1. Instead, it will join Royal Bank of Canada and Toronto-Dominion Bank in using ADR Chambers Banking Ombuds Office (ADRBO) to resolve complaints, the Globe and Mail reported.

Scotiabank will still use OBSI for investment disputes, . . . [more]

After a year off from teaching legal ethics, I need to prepare before my course starts in January. Getting up to speed with the shifting “law of lawyering” is obviously part of the job. Students need to know the rules that they will have to follow when they practice law; that’s a big part of the reason why the course is mandatory. Obeying the law of lawyering usually accords with self-interest. It keeps one out of trouble with the law society, and it’s a good career move.

However professionals are ideally more than just rationally self-interested rule-followers. Lawyers (like other . . . [more]

Over the last number of years I have been sharing my thoughts on marketing, communication and business development for lawyers and law firms on SLAW. During that time everything from Pippa Middleton and Justin Bieber, to client experience, intranets, personal branding, proposals, client meetings and social media has been written about. I have made a point to share my thoughts on how we can be better as client managers and at using the resources we have available to us.

Our industry continues to evolve as do the expectations of our clients. Our clients want more and to simple stay competitive, . . . [more]

I’ve heard many times, and I’m sure you have too, that lawyers are ”risk-averse.” That description alone isn’t very helpful — after all, most people are risk-averse, which is why much of the population lives safe and sedate lives while a very small number of people create billion-dollar companies or break their legs while cliff-diving.

What I think we mean is that lawyers are unusually risk-averse. And when we say this about ourselves, we usually say it in tone of self-mocking resignation or gentle exasperation: “Well, what are you gonna do? Lawyers are risk-averse, after all. We won’t try anything . . . [more]

It was more than a year ago that the 3,600-lawyer global megafirm DLA Piper was brought to its knees by a data breach in June of 2017. One of the questions we hear most often when we lecture is, “If DLA Piper can be breached, how do the rest of us stand a chance of preventing a data breach?”

It’s a valid question. The reaction last year varied with the size of the law firm. Larger law firms focused a lot on purchasing or increasing their cyberinsurance coverage after the DLA Piper story made the headlines. They also amped up . . . [more]

With Canada implementing mandatory private sector breach reporting under the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) on November 1, 2018, it is worth noting that many breaches are due to human error. These breaches can be minimized with proper policies, practices and employee education as well as regular monitoring and review of an organization’s privacy policies.

Data Commissioners or Information Commissioners often report details around the number, type and sources of breaches that are reported to them.

The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office is the public body responsible for monitoring data breaches. This office monitors breaches of personal . . . [more]

Lawyers are intelligent, capable human beings who sometimes find it almost impossible to manage their time well. The reason could be that too much is expected of them; that they like to do things very well before moving on and that takes time; that they under-estimated how long an activity will take; that when activities involve dealing with others, time becomes a variable; that they have to spend valuable time cleaning up someone else’s work; that they have other people’s work dumped on them…the list goes on.

These are reasons but not excuses. Productivity is usually tied to efficiency and . . . [more]

I don’t think I will surprise anyone here when I say that I’ve heard quite a bit about how people want to disrupt legal practice. I have been thinking about this possibility and reading more about the theory of economic disruption, so now I thought I would elaborate on this here. Before starting I would like to assure those who roll their eyes at the mention of the word that I am also tired of hearing about it, but that there are some things that I think are worth saying.

Disruption isn’t simply making a more competitive business, which makes . . . [more]

Some of us write because publishing is a requirement for career advancement as legal information professionals. Some of us write because we want to document an event in law librarianship, report on a conference or workshop attended. Some of us write to share information on a legal research topic that fascinates us. Some of us write to fill a gap in the literature. Some of us are neophyte writers and some of us have been at it for quite some time. I fit the latter description, so I thought I’d share some thoughts on the process.[1]

Honing Your Writing . . . [more]

Last year, I took unexpected sabbatical leave. If one of my doctor’s specialties had been spin, they would have said I’ve pivoted. Now I focus on medical research and services including being an oncologist’s ontologist. I’m trying to disrupt the evolution of cancer, and the massive industry it supports.

My dot-joining skills allowed me to find a probable cure for cancer that others had discovered yet remain unnoticed. I’m one of a growing band of empowered patients facilitating change. The same is happening in the legal world according to Greg San Miguel, Founder of the award winning Law Of . . . [more]

I am often asked how long it will take to get their patent granted. The answer is, as with most questions asked of lawyers, “it depends”. Of the patents granted by the Canadian Patent Office in the first half of 2018, the time from filing to being granted ranged from less than 6 months (see CA2,976,719) to over 18 years (see CA2,360,927) – a huge range! Some of the time was outside the control of the patent applicant, such as due to backlog at the patent office, but there are many aspects of the patent process that affect . . . [more]

Electronic documents are everywhere these days, and that naturally means that they are in courtrooms. Getting them there has been a process of accommodation, law reform and arguably some wilful blindness as to the vulnerabilities of such documents.

An early effort at law reform was the Uniform Electronic Evidence Act adopted by the Uniform Law Conference of Canada in 1998 and enacted in several provinces and territories (e.g. Ontario) and at the federal level (Canada Evidence Act ss 31.1 – 31.8). The UEEA focused on the best evidence rule, which tends to require that parties produce an . . . [more]