In the summer of 1998 I was a freshly called lawyer working in the regulatory policy shop of a national phone company. As we gathered in the boardroom to celebrate a colleague’s 25^th anniversary, I leaned over and whispered to a co-worker “wow, I’m not sure I’ve even been toilet trained for 25 years.” To that point, five and a half years delivering the local newspaper to my own house was the longest I had ever done a single job. A personal longevity record that stands unbroken today.

Point of fact, I eventually did spend over 10 years with . . . [more]

Margaret started working with senior partner Lawrence right out of her articles. In her first years of call she worked with many lawyers at the firm, but slowly Lawrence commandeered more and more of her time until he provided the majority of her billable work. Lawrence had churned through many associates before Margaret. She was the first one who was good enough to meet his exacting standards and the only one who would put up with his daily criticisms of her work. Lawrence kept her apart from his clients. Even as Margaret increased in seniority he held tightly to his . . . [more]

There are two somewhat related media consumption patterns happening right now that most law firms haven’t given much thought to yet – mobility and distraction. You can use these developments to your advantage by building modular content that can be sliced and diced in a variety of ways to help you get more mileage out of your lawyers’ substantive writing and create a more unique online presence for your firm. Let me explain. . .

The first pattern is the ongoing shift to consuming content on mobile devices – by which I mean phones and tablets (and by all that . . . [more]

Between February 9^th and 13^th, 2015, the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law’s Working Group III held its 31^st session, the 10^th session devoted to “the preparation of legal standards on online dispute resolution” (ODR) and, most probably, the last. After close to fifty days of negotiations (over five years), United States and European delegates proposed that the Working Group cease its work on ODR and redirect its resources to projects that had a better chance at reaching a successful outcome since discussions had been at a stalemate for a few sessions. . . . [more]

Sexual harassment is much in the news in Canada these days. Most harassment policies define sexual harassment as including acts such as sexist jokes, suggestive or obscene comments, demands for sexual favors or unwanted touching. Rarely do policies include sexual assault as this is may be seen as a crime beyond the scope of a workplace policy with its own remedies under the law.

Sexual harassment is not just a woman’s issue. Men can be subject to pressure to enter into sexual relations with more senior women or from more senior men, if they are gay. The feelings of helplessness . . . [more]

After lawyers’ profiles, some of the most frequently visited parts of law firm websites are the Frequently Asked Questions section and Case Studies. Which two website sections are the most difficult to get lawyers to contribute? FAQs and Case Studies.

It shouldn’t be difficult to figure out why FAQs and Case Studies are so popular. When we have a question nowadays, we don’t go to an encyclopedia, we hit the Search button on our electronic device of choice and enter a search term. If your website comes up in a client’s search for the meaning of some arcane term in . . . [more]

Tom Davenport is, among other things, a distinguished professor at Babson College, a research fellow at the MIT Center for Digital Business, and director of research at the International Institute for Analytics. He is recognized as one of the pioneers in the field of knowledge management (KM). In 2000 he co-authored, along with Larry Prusack, one of the early books in the field of KM, Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage What They Know. He is acknowledged as one of the most trusted consultants and the third leading business-strategy analyst (just behind Peter Drucker and Tom Friedman) by Optimize Magazine . . . [more]

Having been a criminal defence lawyer for over fifteen years, there’s no better professional feeling than the teary-eyed embrace of a client after hearing a “not guilty” verdict. As wonderful as it is to bask in the glow of a job well done, feelings of elation tend to fade quickly followed closely by some variant of the question, “now who is going to pay for the hell I just went through?”

Clients who pose that question often have in mind a particular witness or complainant who was the driving force behind the prosecution. Inevitably, disappointment follows after the client is . . . [more]

Last October, John Claydon wrote for SLAW about the work being done by Canadian lawyers in Cambodia. I thought I would follow the thread by providing an overview of the system and legal education in Burma/Myanmar.

In 2012, the University of Oxford was encouraged by one of its famous alumni, Aung San Suu Kyi, to work with the University of Yangon to revive its undergraduate education programme. After more than 30 years, the regime was opening up to the outside world. Yangon and Mandalay Universities were allowed to resume undergraduate education, which had been banned in the wake of . . . [more]

As a librarian, I’ve been trying to avoid talking about libraries in this column. Mainly because there is already a legal information column on Slaw and I wanted to keep talking about “true” law school issues.

Then I realized I was being an idiot and part of the problem that plagues libraries.

What sparked my realization was reading a couple of closely timed items. Item the first was a article on Above the Law about Washington & Lee School of Law’s Strategic Transition Plan. In reference to the plan’s “Operating budgets will be reduced by 10 percent in 2015-16 . . . [more]

For roughly 30 years, some Canadian lawyers have been engaging in a practice that other Canadian lawyers have vociferously criticized as “extortion with letterhead,” “bullying and intimidation”, a “predatory practice” and “an example of legal strong-arming.” Members of the public have also chimed in, characterizing the practice as “morally wrong” and “like being stabbed in the back”.

The practice at issue is the sending of shoplifting demand letters. In short, this involves lawyers acting for retailers sending letters to alleged shoplifters and/or their parents demanding the payment of money.

To take one example reported in the media, in 2004, . . . [more]

One of the biggest mistakes law firms make in their marketing is abdicating all of their responsibility for marketing to a marketing professional and taking the lawyers entirely out of the equation. While marketing professionals certainly have their place in law firm marketing, some marketing and business development tasks are best tackled by the lawyers themselves.

Marketing professionals can help lawyers and law firms create professional marketing pieces, develop ads, generate marketing and editorial calendars, do the initial set up of newsletters, websites, social media accounts and blogs, create designs and themes, find images for posts, handle the technical aspects . . . [more]