Switch hitting. Going over to the dark side. Seeing the light. I’ve been the target of a lot of clichés since my decision several months ago to dip a toe into the waters of becoming a per-diem Crown Attorney. My motivation was a desire to gain a deeper understanding of the machinery that inexorably grinds our system forward inch by inch (and not by the laughable pay rate that has the dubious distinction of being the only legal remuneration to make Legal Aid funding appear moderately generous). After spending nearly fifteen years exclusively as a criminal defence lawyer, my . . . [more]

A recent article in Forbes magazine reported that a survey conducted by Careerbliss.com found that the unhappiest workers in America were associate attorneys. Legal assistants ranked seventh. Law partners weren’t mentioned.

This same survey stated that the happiest workers in the United States were real estate agents! Given the state of the American real estate market recently this doesn’t lend much credibility to the previous claim.

Regardless of the accuracy of the survey findings, anyone who has ever been an associate lawyer in private practice knows the stresses of learning the law, building a practice, grappling with more senior aggressive . . . [more]

Yes, it’s that time again. For 2014 I’ve decided to give you a head start by providing you a shopping list of tactics you can use to give your marketing efforts a boost in the year ahead. To make it easier still, I have broken them down by difficulty level. Can barely lift your head off your desk after the soul-destroying race to the finish line to meet your year-end billing target? Dip a toe into the shallow end by Googling your own name. As long as you’ve still got a pulse, you can manage that one. Or — if . . . [more]

Recently I was preparing a talk on using social media for client development and I noticed something interesting in the LinkedIn company page. In order for me to see contact information for a law firm who had status updates I had to “chase” the “About” information down the page, as it appeared below the updates. The more updates there were, the more I had to wait for them to load and then scroll farther down the page to the “About XYZ Law Firm” text. Then, despite some other descriptive information about the firm itself, the only contact information in the . . . [more]

There is endless discussion on how we go about preparing the lawyers of tomorrow to be well armed for the expectations their clients will have of them. Many law schools in all countries are trying varied approaches to achieve the best for their students, as well as for the working world with which they will have to engage. The downturn in the legal market, the decline in enrolments in the law schools, and the questioning of the value and relevance of an expensive law degree are issues faced by law firms, educators and regulators.

Now and then there is the . . . [more]

Two years ago, almost to the day, Simon Fodden contacted us to write a bimonthly column on online dispute resolution (ODR). A dozen columns later, and after going through the most important current developments on the topic, we realized that we might have skimmed over the core question that should have preceded all of our previous entries: what is ODR?

Obviously, definitions of ODR are plentiful. However, as is often the case when everyone has his or her own idea of a word’s meaning, definitions are sometimes incompatible. That being said, as explained in a recent paper published by Julio . . . [more]

It’s been a high profile fall for the Law Society of Upper Canada’s disciplinary system.

With the appeal decision in the notorious Groia case now on reserve, headlines on a different matter have moved to centre stage: a Law Society hearing panel has “exonerated” and “absolved” two Torys lawyers—Beth DeMerchant and Darren Sukonick—of conflict of interest allegations in relation to work done for the Hollinger Group of Companies. While the Law Society has expressed “disappointment” with the result, the cleared lawyers, for their part, are now seeking up to $4 million in costs and disbursements that they say were incurred . . . [more]

You probably know that pro bono publico translates as “for the public good”. But you may not know that some justice system stakeholders view doing the public good as not much good at all. Generally lauded by judges and leaders of the profession, the long-term systemic value of pro bono legal service is a matter of limited but uneasy debate in the community of reformers, progressives and do-gooders dedicated to the concept of equal access to justice for everyone. Within that virtuous circle, not everyone is convinced of pro bono’s net benefit to the mission.

The typical knock against . . . [more]

 [I]l est l’heure de s’enivrer! Pour n’être pas les esclaves martyrisés du temps, enivrez-vous sans cesse! – Charles Baudelaire

[T]his is a case about beer and a case of beer is a serious matter. – San Miguel Brewing International Limited v. Molson Canada 2005, 2013 FC 156, Phelan J, February 14, 2013.

People are really serious about their beer. In ancient days, you were flogged in the public square if you sold bad-tasting beer. Bad beer was considered to be “a fraud and a hazard to health”. In Germany in the 15^th & 16^th centuries, those . . . [more]

If your law firm maintains a blog, or if you blog personally, there’s a reasonably good chance that you’ve received one of these emails:

Hi Steve!

My name is Joe Schmo and I am a writer at somewebsite.com, a relatively new social media agency.

I was just wondering if you would be interested in us contributing a guest post for your site?

We’ve done many before, and can provide examples of published work if desired. Looking forward to hearing from you! :)

Joe

My advice? Don’t do it. Don’t publish guest post content on firm-owned blogs, and don’t let marketing . . . [more]

Mobile devices! Google everywhere! Is this the end of the world as we know it? Is it the end of legal research as we know it?

Of course, it isn’t any such thing. Even so, the rise of mobile devices does seem to be related to changes in how legal research is conducted and what results are expected.

A recent post from Raymond Blijd of Wolters Kluwer predicts the death of legal research on desktop. As mobile devices become even more easy to use, and as information is organized and formatted to make it more accessible on those devices, the . . . [more]

There has been a much-needed recent focus on the state of the civil litigation process in Canada. Of course, the courts are only a small (albeit vital) part of our system of justice. In fact, a majority of people in Canada will have little, if any, direct contact with the courts; they are more likely to encounter various aspects of the administrative justice system in disputes with neighbours, in their workplace and with governments. In this column, I will focus on the justice system for unionized employees – the labour arbitration process.

Labour arbitration was introduced as part of the . . . [more]