There was a time when many lawyers, settled in their ways, thought that they could ignore alternative fee arrangements. That day is clearly gone. The 2010 Fulbright Litigation Trends Survey announced that 51% of the corporate counsel responding to the survey were using some form of alternative fee arrangements.

Why? They cite lower costs first, then predictability, and then risk sharing. So what kind of AFAs do they favor? It’s a very mixed bag with fixed fees, conditional or contingent fees, blended rates, capped fees and performance/reward-based fees. Clearly, there is a lot of exploration going on and a lot . . . [more]

At one time, only the public sector issued requests for proposal (RFPs) for legal services. Now, the financial services sector, publicly traded companies, and not-for-profit institutions are all issuing RFPs for legal work. In my last column, I talked about debriefing after responding to RFPs, whether you win or lose. There’s a lot to be learned from both successful and unsuccessful proposals. 

Another essential piece of record-keeping for proposals is finding out whether you won or lost. This is akin to closing a file properly after a deal or a case. Seems like a keen grasp of the obvious? You . . . [more]

Whenever I think about the effort that is required to go into implementing your firm’s strategic plan, I’m reminded of a particular business book title that grabbed my attention when I first saw it . . . Hope Is Not A Strategy! To effectively transform your best intentions into best practices, there are several common hurdles that you need to overcome. Thinking through the following will help you make the leap.

1. Move seamlessly from strategizing to implementing.

This is, from my experience, the most significant hurdle. Planning is not doing. Unfortunately, some partners believe that implementing the strategy and . . . [more]

There’s been a good couple of years since the credit crunch kicked in that Law Librarians News and House of Butter have really quite enjoyed reporting the business of legal publishing.

Revenues & profits down at the duopoly, talk of Google Law and more; as well as a host of new ideas and concepts for the future of legal publishing. OK some of those ideas were either over ambitious or a little bit crackpot, but fun to investigate and report.

At least though, it felt for a glorious 18 months or so that change was in the air.

And change . . . [more]

Sandra works three times as long as she needs to on her files, checking and re-checking and going through countless drafts. She is driven by her fear of making an error. Sandra works long hours in the office but rarely meets her billable target because she consistently edits down her time.

Mary is unhappy. While she enjoys commercial litigation files she is stressed all the time. The partners provide her with positive feedback as do her clients but every time she makes any kind of error she takes it as a sign of failure.

Do any of these scenarios sound . . . [more]

Public works often impose heavy losses on those in private property nearby. Under what circumstances should they be compensated? That should have been the question in Heyes v. Vancouver, now Susan Heyes Inc. (Hazel & Co.) v. South Coast B.C. Transportation Authority 2011 BCCA 77. Alas, it was not – Heyes was decided on whether the transit builders had been at fault.

Ms. Heyes’s company designed, made and sold maternity clothing in Cambie Village, Vancouver. Her business was severely disrupted during construction of the Canada Line, a regional transportation system connecting downtown Vancouver, the City of Richmond and . . . [more]

Linkedin is the most common starting point for most lawyers when it comes to social media. In recognition of that, I want to showcase a few features of Linkedin that you may not currently be using. 

Status Updates

The status update box has been around for some time now but it is relatively underutilized in the legal community. You can find the status update box either beside or directly underneath your photo on your linkedin home page or your “edit my profile” page. It is a simple white text box that you can update as frequently as desired with a . . . [more]

Indian Kanoon, Dr. Sushant Sinha‘s innovative free-access-to-law service for India, has recently received attention from several sources in the technology world.

First, Indian Kanoon (the Hindi word “kanoon” means “law”) has been included by La Chaire en information juridique de la Faculté de droit de l’Université de Montréal in its IDRC-funded of the sustainability of free-access-to-law services. Second, MIT’s Technology Review India in March 2011 cited Indian Kanoonin its recognition of Dr.Sinha as one of India’s “Top Innovators Under 35.” Most recently, Indian Kanoon was the topic of Dr. Sinha’s VoxPopuLII post entitled

In May, Dr. Sinha . . . [more]

It’s my opinion that too many people buy insurance policies that should be avoided. I’m not talking about auto, home, health, life and long-term disability insurance policies. Ignore these at your peril. I’m talking about insurance policies that offer questionable value for most people because they are over-priced or offer unnecessary protection.

Here are five examples of insurance policies that I believe most people should avoid.

Mortgage Life Insurance

Banks love to offer life insurance policies that pay off the mortgage if you kick the bucket. But before you sign up, ask yourself, “Who do I want my money to . . . [more]

Digital Evidence in Criminal Law is hot off the presses — the first in Canada to deal with digital evidence in a criminal law context. The book is so recent that I had to review a digital copy — rather fitting under the circumstances.

Released in late April 2011 it is destined to become the bible of digital evidence for criminal law litigators. Civil lawyers will also find it helpful reading even in their watered-down-rules-of-evidence world.

A wee caveat before I launch into the review: author Dan Scanlan has been my colleague in the Victoria Crown Counsel Office for the . . . [more]

I must start this post with a confession that the title above is borrowed from a song by Vancouver artists “Said the Whale”. It is not only a great song but also a great topic statement for a subject that has been consuming my attention of late; that of orientation programs for new lawyers in British Columbia. Although the context in which this topic arises for me is province-specific, I know from conversations with young lawyers and law students from across Canada that law firm orientation programs, or rather oftentimes the lack thereof, should be a topic of significant interest . . . [more]

As the client and service provider relationship evolves, the new normal for lawyers is that clients want more and they want it for less. So how do you successfully maintain and grow relationships with your clients without continually discounting rates?

The most effective way to learn more about your clients and about the relationship you have with them is simply to ask them. However, the development and implementation of a succinct client interview process is not something to be taken lightly.

There are many objectives behind interviewing clients. By asking clients for feedback we are telling the client that we . . . [more]