“When it comes to customer service,” James Surowiecki noted in an insightful New Yorker column last month, “it seems people are unhappy no matter what side of the counter they’re on.” Surowiecki’s article describes how the only ones more miserable than those who provide front-line customer service these days are those who receive it: neither the buyer nor the seller values or enjoys the post-transaction relationship. 

The reason is pretty simple: during the recession (and, Surowiecki points out, even more so during the boom that preceded it), companies slashed customer service because it was little more than a cost center . . . [more]

Whether it’s Christmas, Hanukkah or another cause for celebration that triggers you to pause, over-eat, connect with loved ones, the winter holiday is a blessing. It also reminds us to stop and appreciate our clients, especially if we haven’t done so during the year. 

A few years back I was working on a project and my law firm client retained a well-known Vancouver design firm. On the eve of Thanksgiving, all of us on the project received pumpkin pies with a note of appreciation attached. Simple and sweet. It was their strategy to offer a memorable token of appreciation during . . . [more]

Having been a supporter of open access to research and scholarship for a dozen years now, I sometimes think that I have seen it all, from brilliant strategies to collegial indifference. Thus my surprise and delight, when I recently had the chance to meet Goldis Chami and Gordana Panic at the University of British Columbia to talk about their efforts, as students, to bring about open access to the work published by faculty and graduate students at UBC. Goldis, a second-year medical student, and Gordana, a recent graduate in Biology and Psychology, explained to me that they were determined to . . . [more]

Access to justice is a hot topic, having been discussed on Slaw in the past few months here and here. Here in Winnipeg, the catalyst was the release of the 2008 United Nations Report, Making the Law Work for Everyone. Our response to this report is the Legal Help Centre.

Executive Director Karen Dyck envisions the Legal Help Centre as a place “… to assist disadvantaged members of our community to access and exercise their legal and social rights.” This agency will help people determine their next course of action in solving a problem, which may not even . . . [more]

 [This is the second in a series of articles about the trends, theories, principles and realities that have influenced the redesign of the library of Osgoode Hall Law School — part of the renovation and rebuilding of the law school currently underway.]

The chief glory of the Osgoode Hall Law School Library is its world-class collection of early Anglo-American legal materials, including the largest collection of legal Canadiana anywhere. Despite pressures to recover space and plans to send some materials offsite (see my earlier column) when the Osgoode Library moves into its new facility in Summer 2011, we . . . [more]

In an earlier column I noted that we use the idea of justice in two different ways. According to the first, to call something just is to praise it morally and to call it unjust is to condemn it. This, the general sense of justice, does not signal any particular grounds for praise or condemnation: ‘just’ is little more than a thumbs-up, ‘unjust’ a thumbs-down. But we also use ‘justice’ in a second, more specific, way, to pick out a particular virtue that arrangements might have or lack. This is what Justinian’s Digest has in mind when it tells us . . . [more]

There is a commonly held myth that the gender gap in partner compensation is due to women billing fewer hours and spending less time on client development due to their greater responsibilities at home. This myth has been exploded in a recent study [PDF] published by The Project For Attorney Retention and sponsored by the ABA Commission for Women in the Profession.

Amongst other findings, the report states that factors that work against women partners include the lack of women on compensation committees where bonuses and compensation criteria are set; the lack of transparency around compensation criteria; the lack of . . . [more]

Does your firm have a marketing plan? When was the last time it was reviewed? How well do you follow your marketing plan? You’re not alone if your marketing plan is collecting dust in a drawer, hidden somewhere on your firm’s server, or simply hasn’t been implemented effectively. But why do these plans fail so often?

Marketing is generally outward-focused, concentrating on your clients, their wants and needs and the services you provide to help them reach their goals. But in order to be truly successful when it comes to actual implementation of the marketing plan, you must look inward . . . [more]

While you were signing the paperwork for your mortgage, did a bank employee ask you to consider purchasing mortgage insurance protection? You were probably told “…it will pay your mortgage if you die…just a few medical questions… it’s inexpensive…”. While that person may have had the best of intentions, he or she probably lacked the training needed to make you aware of important contractual details and how these compare with other insurance protection options. 

Here are 3 important things you should know about most mortgage insurance policies: 

1. You do not control the benefit

In the event of your . . . [more]

To PPT, or Not to PPT (In Court), that is the question:

After my last column Lloyd Duhaime, a renowned Victoria lawyer and humourist (read his book Hear! Hear!) wrote to say how disappointed he was when he used PowerPoint (PPT) in court. The disappointment came when the judge raced (as in read) ahead in his PowerPoint thus missing Lloyd’s no doubt persuasive submissions.

This highlights the downside of PowerPoint: it is not a good medium to carry a text message.

Well to all the Lloyds’ out there, here’s how you can use PowerPoint successfully: CUT THE TEXT!

Use PowerPoint . . . [more]

In my last column, I talked about staffing the marketing department and deciding whether you need to “rent or buy”. Almost any marketing function can be outsourced if attention is paid to maintaining relationships, but being clear about expectations is important from the outset.

The first step in getting the most out of a marketing consultant or agency is to be clear about why you’re hiring them. Law firms usually bring in outside marketing help for one of four reasons:

• Something needs to be done, but you’re not sure what 
• You know what needs to be done, but you don’t

In conjunction with the release of his latest autobiography, The Fry Chronicles, Stephen Fry has produced a rather unique interactive iPhone app titled myFry. What really catches your attention about it is the app’s navigation system:

When I first saw it, I was immediately struck by its beauty. Its functionality, however, remained something of a mystery to me. The designer of the app, Stefanie Posavec, writes:

The app functions as a ‘visual index’ of key theme tags within the book, which have been divided into 4 major groups: People, Subjects, Emotions, and Fryisms (metaphors, similes, word play,