One of the biggest “aha” moments of my life happened in a self-development course in my mid-30’s when I realized that I didn’t have to practice law like a man in order to be successful. I could be feminine and still be taken seriously. This realization was enormously liberating, as I was able to relax in my own skin and stop trying to be someone I wasn’t. I discovered that a more collaborative and “softer” approach in negotiations or when dealing with opposing counsel was more successful for me than the aggressive male style I had been trying to emulate. . . . [more]

“Sharpen the Saw” was #7 on Stephen Covey’s list of the habits of “Highly Effective People” The main point was that effectiveness requires continuous attention to self renewal and maintenance. The same applies to the technology systems we often just take it for granted. It is easy to go months without turning our minds to the mundane task of taking the time to keep it all working well. 

When an unexpected “disk full” situation arose recently the subject got my attention very quickly. A user “whoops” had inadvertently moved a large number of files. They seemed to . . . [more]

In my last column, I said that asking how many people you need in your law firm marketing department is the wrong question: you need to know what you want to achieve and how quickly you want to see results. I also said that the key marketing appointment is the person who is going to lead the charge, whether that person is a lawyer in the firm, a staff person, or a consultant. The important thing is to have someone making the decisions, based on a goal. 

Once you know what you want to do, finding the kind of help . . . [more]

Introduction: Citizen Lawmaking Online

Citizen lawmaking seems ideally suited to today’s Web. Government social media and online deliberation resources, coupled with widespread access to broadband in many nations, and much improved Internet access to laws, combine to furnish citizens with abundant means for participating in the creation of laws online. The category of information and communication technologies (ICTs) that enable online citizen involvement in lawmaking has many names, including eConsultation, eDemocracy, eParliament, eParticipation, eRulemaking, and Dr. Beth Simone Noveck’s “collaborative democracy”.

In the U.S., citizens in many jurisdictions already have the . . . [more]

Markus is a successful lawyer who does great work for clients and who burns out assistants on an annual basis with sarcastic comments and angry outbursts. Jeffrey is a managing partner who likes to lead his firm like a drill sergeant at boot camp. 

I am on a mission to contribute to making our law firms better places to work. One of the big questions I keep grappling with is why do smart, talented, hard-working, ethical people – lawyers – make such a mess out of management? 

One of the answers is found in one of the best reads on . . . [more]

I drift along sometimes, dreaming that maybe I can stop learning new technical things for a while and actually use a few technologies to finish some long-term projects. Then something comes along to wake me up. One of the more recent of these wake-up calls came with the announcement of Apple’s iPad. People were complaining that it didn’t support Adobe Flash content.

I don’t generally pay a lot of attention to either Apple or Adobe, because I tend not to associate either one with open standards or open software. That’s just a bias though, and life is never that simple. . . . [more]

Economic Death occurs when a prolonged disability prevents you from earning a living and you have no other source of income. You are still alive, but have been become a financial burden on your family, friends and society. This can have a profound impact on you and your family’s future and for some it’s a fate worse than death. 

Think the risk is low? You may be surprised to learn that during your working years, the odds of suffering a disability are much greater than the odds of dying prematurely. According to actuarial tables, between ages 35 to 65, 3 . . . [more]

The two leading Canadian legal publishers, Carswell Thomson and LexisNexis Butterworths, have something in common – both face a major challenge for continuing relevance in the Canadian market. Interestingly enough, the real challenge does not come from each other, but from free services and technological advances, and increasingly from small but nimble legal publishers committed to the delivery of high quality competitively priced products. How each of them responds to this challenge will determine their ultimate role as providers of legal information in the Canadian legal market.

Meeting the challenge has been made more difficult because of the unrealistic expectations . . . [more]

(or, how I used the G20 to my advantage)

The G20 was probably the biggest news story in Canada for at least a couple of days in June, and certainly for a longer period in Toronto. The preparations by the organizers of the summit were echoed by those of us living and working in the downtown. As we drew closer to the arrival of the world’s leaders, it became increasingly clear that Business As Usual was not an option. The clear message from the organizers was to stay clear of the downtown core if you possibly could. Hatches were battened, . . . [more]

To market successfully, you need to speak the language of your target audience. To do that, you first need to identify who you’re targeting. Many lawyers make the mistake of trying to target too broad an audience. The result is a watered down message that doesn’t really speak to anyone.

The first step in creating a marketing strategy is to explore your current client base and identify the clients with whom you work best and bring the most value to your firm. Next, you’ll identify those clients with whom you do not enjoy working, and ascertain the characteristics of ‘undesirable’ . . . [more]

About a month ago, I gave up my private practice to accept a position as in-house counsel. It posed an interesting challenge, both logistically and professionally. Logistically in the sense that I now had an office full of furniture, files, equipment and knick-knacks that had to be either dispersed or stored, and professionally in that my new employer’s industry (mining services) was almost completely foreign to me. 

It turns out that both the logistic and professional challenges are proving a bit easier to manage than I had initially thought (which is certainly a relief). However, some new issues are arising . . . [more]

One of the most wrenching questions in environmental law is who should pay for historic contamination which was legal at the time. There is no moral difficulty in holding today’s polluters responsible for the consequence of their acts. But historic contamination, the unintended result of perfectly lawful conduct, is different. Inco has been ordered to pay $36 million in damages for lost property value, after 2000, due to nickel emissions before 1984 that were legal at the time: Smith v. Inco 2010 ONSC 3790

Is this just?

The rule of law is an essential part of the fundamental bargain that . . . [more]