The end of the year is a time when we frequently think about what has happened in the past and what will come in the future. One of the things that is often considered in this context is technological changes. With the benefit of hindsight it is easy to point to organizations that missed opportunities to adopt technologies at optimal times and worry that we are making similar mistakes in our own organizations.

The decisions associated with technology adoption are complex and involve many considerations. At the same time, they are necessarily made in the absence of perfect information. After . . . [more]

There are three keys to public speaking: ethos, pathos, and logos. Ethos is achieved when the speaker is convincingly credible. Pathos is achieved when the audience is emotionally moved. Logos is achieved when the reasoning presented is reasonable. Note that none of these involve the mystical calling of charisma nor haughty concepts like truth. Public speaking is a skill involving elements available to all who work on them.

Testing

Before I move to these three keys, a word on development. Great speakers do not come naturally to the calling, but through testing. The speaker must test everything, observe effectiveness, and . . . [more]

Clio’s “Lawyer in Residence”

Delighted to be granted an interview with Clio’s “Lawyer in Residence” Joshua Lenon, co-author Sharon Nelson asked Lenon to describe his duties as his title seemed a bit obscure. He laughed, no doubt having heard this query many times before.

As he described it, he does a veritable hodgepodge of jobs – all of which need a lawyer, but often requiring him to work with different groups. Clio has a wide range of professionals, officers, business development folks, IT and cybersecurity specialists, programmers, trainers, customer support professionals, etc. All of them need the benefit of Lenon’s . . . [more]

Justice Delayed

Suppose you run a small widget-making business in Ontario. You sent crates of widgets worth $100k to a customer, but they refuse to pay. They say there’s something wrong with the widgets, but you know this isn’t true and you can prove it. The good news is that contract law obliges your customer to pay you, and procedural law allows you to seize their assets to satisfy the debt if they don’t. The bad news is that, if you sue and the other side plays hardball, it will probably take at least four or five years to get . . . [more]

The annual World Justice Project (WJP) Rule of Law Index provides independent global insights on factors considered fundamental to the concept of the rule of law. It includes eight factors, which are each assessed based on four or more sub-factors. Factor 7, Civil Justice includes 7 sub-factors of which accessibility and affordability tops the list as sub-factor 7.1. In evaluating accessibility and affordability, the WJP measures people’s ability to afford legal advice and representation, access courts, and whether pathways to civil legal resolution are impeded by excessive fees, unreasonable delays, physical obstacles, language barriers or procedural hurdles.[1] The accessibility . . . [more]

The “dark web” sounds mysterious and dangerous. The dark web is described as a set of pages on the internet that cannot be indexed by search engines, further can not be viewed in a standard web browser, and typically require specialized software or network configurations in order to access. These pages commonly use encryption to provide anonymity for users.

There are marketplaces on the dark web where individuals buy and sell illicit goods and services.

One of the largest dark web marketplaces in the world was the Canadian Headquarters (or Canadian HQ). This site sold spamming services, phishing kits, stolen . . . [more]

The annual meeting of the International Conference of Legal Regulators, held in Chicago this year, was a terrific event with eye-opening panels and thought-provoking speakers. The consensus theme was that extraordinary change is occurring on multiple fronts in the legal world, creating huge challenges for the regulation of legal services, but also real opportunities to reshape this landscape for the better.

Here are 10 observations from the two-day meeting. Some of these insights are from speakers and audience members, others are my own. All of them point to a very different future for legal regulation, one that’s coming our way . . . [more]

Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) has gained credibility lately, due largely to a combination of pandemic limitations on in-person dispute resolution and rapid strides in online technology. But it is the product of more than 20 years of steady development and advocacy.

I was reminded of this reading a pre-publication copy of ODR: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, an engaging collection of individual articles by Colm Brannigan and Marc Bhalla that explores the history, current state and future prospects of ODR. The book assembles materials each author has created over the years, including Master of Laws (LLM) research – Brannigan in 2003; . . . [more]

I have always looked beyond our industry to see what is working in other industries and if there are ways to incorporate their ideas into our practice. Often this means considering other professional services industries but I find that looking beyond what may seem like a natural connection can provide surprising opportunities.

With that let me say, I have been Formula One fan for a long time and it recently struck me just how similar law firms are to F1.

There are 10 teams in F1, with each falling into one of three distinct groups. The leading teams (Red Bull, . . . [more]

Here at the National Self-Represented Litigants Project, we have spent the past 10 years trying (along with our other research and advocacy work) to provide support and information to litigants who find themselves self-representing in the family and civil justice systems. We have, among other efforts, published a growing collection of “Primers” (plain language guides) for self-represented litigants (SRLs), compiled a list of other organizations and resources that might be helpful to them, and maintained a Directory of lawyers (and other legal service providers) who offer lower-cost and alternative options such as unbundling and coaching. But for a long time . . . [more]

In the legal community within the United States, Alaska has a unique feature. With a population of over 700,000 people and rich in natural resources, the largest state in the country has no law school. This unique situation poses a number of salient issues and challenges which Alaskans have to deal with on a daily basis. Broadly speaking, not having a law school in Alaska affects access and preservation of the state’s legal history and its current development, accessibility to territorial archives, meaningful inclusion of underrepresented voices, knowledge of indigenous peoples’ legal traditions, navigating a complex legal system, remote communities’ . . . [more]

Typically, lawyers work from 40 – 80 hours per week. If they are able to bill out 2/3rds of that time, they are lucky (or organized). But it could be better. The difference between billed work and the rest of that time is often wasted or at least under-utilized time. That’s because most lawyers don’t have a clear sense of what they want to achieve in a year, a month, a weak, a day. They might know generally, but wishes don’t move mountains. Plans do.

As a lawyer coach, I NEVER forget that time a lawyer spends working, learning, marketing . . . [more]