A new video about the Certified Specialist designation for lawyers was released last week by the Law Society of Upper Canada. This is the seventh video in the series aimed at the public.

From the January 22, 2013 press release:

In the new video, the seventh of the series, Certified Specialists highlight how the public can benefit from hiring a lawyer who is recognized by the Law Society for their specialization in an area of practice.

Offered by the Law Society for several years, the Certified Specialist Program recognizes lawyers who have met high established standards of experience and

PLEI Connect recently began a new series of public legal education webinars, some topics in English and others in French. For those not familiar, “PLEI Connect is a project to help organizations across Canada identify and share technology tools to effectively deliver public legal education and information (PLEI) services.”

PLEI Connect is a multi-jurisdiction, team initiative of CLEO, Éducaloi, PovNet, and Courthouse Libraries BC. It originated only a couple of years ago at the Just a Click Away conference. A look at a bit about PLEI Connect shows how these fine organizations share defined responsibilities for the project. From the . . . [more]

I’ve been teaching at University of Ottawa Law School’s compressed January term, which means a 3 hour class every day. It’s given me a sneak peek at the future lawyers of this country – and I like what I see.

If my class is indicative of the rest of the second and third year law students in Canada, they are bright, eager – and anxious.

Bright and eager is to be expected given that they’re beginning a new challenging career – the anxiety however is troubling.

There is concern over articling positions for those staying in Ontario – no surprise . . . [more]

One of the stories we missed in the lead-up to the holiday season was the announcement that the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University has created the North American Law Degree program. According to the law school website:

ASU’s North American Law Degree will include:

• A comprehensive curriculum in Canadian law
• A three-year program that seeks to fulfill all substantive J.D. bar requirements in common-law Canada and the U.S.
• The ability for third-year students to take the Arizona bar exam in their final semester and focus on the licensure process in Canada immediately after graduation

The great Courthouse Libraries BC website has introduced a new portal to its roster of practice portals. The Criminal Law Practice Portal (CLPP), like the other five, is meant to:

serve as a law practitioner’s starting point, or homepage, for a particular practice area. The Practice Portals gather key external resources of all kinds (established legal texts, current web resources, and carefully selected news and social media updates), and augments them with library produced content.

Specifically, the CLPP offers practitioners the daily hearing lists (by location), the ability to learn about sentencing ranges for an offence (via rangefindr, introduced and . . . [more]

Yesterday marked the start of the winter term for University Students. It also marked the start of the teaching term for some of my colleagues who offer their practical experience to law students by acting as Sessional Instructors. Many practicing lawyers give their time to this worthy activity.

At the University of Alberta Law School, there are 20 courses this term taught by sessional instructors – they are designated with a X in the course number if you are curious enough to follow the link. The University of Calgary Law School also has a long list of sessional instructors . . . [more]

In the spirit of the New Year, Resolutions and Top 10 lists, I present to you my predictions for the top issues that the legal profession in Canada will face in 2013. This was inspired by a discussion on the listserv of the Canadian Association for Legal Ethics (CALE) and in particular by contributions from Alice Woolley who started things off with a “Best of 2012” post that you can find here. Malcolm Mercer, Tom Harrison, and Richard Devlin, as always, expanded and enriched the discussion. Some of my “Top Issues for 2013” repeat Alice’s Top Issues in . . . [more]

I straddle a number of very different work environments every day all of which give me a very different perspective on many things. Some readers find this refreshing, others find it annoying or threatening.

As a writer hanging out with many different types of writers, discussions often crop up about getting paid for services rendered. Of concern to many writers is that more and more writers are willing to write for free, which drives down the value of writing – which in turn, drives down the already low living standard for most writers.

Harlan Ellison, well-known for his rants on . . . [more]

The Ottawa Citizen reported last week that a lawyer who posted confidential information about his own client online was caught in a police sting operation. The Ottawa criminal defence lawyer posted a PDF of disclosure that he received from the Crown in a criminal case against his client. The PDF contained blacked-out information and the lawyer used the web to seek someone to help him read the blacked out portions of the disclosure document. A man in Australia saw the post and contacted the Ottawa police who then caught the Ottawa lawyer in a sting operation. Read the Citizen . . . [more]

Much like Bronte sisters, French hens and celebrity deaths, my comments about the Law Society of Upper Canada come in threes. And in an effort to pull Malcolm Mercer away from the dark side and bring him into the light, my comments today will focus on solutions. : )

When LSUC was formed in 1797 it was a model for the Commonwealth. More than 200 years later, the governance structure has failed to evolve (ignoring the fact that Upper Canada itself was tiny and ceased to exist in 1841 before eventually evolving into the exponentially larger province of Ontario).

In . . . [more]

From January 31 to February 1, 2013 the Hotel MacDonald in Edmonton will be filled with lawyers and judges attending the Alberta Law Conference. This annual continuing legal education offering is always an excellent learning and networking opportunity. The theme of the 2013 Conference is “Working with Judges and the Courts”. The conference will explore the ways that judges and counsel interact and will also explore techniques for improving such interactions.

I have the honour of hosting the Social Media/Privacy panel at the conference. Naturally, the panel is weighted with some familiar names. Doug Jasinski and Dan Michaluk will . . . [more]

My Dean, Bruce Feldthusen, has written an article for Canadian Lawyer in response to criticisms in the legal profession about legal education and allegations that we are responsible for creating the perceived articling crisis in Ontario. The title of Dean Feldthusen’s article is pretty self-explanatory: “Legal Profession in Turmoil: Let’s Blame the Law Schools“. . . . [more]