The Legal Innovators Roundtable, a monthly gathering of the like-minded in downtown Toronto, is a constant source of fresh ideas on the changing face of the legal industry. (If you would like details of meeting times and place I would be happy to provide them.)

Here is an ABA article circulated last week. It profiles Novus Law, a Chicago based legal services company that reviews, manages and analyzes documents for large-scale litigation, now poised to focus on drafting briefs and motions. Interestingly neither founder is a lawyer.

See the long list of legal process outsourcing and litigation support firms at . . . [more]

The other day, I was sitting with Phil Brown, of the Law Society of Upper Canada, trying to solve the world’s problems – as we are wont to do from time to time.

I ventured that one of the constraints to access to justice is a lawyer’s overhead. And a large part of that overhead in large- and medium-sized firms, is lawyer salary.

Then I thought, how crazy is it that we live in a world where lawyers can’t survive on a salary of $250,000.00 per year – keeping in mind that this amount is about 5 times what the . . . [more]

“The conundrum that regulators have is that we are to all intents and purposes recognizing entry-level competence,” Tim McGee, CEO of the Law Society of British Columbia told a CCCA lunchtime panel at the 2013 CBA Legal Conference in Saskatoon, discussing what the role of the regulator should be in ensuring competence in the legal profession.

His point was that despite CLE requirements, lawyers aren’t actually assessed by regulators as their careers progress – it’s assumed that if they attend an accredited law school, get a certain degree and pass a bar exam, law students are competent to become lawyers. . . . [more]

This post was originally published on the CBA Legal Futures Initiative website, and is authored by Omar Ha-Redeye, a lawyer with Fleet Street Law, a part-time professor at Ryerson University and Centennial College, and a blogger here at SLAW.

One aspect of the future which hasn’t received as much attention is the significant demographic shift occurring in Canada.

Darrel Bricker and John Ibbitson, authors of The Big Shift, The Seismic Change in Canadian Politics, Business, and Culture and What It Means for Our Future, spoke at the CBA Legal Conference in Saskatoon recently on how the entire face . . . [more]

Lawyers work in one of the least diverse professions in any country, Dr. Arin Reeves told the Monday morning plenary session at the 2013 CBA Legal Conference in Saskatoon. It was something the women and minorities in the largely white, male audience had probably already guessed.

And they no doubt nodded vigorously, or even silently applauded, when she said that “diversity” is not merely a matter of including a few people who don’t look like you on a team – it’s a matter of including them because you value their input, because you know they’ll bring something important to the . . . [more]

U.S. lawyer Stephanie Kimbro who writes about running virtual law practices shared an infographic she created last week with everyone — Technology in Legal Education (excerpt of the image below). It essentially shows why there is a need to teach law students and lawyers about technology, how the technology has been a “disruptive” force in the industry and its effect.

I especially like her outline of new roles people are playing in law firms today.

This is just an excerpt of her infographic. For the full graphic, visit her website Virtual Law Practice.

Hat tip ABA LTRC on Twitter. . . . [more]

Little has been written about the role of Legal IT Professionals in the law firm of the future. Most commentary has focussed on the law firm as a whole, or on the role of lawyers in the firm. So let me break from the mould.

We live in a world where corporate clients view “process” as just as important as lawyering. In other words, quality is a given and is expected by clients. For corporate clients, quality gets your foot in the door, but better processes will differentiate the firm and seal the deal. As a result, it is foolish . . . [more]

Something has been bothering me lately about the discussions about the future of the legal profession. Maybe you’ve noticed it too? Where are the voices of women in this discussion?

There are a few of us paying attention to the issues but on the whole, I’d say women lawyers are not speaking up about what changes they’d like to see for the future of their profession.

Of course, we know that many women lawyers leave private practice early in their careers. I recently heard Allan Fineblit, CEO of The Law Society of Manitoba say that half of women lawyers are . . . [more]

Innovation will be a hallmark and creativity will be absolutely mandatory for lawyers and law firms hoping to succeed in the next decade and beyond, participants at a Futures Initiative-sponsored professional development session on innovation were told at the 2013 CBA Legal Conference in Saskatoon.

Innovation, creativity and perhaps the kind of regulatory change that made the U.K.’s Riverview Law possible.

Andy Daws, Riverview’s vice-president North America, says the 2007 Legal Services Act, which was designed to promote competition, innovation and the public and consumer interest, has made the U.K. “the world’s legal laboratory right now,” where experiments in ownership . . . [more]

The debate over access to justice isn’t only on the agenda here in Canada (see the recent Slaw.ca posts entitled CBA’s Map to Equal Justice and CBA Access to Justice Report Is More Pie-in-the-Sky).

In 2011, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) produced a series of 27 Country thematic studies on access to justice:

“The national thematic studies constituted the background information drawn on by the FRA in order to compile its comparative report on ‘Access to justice in Europe: an overview of challenges and opportunities’. The summaries provide further details on the national situation in

Last week I visited the newly created Corktown Common. For those readers familiar with Toronto, it’s a new urban park that sits on the west bank of the Don River, just south of King Street – on lands that 25 years ago, were considered to be irredeemable industrial wasteland. Plans to revitalize the site as the Atiritari housing project never got off the ground for a variety of reasons – cost of environmental remediation being one, and lack of a burning platform another. It’s human nature not to do anything unless we absolutely have to. So it was only when . . . [more]

A vodka martini is the libation of choice for the James Bond of film – famously shaken, not stirred. The actor may change but Bond’s drink remains the same: the viewer understands that he likes its taste, he likes its style, its strength; that he has a comfort level with it that will not change.

When it comes to many lawyers’ seeming lack of engagement with the issues facing the future of the legal profession, it has been suggested that, like the Bond of film (though, it must be said, not the literary character) lawyers with a certain amount of . . . [more]