♬ I want a new drug 
One that does what it should…♬ 

Lyrics, music and recorded by Huey Lewis.

On Monday April 2, 2012, Dr. Frank Fowlie, the Internet Ombudsman, Kari Boyle of MediateBC and your humble scribe did a presentation for the University of British Columbia law school. It was entitled: ODR Around the World and was meant to be an introduction into the emerging field of Online Dispute Resolution and how it is changing the way that people could resolve their disputes using internet technology.

During the presentation, I asked the students to reflect on . . . [more]

I too am at the ABA TECHSHOW 2012 in Chicago organized by the American Bar Association’s Law Practice Management Section. This has been my first time at this conference. A few things struck me immediately:

• this is a very different law conference; and
• everyone is extremely friendly.

I arrived on Wednesday evening during a reception before the LexThink.1 event that Jason Wilson wrote up for us yesterday.

I noticed that there was a group of people huddled around an easel and announcements about making guesses about the weight of a food truck. Huh? What were they doing? . . . [more]

Last night was Day .5 of the ABA Tech Show, and I have to give it up to Matt Homann, et al. for putting on a great show at the newly branded Lexthink.1. The billing for this event is twenty slides, six minutes, one topic, all on the future of law practice. Sure, the set up is no Battledecks, but it isn’t a cakewalk either. Even with all the preparation the format isn’t as easy as you might think, particularly when that slide changes and you aren’t ready to move on just yet. It’s designed to push . . . [more]

One of the puzzling things I have noticed about new lawyers is that they tend to come out of law school thinking like 50 year old lawyers – and not like the digital natives they are. In general they don’t seem to think like their peers who have pursued callings other than law. And that’s not a good thing. 

That seems strange to a digital immigrant like myself, who embraces things like a paperless practice and social media. We sometimes wonder why law students are not pushing us into this world and demanding new and innovative approaches, rather than the . . . [more]

Given that it is Law Student Week at SLAW, I thought it appropriate to dedicate this post to the OBA’s recent recommendations to the LSUC Task Force on the future of articling.

Scrutiny of all professional entry-to-practice criteria by the Competition Bureau and Ontario’s Fairness Commissioner requires the legal profession, and all other self-regulating professions, to carefully analyze their criteria and eliminate any elements that do not play a legitimate role in protecting the public.

In response to this scrutiny Convocation approved the establishment of the Articling Task Force to address concerns about the articling program, relating in particular to . . . [more]

In my post here on 19 September, I railed on about the fork in the road of advocacy – one towards mediation, the other towards traditional court advocacy. I said, “Court advocacy is to mediation advocacy, as tennis is to cage fighting. Without an umpire.” My theme: although there is some overlap of skills, the two are sufficiently different that the advocate should concentrate his or her practice on one or the other.

In the Spring 2012 Advocates’ Journal there is an article by the Chief Justice of Ontario which lays bare the differences between court and mediation advocacy . . . [more]

Is the lawyer’s preference for the word “client” instead of “customer” anything more than protectionism for the arcane?

The UK Office of the Legal Ombudsman doesn’t seem to think so.

Three years ago the first press release issued by the Ombudsman’s office deliberately chose the word “customer” to symbolize the change which its arrival heralded. So explains Adam Sampson the UK’s Chief Ombudsman in the Guardian last week.

The view of the Legal Ombudsman, it seems, is that the word “client ” trails behind it habitual thinking about the provision of legal services that neither can, nor should, survive:

The

Michelle Alexander, a lawyer and professor at Ohio State, wrote an editorial in The Times yesterday, Go to Trial: Crash the Justice System. She provides some background on the current crisis in the American justice system, and how few accused actually realize their constitutional right to a jury,

 …in this era of mass incarceration — when our nation’s prison population has quintupled in a few decades partly as a result of the war on drugs and the “get tough” movement — these [jury] rights are, for the overwhelming majority of people hauled into courtrooms across America, theoretical.

♫ Our generation has changed
The way we communicate
A hundred and 40 characters to say what you’ll say…♫

Lyrics, music and recorded by @gabebondoc.

The Courts of Nova Scotia are the First in Canada to Enter The “Twitterverse”

The Courts of Nova Scotia have achieved a “First”. They are now “tweeting” news and information about the Courts, decisions of the Courts, and notices to the Bar as a way to better serve the public, the legal profession and the media.

The Nova Scotia courts, on their web page, state that Twitter “replaces a similar but . . . [more]

I don’t think this idea would go down well in Ontario.

Under the new QASA , UK judges in criminal matters will now rate the levels of advocates appearing before them.

Cases are assigned levels and advocates will only be permitted to appear in cases assigned to their levels and below.

Advocates are assessed judicially , and by an approved assessment organization. The advocate must ask judges for an assessment prior to the hearing, and must be assessed 5 times over a 5 year period. The advocate can choose the best three scores.

Over time advocates can move up the . . . [more]