Last week the Federal, Provincial and Territorial Ministers of Justice met in Charlottetown for an annual conference started four decades ago by then Minister of Justice John Turner. With the big price tag attached to the federal government’s omnibus crime bill C-10 and budget cuts on the horizon, there were no significant spending commitments by the federal government.

Legal aid is still on the agenda at these meetings, but barely. By my count, it is item number 16 out of 19 in the post-conference communiqué. Here is what the carefully-crafted language said:

Ministers affirmed their commitment to a responsive,

My post today is a question.

I recently heard an interview in which a major newspaper editor said the traditional model of “active” journalist and “passive” reader, is dead. He gave the following illustration. On the opening night of a new opera production the most experienced and highly regarded opera critic in the world can write a review for the next day’s paper. It will be brilliant as usual, but it is “nonsensical” to think the other 700 people in the audience have nothing of value to add.

He likened this change in perspective to flipping a switch in our . . . [more]

Who are these guys and why are they so happy? You’re looking at Clio co-founders Rian Gauvreau on the left and Jack Newton (Slaw blogger) on the right; and they’ll be smiling right now because they’ve just announced at Legal Tech that Clio has raised six million dollars in its Series B round of financing. From the Clio press release:

Clio will use this new funding to extend its product leadership position, aggressively developing new functionalities and supporting its growing customer base. In addition, the company aims to expand its footprint beyond the U.S. (which currently represents 95% of

Steven Slevin had a lifelong history of mental illness. On August 24, 2005, Slevin was charged with driving while intoxicated and receiving or transferring a stolen vehicle, and checked into the Dona Ana County Detention Center.

He was placed in solitary confinement, and remained there for approximately 18 months. He was briefly released for 14 days to receive psychiatric care and was returned to solitary confinement, for a total of 22 months, before the charges were dismissed and he was released on June 25, 2007 due to incapacity of participating in his own defence.

Slevin files suit on December 23, . . . [more]

Winston Churchill once famously rejected a desert saying, as he pushed it away, “This pudding has no theme.”

Of the many criticisms that can be justifiably leveled at my weekly post on this blog, lack of theme, I hope, is not one.

The theme of my posts is the need to preserve our adversarial system of civil justice; to prevent it from morphing into one that basically offers only interest-based dispute resolution because the energy and the skills needed to determine rights, have fallen into disuse.

I carry that theme around all during the working week, and after hours too. . . . [more]

On Friday I had the pleasure of speaking to an audience of lawyers at The Commons Institute‘s eCommerce and the Practice of Law conference in Toronto. I was given the large topic of using social media in a legal practice.

Below are the slides I started with in the discussion, but the real meat of it was the many excellent questions that were put to me by the group. I hope to blog more about those questions, either here or over on my personal blog (will let you know!). In the meantime, I hope these slides are helpful.

In 2008, the Ontario Attorney-General launched “Justice on Target,” a project intended to reduce wait times and delays in the criminal court system. The initiatives were broken down into several programs:

• Meaningful First Appearances
• Dedicated Prosecution
• Crown Access Commitment
• Streamlined Disclosure
• Appearance Standard
• Increased Availability of Plea Courts
• Direct Accountability
• Enhanced Video Conferencing
• Bail Enhancements
• On-Site Legal Aid

The new Attorney General, Hon. John Gerretsen, announced today to the media that the project may not meet its goal of 30% reduction in appearances,

It’s difficult for all of us to change the way we’ve traditionally been doing things,

The general public can already get legal information and/or advice from public legal education websites or from legal clinics and pro bono groups.

Some city councils in the United Kingdom are going one step further. Birmingham and Westminster are teaming up with videoconferencing firm Instant Law UK to offer free legal advice via webcam in public libraries:

“The plan is now to be in 100 locations within 12 months and 360 locations in 24 months. Though it will continue to place kiosks in those shopping centres which have already been identified – with three set to launch at

Corporate/commercial law accounts for the third highest number of legal malpractice claims in Ontario, after real estate and civil litigation. An article in the January edition of the LAWPRO Webzine examines the causes of these claims in detail, and tells lawyers what they can do to reduce their exposure to claim in this area of law. This post reproduces the portion of that article that dealt with communications-related claims – the biggest cause of claims in the corporate-commercial area.

Over the last ten years, corporate/commercial-related claims (including bankruptcy, tax, and securities-related claims) averaged 14 per cent of LAWPRO’s claims count . . . [more]

Today AvoidAClaim posted about three new fraud scams that lawyers alerted us to. All were similar to other scams we have seen in the past.

• A commercial debt collection scam by Grenham Donal Falley
• A breach of contract scam by Chan Li
• A collaborative family law agreement scam by Michelle Eley

This goes to show that the frausters are always at work coming up with new names, new email addresses, and new variations of the same scam to keep ahead of our efforts to publicize the information. See our Fraud Fact sheet for all the information you’ll need to help . . . [more]

In late December the Law Society of England & Wales issued a practice note setting out a number of guidelines for solicitors concerning social media.

The note, clearly aimed at tyros in the social media scene (which will likely include most lawyers, whether there or here, I’d guess), begins by asserting that social media offer the professional benefits of marketing, interaction with clients, networking, and public education, and present risks such as “the blurring of the boundaries” between professional and personal lives. As well, social media activity is seen as possibly testing the principles of integrity, independence, and maintaining public . . . [more]

For some reason Yeat’s poem The Second Coming bubbled up in my mind when I read an article based on an interview with the incoming chairman of the UK bar, Michael Todd in the Law section of the London Times recently. These lines of the poem in particular –

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world…”

I don’t suppose Yeats was foreshadowing the turf war between barristers and solicitors much, or that he was particularly worried about it. But promoters . . . [more]