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]

Over the last four days there has been a massive spike in bad cheque frauds targeting lawyers in across Canada (BC, Ontario and Quebec), the U.S. (NC, NY) and several other countries around the world (including Australia, Fiji, Italy, Scotland, Sweden, Turkey and the U.K.).

Almost 300 lawyers notified us that they received an initial contact message on one of these frauds. As LAWPRO would receive reports on a fraction of the attempted frauds, it would appear that thousands of lawyers have been targeted over the last four days. Several thousand lawyers have visited the AvoidAClaim blog for more information . . . [more]

and not help one’s expert witness consulting practice

One bit of advice young lawyers are given – much easier to follow in the brave new world of reasons for judgment online and so easily searched – is to look for cases in which judges have commented on the expert’s objectivity. The words in square brackets are my interpolations for clarity.

From a trial decision not too long ago, about a witness who testified for the side that ultimately won at trial but lost on appeal.

•  Dr. S. called by the Plaintiffs, was qualified as an expert to give opinion evidence

Trello, from Joel Spolsky‘s Fog Creek Software, is a really nice tool for organizing a project, collaboratively, and for free.

Launched back in September, I just found out about the software today reading and interesting note he wrote showing the difference between vertical and horizontal software products.

This looks like it might be a big help in law offices, and anywhere teams need to collaborate on multifaceted projects. . . . [more]

This could be The Year of Access to Justice in Canada. Whether it is a good year or a bad year for Access to Justice is TBD. The fate of Access to Justice is to be determined by governments, by the courts, by the legal profession and yes, by lawyers ourselves.

Dark Clouds on the Horizon: Justice Budgets 2012

In 2012, we are likely to see serious fiscal pressures on Access to Justice through budget freezes or cuts to legal aid plans, courts and other justice programs. Serious cuts to legal aid have already been proposed in the UK . . . [more]

When Heather Peters was dissatisfied with the proposed class-action settlement for her 2006 Honda Civic hybrid, which didn’t provide the promised fuel economy, she opted for Small Claims Court instead.

She is taking Honda Motor Co. to court this Tuesday in in Torrance, CA for $10,000, the new limit in California starting January 1, 2012, which by far exceeds the $100 and rebates she would have received from the class action. Best of all, the rules of the jurisdiction require Honda to provide an employee representative who is not a lawyer,

Small Claims Court is a special court where you

Subjective top ten lists are great for starting arguments given the improbability of any two people sharing precisely the same worldview. It’s a little tougher to engender heated debate over objectively measured top ten lists, but not impossible. After all, we can still dispute methodology and relevance! I invite Slaw readers to infer meaning and to offer analysis of the results.

So with that, I’m pleased to present for 2011 the top 10 most consulted cases on CanLII.

1. Bruni v. Bruni, 2010 ONSC 6568
2. Indalex Limited (Re), 2011 ONCA 265
3. Dunsmuir v. New Brunswick, 2008 SCC 9
4. Bedford v. Canada,

This was how David Sterns, one of the panel members at an OBA civil litigation session last week, described the Ontario Court of Appeal’s 5 December judgment interpreting the new summary judgment rule. (See Simon Chester’s post last week for a good description of the amendment and the decision.)

Despite all the energy and resources being devoted in our modern system of civil justice to mediation, alternative dispute resolution and most recently judicial dispute resolution, in its 111 page judgment in Combined Air and four other cases, the Court of Appeal reinforces the primordial elements of the trial in our . . . [more]

‘Tis the season for law firms (and no doubt others) to send out season’s greetings by email, most often accompanied by the usual wordy and sometimes bilingual notices that the content of the email may be confidential, privileged and subject to diverse prohibitions that we are more or less politely admonished to comply with.

Here’s a typical, though polite, version (French omitted):

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: The contents of this electronic mail message are confidential and strictly reserved for the sole use of its intended recipients. This message may contain information protected by the solicitor-client privilege. If you receive this message in

[This is the text (updated for SLAW) of a Fraud Alert that LAWPRO sent to Ontario Lawyers December 15, 2011.]

LAWPRO continues to see high numbers of bad cheque frauds targeting lawyers across Canada and the U.S., as well as several other countries around the world. On a monthly basis, 250-300 lawyers advise us that have been targeted by bad cheque frauds. We are seeing the same types of scams over and over again, and on a weekly basis we are seeing two or three new fraudster client names. And these frauds are becoming more sophisticated. Very experienced lawyers have . . . [more]

The English media came back this weekend to re-examine the health of Thomson-Reuters and reached wildly different conclusions. The BBC talks of Thomson moving to establish hegemony over business data, whereas the Guardian focuses on the weaknesses of post-merger integration and the long-term challenge that Bloomberg presents.

The doyenne of the DC law library community, Jean O’Grady has a fascinating piece suggesting that Thomson may well acquire Wolters-Kluwer

Her analysis is:

Factors Favoring Such a Merger

1. Thomson Reuters Leadership Changes.Exane BNP suggests that TR appears to be “in restructuring

and crisis mode” since they failed to achieve top