I’m sure most Canadians law firm denizens have heard about some of the latest firm merger news, but I thought it might be good to catch up with a few links to the news stories.

Macleod Dixon & Norton Rose

Probably the biggest news in Canada for some months now is Norton Rose. You may recall they merged in June with Ogilvy Renault to create Norton Rose OR in Canada. They now have plans to merge with 250 lawyer Canadian firm Macleod Dixon and will be rebranding the newly expanded Canadian arm as Norton Rose Canada. From the press . . . [more]

The Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP) released a study by Pierre Lortie today concluding that Canada does not need a national securities regulator. The report details how decentralization has allowed flexibility in the different provinces, allowing them to respectively adopt best practices, and finds a higher degree of performance as compared to other nations.

One notable finding was that Ontario is not a participant in the “passport” system, which allows dealers to register and companies to file prospectuses and have them apply in all other jurisdictions. The report strongly urges Ontario to join this system for it to . . . [more]

This morning’s Intapp Law Firm Risk Management Blog features a piece I recently published in Managing Partner Magazine in London entitled: “Managing Screens,” which explores the tension between tightly controlling access to sensitive client (and firm) information and fostering internal sharing, which I characterize as: “the potential of exploiting collective professional knowledge.”

“What has changed is that, in the past decade, so-called ethical screens have proliferated within law firms. Ethical screens are what used to be called Chinese walls: institutional mechanisms combined with technological safeguards and personal undertakings which ensure that confidential information is tightly protected.”

Last year at about this time the Court of Appeal for England and Wales overturned the conviction of one T (R. v. T. [2010] EWCA Crim 2439) on the charge of murder. It was an identification issue and a critical element in linking the defendant to the crime had to do with a shoeprint left at the scene. The judgment is heavily redacted, reminiscent of some grudging government compliance with a FOI order; nevertheless, it’s clear that shoes found at the defendant’s house had soles that matched the patterns found at the scene of the crime. The important . . . [more]

Not that Research in Motion needs more bad news and Apple more positive press, but today Apple launches a significant update to its operating system along with its new cloud service.

I am looking forward to testing out both new developments since I continue to more heavily integrate my iPad into the practice of law (in addition to amassing more Zombie games, including the highly addictive Call of Duty: Zombies HD; my joy in slaughtering zombies, albeit only in a video game app, is causing me concern, although there are apparently no moral issues in killing the undead . . . [more]

Chas Rampathal, the General Counsel and Vice President of LegalZoom is giving the lunch keynote at today’s PLTC 2011 in Vancouver on the Future of Legal Practice.

LegalZoom is a company that is responsible for 20% of the corporate formations in the US last year.

This is a live post: . . . [more]

Suzanne Deliscar is a Canadian lawyer-linguist who translates in the French-English and Spanish-English language pairs. She focuses on legal and official document translation. Ms. Deliscar was called to the Bar of the Province of Ontario in 2004. She can be reached via her website at www.treasurestranslations.ca. 

There are few efforts more conducive to humility than that of the translator trying to communicate an incommunicable beauty. Yet, unless we do try, something unique and never surpassed will cease to exist except in the libraries of a few inquisitive book lovers.
Edith Hamilton (American Educator and Author. Known for popularizing classical Greek

I couldn’t help being struck by the contrast between two seemingly unrelated events last week: Eddie Greenspan attacking his former client Conrad Black in the Globe and Mail, and the B.C. Supreme Court striking down money laundering laws insofar as those laws apply to lawyers.

In Federation of Law Societies of Canada v. Canada 2011 BCSC 1270, Madam Justice Gerow found that federal money laundering laws violate section 7 of the Charter to the extent that they apply to legal counsel and law firms. She further found that the violations could not be justified under section 1. Justice . . . [more]

Recently, the tech world has been buzzing with recent corporate blow-ups involving high level executives. Indeed, recently, Carol Bartz, the then-CEO of Yahoo, was fired over the phone and subsequently publicly denounced her boss as a “doofus”. As reported in Canadian Business magazine, Michael Arrington’s recent spat with his former employer, AOL, also went swimmingly. Both high-profile terminations had an effect on the employers.

Bartz mainly damaged her own career prospects, but her public outburst reflected poorly on the company. The incident almost certainly hurt employee morale, riled activist investors and added to Yahoo’s legal fees.

Less than a week

“Unbundling” is a name given to the provision of legal services for part, but not all, of a client’s legal matter, by agreement with the client. Another name is “limited scope retainers”.

The idea is that by providing Rules of Professional Conduct and guidelines on the issue to lawyers and paralegals, the public will have greater access to justice.

Unbundling raises all kinds of ethical and procedural issues. The OBA struck a task force to draft the OBA’s submissions on the subject to the Law Society’s Professional Regulation Committee. Here are the main issues identified in the OBA’s submissions : . . . [more]

The Harvard Business Review has an interview with Jeff Weiss and Jonathan Hughes, “Implementing Strategies in Extreme Negotiations,” that contains advice that may help with any important and difficult negotiation. In essence, the advice is to:

• “understand what’s motivating the other party;
• “come up with a variety of possible solutions and invite critiques;
• “use facts to persuade;
• “demonstrate a commitment to a fair and reasonable outcome;
• “build trust over time;
• and focus on actively shaping the process of the negotiation.”

In preparing for a negotiation, Weiss and Hughes suggest using a “seven-elements checklist” developed by their colleagues at . . . [more]