Just about a month ago I reported here that CourtCanada, the private software development company that had a deal with Ontario to provide some court services, had sued the Ontario government for breaching an understanding. The statement of claim [PDF] was made available then. CourtCanada’s electronic booking system, OSCAR (Online System for Court Attendance Reservations) was implemented in the Estates Court as a pilot project and expanded to the Commercial Court, where it ran alongside FRANK, the government electronic booking system in place for a number of years. In essence, the dispute is about the government’s decision not to expand . . . [more]

I sat on a legal project management panel at the CBA conference on Tuesday. It was moderated by Barbara Boake of McCarthy’s. Andrew Terrett of BLG (and Slaw) provided the PM expert’s perspective, Brian Armstrong of Bruce Power spoke from the internal counsel’s perspective and I provided the practitioner’s perspective.

We had a very enlightening discussion, and spent a good deal of it talking about the challenges of planning for and pricing litigation (meaning any form of representation in an adjudicative process). I’ll follow-up on the discussion later, but thought I’d first lay some groundwork with a short and very . . . [more]

Following my customer service post last week, I had an experience on the weekend where store clerks were so intrusive that it was annoying. So much so that it makes me wonder if I want to go back to that store again. It’s a reminder that while we need to be attentive to customer / client needs, it’s possible to cross the line from good service to annoying and creepy. And it’s possible to try too hard to sell our services.

I went into a new store, and was immediately asked by a greeter if they could direct me to . . . [more]

Customer service is something that many different types of service providers talk about. But it often fails in execution. While many customer service concepts should be obvious, it is often not done well. Sometimes its not easy when you are the one providing the service to see things from the customer / client’s perspective. 

How many of us, for example, get frustrated at a repair service that says they will arrive at your house sometime on Tuesday.

Or when someone promises to show up at 2:00, and its now 2:30, and you have heard nothing.

Or going for a doctor’s . . . [more]

Over the last few months I have noticed a marked uptake on the topic of legal project management in the legal literature and blogosphere. Although I think lawyers have always “done” legal project management (not always well), I also think the recent buzz on the topic is related to the economy and the recent emphasis within the legal profession on changing trends and the need to do legal project management better.

SLAW recently did a book review of Steven Levy’s book called Legal Project Management. In addition to Steven’s book, there is also Jim Hassett’s The Legal Project Management . . . [more]

Next week, Toronto firms will interview and hire for 2010 – 2011 articling positions. Last fall I wrote a post called “Interview Tips for Summer Students.” This time I thought it would be helpful to give an inside look at the hiring process by describing the steps we at Hicks Morley (a management-side human resources and advocacy firm) go through in selecting the candidates to whom we extend an offer.

What follows is a description of the firm’s process with some commentary on how I’ve worked though it in the past five years or so as a member . . . [more]

Cromwell J. and Fish J. put on a solid display of written advocacy in today’s Supreme Court of Canada decision in R. v. Cornell.

A 4-3 majority held that the Calgary Police Service did not violate section 8 of the Charter by the manner in which it conducted a “dynamic” or “no-knock entry” search of an accused person’s home. The appeal was made as of right, and caused the justices to answer a question of mixed law and fact based on a very physical fact scenario. This set up a clash of language used by the majority (in a . . . [more]

♫ Dance Dance wherever you may be
I am the lord of the dance said he
And I lead you all wherever you may be
And I lead you all in the dance said he…♫

Lyrics by: Sydney Carter, music by: Elder Joseph Brackett, “Lord of the Dance“.

Effective July 1, 2010 Multi-Disciplinary Partnerships (“MDP’s”) are allowed by the Law Society of British Columbia. Law Society Rules 2-23.1 and following govern the establishments of MDP’s in the Province of BC.

This is a big change for law firms in BC. For one 2-23.1 (1) states:

“member of

There has been much written on Slaw and other places about the paperless office, or the virtual office. 

My personal view is that for the most part, we either already have the tools to accomplish it, or if we don’t have them, they can be acquired at low cost. The barrier is mostly our will to do it. Some people don’t see the need, or have a hard time giving up paper, or just find it hard to change.

Technolawyer points to an article that’s worth a read by New York lawyer Jay Fleishman entitled Being a Virtual Lawyer is . . . [more]

The Law Society of Upper Canada commissioned a study by Michael Ornstein at York University’s Institute for Social Research, resulting in a report, Racialization and Gender of Lawyers in Ontario [PDF], presented to Convocation in April of this year. As expected — and, in my view, hoped — membership in the profession by visible minorities, Aboriginal people, and women is in fact growing. This growth has been dramatic in the case of women: in 1971 women accounted for 5% of the profession, whereas in 2006 they constituted almost 60%, as revealed in the chart below.

Click image to enlarge . . . [more]

I ran across this today while on a search for something else. At first, I just found it amusing. Now I’m thinking it’s a brilliant bit of viral marketing for Paul Pearson’s firm, Mulligan Tam Pearson.

In addition to the 4,000+ views, Pearson has been featured in a Victoria Times-Colonist article. And now a mention here. Who could ask for anything more? :) . . . [more]

An article by Michael Moyer in this month’s Scientific American reinforces that crowd-sourcing approaches towards rating sites are inaccurate, and do pose a risk to lawyer’s reputations. We’ve discussed lawyer rating sites on Slaw before, here and here.

Moyer cites Eric K. Clemons of The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, who points out a couple of inherent biases in rating sites:

1. people using a service have already made a choice, and are pre-disposed to liking it
2. people do not tend to rate things they find satisfactory

What this means is that rating sites represent the extremes – . . . [more]