It’s a law student’s dream – or maybe a nightmare. Law firm recruiters scouring social media networks to find an appropriate candidate for their firm.

The current recruitment process does little to reveal the personality, collegiality, drive and habits of applicants. It does nothing to demonstrate their business connections, an important quality for “finders,” or political involvement, for firms that engage in lobbying and government relations.

The majority of law students do spend hours on social media platforms, usually behind walled gardens that they think are impermeable, so why wouldn’t law firms go where they are? We’ve already . . . [more]

On the 22nd of October 2002 the evidentiary phase of GasTOPS v. MxI commenced in a regular courtroom in Ottawa Ontario. On March 23, 2006 after approximately 300 days of hearing and after approximately 2800 exhibits (70,000 pages) were entered into the record I reserved my decision. Over the next 20 months counsel submitted their written submissions (3500 pages). On September 25, 2009 I released my Reasons for judgment wherein I granted the plaintiff judgment against the defendants in the amount of approximately $11.1 million dollars.

The trial was conducted in a paperless environment and the trial record consists of . . . [more]

♫ To face the friends of Mr. Cairo
..
From Chicago to Hong Kong
Via Istanbul the Talking Tong

Dirty rats thru’ prohibition
Money flowed thru gangsterism

Or Edward ‘G’ and all those guys
Who always shoot between the eyes
Between the eyes
Between the eyes…♫

Music by Vangelis, lyrics by Jon Anderson, “The Friends of Mr. Cairo”.

Bradford Bleier, unit chief with the FBI’s cyber division along with other ‘cyber-officials’ stated at an American Bar Association conference on Friday that:

“Hackers are increasingly targeting law firms and public relations companies with a sophisticated e-mail scheme that breaks into their . . . [more]

As Connie pointed out this is a week for legal technology focused discussions – both Ted Tjaden and I spoke at one of the Toronto conferences this week, though attendance was light in comparison to the record crowds at the Pacific Legal Technology conference, LegalIT and the Legal Futures conference of the College of Law Practice Management.

ALM are sponsoring Virtual LegalTech, a virtual trade show covering legal technology, which will take place Thursday. It features live webcasts and seminars, virtual trade booths, online networking, chatting, blogs, and more. “It’s everything you’d expect from a live conference, brought right . . . [more]

Two conferences have been taking place in Toronto simultaneously this week: Law Tech Canada (Insight) and Law Firm Leadership Conference (CBA). Some impressive leaders have been speaking at both conferences. I hope some write-ups will emerge soon here on Slaw. In the meantime, those of us not in attendance can follow some of the discussion via Twitter:

Law Tech Canada #lawtech

Law Firm Leadership Conference #lflc . . . [more]

A lot of lawyers and consultants out there have built profiles and reputations as “innovators” by promoting alternative billing as the answer to much of what ails the legal profession. I’m confused about what is so ground breaking.

Everyone seems to love to hate hourly billing these days. People argue that hourly billing values quantity over quality and repetition over creativity. Perhaps. But it also endures for good reason. It is simple to administer and easy to understand. Further, the marketplace corrects pricing irregularities and rewards efficiency. A law firm which can provide quality and creative solutions at a more . . . [more]

Not sure if YouTube is your thing? Alabama trial attorney Lew Garrison has created a YouTube-like site for law-related video, called LegalTube. According to Law.com, the site was launched on September 1st after four months of development. It is billed as a video directory for finding lawyers, but in addition to advertising video, there is legal humour, courtroom stories, and a “webisode reality series” called Law After Dark. The site also has a news alert video series on drug recalls and class action lawsuits.

And in case you were wondering, LegalTube has its own channel on . . . [more]

Still doubtful about video as a marketing vehicle? A few recent milestones from YouTube, the leading site for video distribution, be it entertainment-related or professional:

• as of October, YouTube is now up to over a billion views each day
• as of May, at least 20 hours of video are uploaded to the site every minute
• Increased high definition (HD) resolution is coming to YouTube starting this week. 1080p HD will be the new maximum resolution, up from the previous 720p HD. This is in response to the increasing resolution of consumer cameras. See the blog post for comparative examples.

Today’s Halifax Chronicle Herald reports that the current mayor of Cape Breton municipality, John Morgan, is about to face a disciplinary hearing by the Nova Scotia Barristers Society for professional misconduct. He’s not accused of bad lawyering (he hasn’t been practicing since becoming mayor in 2000), but of being discourteous to the bench in media interviews in connection with a particularly contentious lawsuit brought by the municipality against the province for a greater share of equilization funds. From the Herald article:

“Specifically, the charges allege that the member failed in his duty to encourage public respect for justice and to

The Times Online has a curious nostalgia piece entitled, “Whatever happened to the radical lawyers,” that keys off Michael Mansfield’s autobiography, Memoirs of a Radical Lawyer (co-written with Yvette Vanson). Mansfield, president of the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, has been practising in Britain since 1967, and has a string of unpopular causes as his clients over the years. The article examines his, and others’, views on what happened to the radicalism of the sixties that seemed to motivate so many young law graduates.

I say the piece is curious because it supplies something of an answer . . . [more]

Cross posted at AvoidaClaim.com

There is a fantastic article by John Harvey at page 12 in the October 26 issue of Law Times. (Sorry I can’t give you a public link – unfortunately it is locked up for Law Times subscribers – they can access it in the Law Times Digital Edition here.

While written for Ontario lawyers as it references the Ontario Family Law Act (FLA), the risk issues the article highlights are equally applicable to lawyers in other provinces and territories.

The article has some great comments and quotes from Lorne Wolfson of Torkin Manes . . . [more]

I am totally exhausted after a day involving a chambers application, client meetings, attempting to settle a high conflict matter likely headed to litigation despite all efforts and then coming home to two children under four with a husband out of town. And, Monday is my day to post on Slaw …

Which leads to me to a little rumination on the ethereal promise of work life balance in the context of private practice law. I am with Jordan Furlong, whom I met coincidentally for the first time in person at a CBA Work Life Balance function, that we . . . [more]