According to the Times Online legal blog Law Central, Fasken Martineau has added six lawyers to its London contingent of 50 “fee-earners” (!) and gets praise for bucking the “doom and gloom” mentality in which Britlaw seems mired.

I note that the Times calls Fasken’s an “international” firm, with nary a whisper of Canada or Canadian in the brief piece. Something we said?

In addition to its offices in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City, Fasken Martineau has an office of six lawyers in Johannesburg.

The firm has also added three senior lawyers to its . . . [more]

It was just over 2 years ago I was boasting here on SLAW about attending the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

Alas, I will not be attending TIFF 2009 this month but note there are a few law-related movies this year that sound interesting:

– Presumed Guilty (about injustices in the Mexican prison system)

– Google Baby (about issues surrounding surrogate pregnancies)

– Cleanflix (about movie copyright and censorship involving attempts by Mormons to edit racy Hollywood movies)

– Copyright Criminals: This is a Sampling Sport (about copyright issues involving music sampling [good Wikipedia article here on the legal . . . [more]

This is a great time to be a Canadian labour and employment lawyer, but Canadian law schools now employ fewer full-time labour and employment professors than they have in decades. This post highlights the issue and invites comment about the relationship between our law schools and the maintenance of a vibrant and well-qualified labour and employment bar.

The declining faculty issue first caught my attention when, in February, York University professor David Doorey published a blog post entitled “Employment Law Practice is Booming, But Someone Should Tell the Law Schools.” Professor Doorey noted the significance of labour and employment issues . . . [more]

Just when you thought every niche had been filled, up comes an area of practice to remind you that this is a more wrinkled world than we are typically aware and the practice of law is a force second only to life itself, perhaps, when it comes to occupying all imaginable spaces: there is a law of algae.

It occupies a website, too, of course, which, appropriately is LawOfAlgae.com, a.k.a. Stoel Rives LLP, a Minneapolis firm specializing in renewable energy. Which is where algae comes in. Evidently it is an up-and-coming source of biomass from which to make . . . [more]

There has been a legal aid boycott in Ontario by senior lawyers, protesting underfunding of the service in the province, especially for complex cases.

A report by Prof. Michael Code of UofT and the Hon. Patrick LeSage commissioned by the Attorney General of Ontario found that the previous system was placing cases in the hands of lawyers who were probably inadequately prepared to deal with them.

The Attorney General has responded to these issues by pledging an additional $150 million over the next four years for legal aid, a 21% increase, the largest in its history. Min. Bentley said, . . . [more]

There’s an interesting article today on Law.com about what impact the recession is having on the situation of law librarians in the United States. “Law Librarians: ‘No More Sacred Cows’” by Alan Cohen is based on the 2009 American Lawyer survey of law librarians. To see the actual findings of the full survey you’ll have to be a subscriber, but Cohen hits the high spots for you.

Library budgets have shrunk in 46% of cases, compared to 9% in 2008 / The expectation from the firms is that every resource must show a decent ROI. / New software

This is a reminder that we should be brief in making our point.

We know this, but often can’t resist saying more than we should. Our tendency to ramble is partly a function of ego. We’re smart, we know things and we want others to know we know things whether helpful or not. It’s also a function of fear. When we don’t trust our argument we layer on lesser alternatives that can harm more than help. Finally, it can be because we’re lazy or time pressed. Long and rambling is easy while focused is hard.

The “case for short” is . . . [more]

Last month I wrote about Fired Without Cause, an online legal service for consumers created by Vancouver startup Paradigm Shift Solutions Inc., formed by Chilwin Cheng, LLB and Jim Hamlin, a software development expert. Since I’m curious to know how innovative companies get started in the Canadian legal industry, I arranged for a telephone interview with Chilwin Cheng through his PR company Fleishman-Hillard.

Connie: I want to start at the beginning. Where did you do your law degree? . . . [more]

Slaw readers crossing the US border should read closely the folloing statement issued this morning by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
Contact: 202-282-8010

CBP Border Search of Electronic Devices Containing Information

(PDF, 10 pages – 4.87 MB)
ICE Border Searches of Electronic Media (PDF, 10 pages – 453 KB)
Privacy Impact Assessment: Border Searches of Electronic Information
(PDF, 51 pages – 6 MB)

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano today announced new directives to enhance and clarify oversight for searches of computers . . . [more]

There are few things more secret within lawfirms than the process of determining equity partnership admission and partner compensation. Even if there are disputes they’re handled behind closed doors or in the leak-proof process of arbitration. There are only a handful of reported cases on such issues involving the largest firms.

Which makes the travails of McCarthy Tétrault particularly newsworthy – although the reactions of many managing partners may well be to thank the relevant deity that it wasn’t their firm.

A former McCarthy Tétrault lawyer is suing the firm for $12 million dollars over an equity partnership admission dispute. . . . [more]

The New York Review of Books has a series of podcasts online, one of which is of legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin interviewed by Hugh Eakin of the NYRB editorial staff. Dworkin addresses the formulaic nature of the hearings and particularly the notion, much mooted at the time, that a judge’s personal opinions should be irrelevant and her only task ought to be to faithful to the law.

Dworkin says at one point:

There’s a great myth abroad in America which is that a judge can decide cases by just saying I will apply the law whatever it is and my

When, if ever, is it appropriate to use humour in a hearing? And what boundaries should lawyers respect?

This, my first slaw.ca post, has been a great opportunity to read a little, think a little and affirm my belief that humour is an important advocacy tool, though subtlety is the key to its successful use.

My interest in the subject of humour and advocacy began at an Advocate’s Society lunchtime session a few years ago. In debriefing a mock examination, one of our well-respected Superior Court judges took great exception to a flippant remark made by a witness. She turned . . . [more]