An article about Avner Levin’s new study about young people and technology ran in itWorldCanada yesterday.

The article, and presumably Levin’s research, considers ways that today’s employers can keep employees happy by resisting the urge to ban instant messaging within the office. I understand the need to ensure that employees don’t feel that walking through the office doors equates to a step back in time; however, I remain unsure about the final object here. Are we simply trying to keep the employees happy as they IM with friends and utilize social networking tools at work, or is there a greater, . . . [more]

The Economist magazine has a short writeup on the billable hour’s demise, and the growing use of fixed fee billing.

One of the more interesting statements noted, “If the billable hour does perish, it will be at the hands of the clients, rather than the private-practice lawyers themselves.”

This may be partially true, but tends to paint law firms in a poor light. The demand for alternative billing could come from clients, and it could also come from law firms. There are many firms experimenting with alternate pricing models, and have been for quite some time. Where the shakeout . . . [more]

At ILTA last week, Lexis teamed up with Interwoven to announce a new product that they claim will solve the vexed problem of e-mail management, including the ability to automatically file by subject and client, as well as support for archiving and disposing of e-mail as appropriate. The tools integrate tightly with Microsoft Exchange Server and Open Text’s document management tools.

Here is the announcement: . . . [more]

CMAJ, the publication of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA), is doing a series examining medical malpractice in Canada. The CMA drew national attention this month when a private health care advocate was elected their president, drawing criticism from various quarters.

Part one in the last week’s issue describes the emotional difficulties, isolation and stress that physicians undergo when dealing with professional litigation.

They then compare tort-based systems around the world and note that our system is not as user friendly.

The pros and cons of a no-fault compensation scheme are then reviewed, and they claim that 50% of . . . [more]

As many of you are already aware, the ABA’s Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility released an ethics opinion on legal outsourcing this week.

That report is now public on the ABA website thanks to some keen blogger griping by our Slaw friend Ron Friedmann. The key points, as noted by Ron, were:

• “U.S. lawyers are free to outsource legal work, including to lawyers or nonlawyers outside the country, if they adhere to ethics rules requiring competence, supervision, protection of confidential information, reasonable fees and not assisting unauthorized practice of law.”
• “Outsourcing can reduce client costs and enable

♫ There ain’t no such thing as easy money…♫

Words and Music by Rickie Lee Jones.

Law.com in an online article dated August 26, 2008: Lawyer falls prey to Pricey Internet Scam has reported that at least 7 lawyers in the USA have fallen prey to a collection scam that targets lawyers acting on collections. Details of how the scam works are set out in my blog from an entry in May, 2008: http://thoughtfullaw.com/2008/05/02/another-clever-fraud-scam/.

US lawyers are not the only ones affected; Canadian lawyers have been caught by a similar scam. Fraud attempts against lawyers appear to be on . . . [more]

Inspired by the map that “Mr. Peabody” made of law firm locations in Manhattan, I’ve started to map the location of Canadian law firms, starting here at (my) home, Toronto. Thus far I’ve only got 30 or so mapped. If anyone spots a mistake, please let me know. If your firm is missing… read on.

I’ve opened the project to anyone who wishes to collaborate with me on this. Think of it like doodling: nothing much to do at that meeting? add a firm or two. It’s actually easy to do, and if you find yourself having difficulties, . . . [more]

The next time you’re in N.Y. on business you might find it helpful to have a link to this Google map on your PDA. Someone with the nom de net of Mr Peabody (a character in one of the all time great cartoon shows on TV — q.v.) has located approximately a hundred law firms in New York city on a Google map. He’s also provided addresses, phone numbers and websites as well. (Some are marked with blue buttons, others with red — I have no idea what the difference, if any, might be… Political leaning?) . . . [more]

I’ve always been leery of proponents of a biological basis for intelligence [or running].

I have conceded that genetics play some role on an individual basis, but need to be activated by the environment. Measures of intelligence are far too culturally specific, and ignore many other forms of intelligence. And I wholly reject, for largely scientific reasons, attempts to correlate genetic intelligence with racial or ethnic groups.

The same holds true for great lawyers.

Some of us are born to a long line of lawyers, or have parents that are judges or legal academics. We grew up . . . [more]

We’ve had a number of posts (for example, from Gavin and Jordan) lately on the future of the traditional law firm model.

This week’s issue of The Economist has a thought-provoking article on recent changes to U.K. law permitting law firms to become publicly traded corporations. Australia appears to have been the first jurisdiction to permit this; Slater & Gordon went public in May of last year.

What are people’s views on this? Is it good? Bad? Inevitable? . . . [more]

Well Saturday saw the unveiling of the Canadian Bar Association Task Force Report on Conflict of Interest which was adopted virtually unanimously by Council on Sunday morning. While implementation of the reforms will be up to the Law Societies, and the acceptability of our analysis awaits the judgment’s of the courts in adjudicating conflicts cases, one important part of the Report is a Toolkit of conflicts management materials which is available for use by Canadian lawyers right now. . . . [more]

What do Slavians/Slawyers think about the US practice of courts deciding that their decisions will not be published, or to ‘de-publish’ decisions that have already been published? I came across a citation for a case like that, where the higher court decided, apparently, that the lower court’s decision should be de-published. The effect is that it is not to be cited as authority and is removed from official court reports.

The case is People v Wu, 235 Cal.App 3d 614, 286 Cal Rptr 69 (1991), (California Court of Appeal); order of depublication by California Supreme Court Jan 23,1992. The case . . . [more]