One of the most significant advantages arbitration offers over litigation is the ability to design a bespoke dispute resolution process tailored to the circumstances of the particular case, offering no more bells and whistles than those which are absolutely necessary for the arbitrator to fairly resolve the legal issues. Not only can participants decide what level of disclosure must be met, whether evidence is required and how any evidence will be presented, and whether time limits on oral evidence and arguments and page limits on affidavits will be helpful, they can also decide whether the arbitrator will resolve their dispute . . . [more]

As lawyers we write a copious amount of memos and opinions. If you’re like me, you often go back to prior memos and opinions when you’re writing new ones. Perhaps it’s to borrow wording or refresh yourself on that particular area of the law, but no matter what you find yourself looking for and relying upon them.

There tends to be two general organizational systems that I’ve come across with respect to referencing these at a later date. One is the “random memory” approach – which functions like it sounds. It involves relying on your memory to think of what . . . [more]

This note provides some suggestions for lawyers taking family law cases to arbitration, offered from my perspective as a family law arbitrator.

The theme that runs throughout this article is straightforward. Your primary object in arbitration is to get the best possible outcome for your client, just as it is in litigation, and your chances of getting that outcome are maximized when you make it as easy as possible for me to understand your client’s evidence and comprehend your argument.

I. A peek behind the curtain

Before getting into the nuts and bolts, I think it might help to provide . . . [more]

Communicating with clients can be difficult, especially when you are trying to convey your legal opinion to them. When I first started writing opinions, I had a tendency to write a lot and try to explain every detail to the client. This often resulted in lengthy opinions that weren’t accessible for the client. A tip that was given to me by a mentor was to think about what the most important part of the opinion or letter was, then focus on getting that piece of information to the client as soon as possible, ideally on the first page.

If the . . . [more]

Marketing yourself as a legal professional can be difficult. Some take an active approach, while others do little to no marketing at all. In the legal profession, marketing and advertising is always constrained by the parameters set by our law societies as to what we can and cannot say, which further exacerbates the problem.

One way that I market myself is through indirect marketing in my community. Creating connections through networking is great, but finding ways to get into a setting where others can see qualities, beyond being a good networker, that may translate into the type of lawyer you . . . [more]

This book list was curated to offer those on the cusp of law school a summer reading list packed with important insights, presented in a manner that would not put them to sleep. It turned out to have something for everyone. Whether you prefer e-books or the old fashion flipping of pages, here are five must-reads for the summer months…

Bob Joseph, 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act: Helping Canadians Make Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples a Reality (Canada: Raincoast Books, 2018) ISBN: 9780995266520

Why read it this summer?

Because, as Misha Munim puts it, “this book . . . [more]

Do you have a particular portion of an e-mail or an entire e-mail that you end up sending repeatedly? It could be something as simple as a reporting e-mail or an e-mail where you discuss your fees. It could also be a just a single paragraph that you use often or even just a sentence.

Let me introduce you to “Quick Parts”. Let’s say that I always use the same text for my annual return reports to my client and I didn’t want to keep typing that out over and over again.

You can go into the last e-mail that . . . [more]

Ever accidentally wrote over a template or deleted a document out of a folder that you didn’t want to delete? Ever wanted to check what documents were in a folder on a previous date? Allow me to introduce you to the “Previous Versions” function in Windows Explorer.

The Scenario

You’re working in a folder with a bunch of disclosure documents in it. You’re working on reviewing them and deleting documents that you don’t need at the same time. In doing so, you delete a very important document that you didn’t intend to delete. This document was a PDF that was . . . [more]

Are you someone who uses e-mail filters to try and keep some semblance of organization in your inbox? Ever filtered too well and ended up missing an important e-mail because it skipped the inbox and got stuck in a sub-folder?

This tip will help you to filter your e-mails with confidence knowing that you will never miss an unread e-mail again. Let me introduce you to the “Unread” folder. This is a folder that you can create that can crawl all of your e-mail folders for unread e-mail messages and pull them into one common folder for you to view . . . [more]

Ever been drafting an agreement which makes references to other sections or paragraphs in the agreement, added or removed a section, then realized that all of your paragraph references are now incorrect and you’ve got a big mess on your hands?

Cross-referencing is the solution to this problem. Cross-referencing is a Microsoft Word feature that saves you from this very problem. The catch? Your document must have some sort of headings from the style guide or automatic numbering from which the cross-referencing menu can reference.

Cross-referencing works by inserting a link to the paragraph which you are referencing, allowing it . . . [more]

Today’s Tips Tuesday is a little trick that I use to save myself time when I need to reference a statute quickly. I use CanLII for the majority of my legal research and for all of my statute referencing. Instead of navigating to CanLII’s home page each time and searching the statute, I use bookmarks instead.

In my browser’s toolbar, I created a Legislation folder and have bookmarked all of the statutes that I might need to reference in my practice. For me this list includes:

• Alberta King’s Printer
• Alberta Rules of Court
• Civil Enforcement Act
• Condominium Property Act
• Employment

Today’s Tips Tuesday features a tip regarding one of the most under-rated features in Microsoft Word: Read Aloud.

Located under the “Review” tab in the ribbon, Read Aloud does exactly what it sounds like: it will read your document back to you, aloud so that you can hear the grammatical or wording errors you may have made when drafting. 

If you’re like me you like to torture yourself by going back and re-reading through a draft of a document or an e-mail that you just sent, and without fail this is when you catch a typos. It’s embarrassing and . . . [more]