Spring has sprung here in Vancouver with its bounty of networking events and opportunities to reconnect with colleagues.

In between fun appointments in my social calendar, I sat down to read “Give and Take” by Wharton business professor Adam Grant. If you’ve ever felt anxious about networking, skeptical about selling your services or burned out from fielding non-stop requests for help, this book is for you.

Most of us have been taught to view networking as a zero-sum game where people act in their own self-interest; I’ll do a favour for you with the expectation that you’ll . . . [more]

This article is by Nora Rock, corporate writer and policy analyst at LAWPRO

Consulting with more experienced colleagues to confirm that you’re on the right track in resolving a problem is natural and commendable in any profession. Working in isolation is inefficient, and leads to preventable errors. Without access to information about others’ experience, we’re forced to make our own mistakes. For this reason, sole practitioners are routinely encouraged to seek out mentors and advisers from among the broader bar.

But what if every time a colleague outside your firm asked for your opinion on a legal issue, you became . . . [more]

The second annual FutureLaw Conference took place last Friday at Stanford University. Hosted by Codex – Stanford Center for Legal Informatics this was a conference “focusing on how technology is changing the landscape of the legal profession and the law more broadly.”

Judging by the comments in the storified #FutureLaw Twitter stream it looks like it was a very interesting and successful event. It was also live streamed and the day’s videos will be made available soon for those of us unable to attend.

Richard Susskind opened the proceedings with a talk entitled, “The Future of Lawyers: From Denial . . . [more]

I’m wearing my risk management hat this week, while attending the American Bar Association’s conference on legal malpractice. Though one might argue if I did my job well, there’d be no need for it, the unfortunate reality is that legal malpractice claims continue to be filed across Canada. In keeping with the theme of my week, following is a repost of a recent article I wrote for the Canadian Lawyers Insurance Association Loss Prevention Bulletin on a consistent source of claims against lawyers – the missed limitation date.

Two years ago, just after Christmas, there was a small fire in . . . [more]

Tax season brings the financial aspects of our careers into stark focus. Ledgers of our spending habits laid out in black and white. Nice and not-so-nice surprises in discussions with our accountants. Writing cheques to the Receiver General (what fun!).

In this vein, the topic of financial literacy sometimes crops up in the practice management discussions I have with young lawyers. The cost of living in Vancouver being what it is, student loan payments, social pressures to “keep up” with peers…it all adds up. Sometimes, it reaches a breaking point.

I recently sat down with an inspiring young professional who . . . [more]

Today’s New York Times has started a new feature, taking the more outrageous elements of the US litigation system and dramatizing them.

This is quite wonderful – stick until the end.

They take verbatim (word for word) legal transcripts into dramatic, and often comedic, performances. Here you will find re-creations of actual events from the halls of law and government. You, our readers, can help us find material for future episodes. Have you come across court trials, depositions or government hearings that you think are surprising, bizarre or baffling — and lend themselves to performance?

Hat tip to Stan Freedman . . . [more]

Researching conflicts for law firms has been a function that has been around for many years now and lives in different departments depending on the law firm. But I only recently heard of Conflicts Information Specialist as being a full-time position. I am therefore thankful that Amanda Brooks has kindly shared her experiences as a Conflicts Information Specialist in a Canadian law firm over on the INALJ (“I need a library job”) website in the blog post A Day in the Life of a Conflicts Information Specialist.

Brooks discusses the role of the Conflicts Information Specialist:

The purpose of

There has been much discussion about Trinity Western University (“TWU”) law school and whether or not, students who go to there should be able to practice law in Canada. I have no intention of wading into this very polarizing debate. What is more interesting, is the impact of three very different decisions about TWU, made by three different law societies.

No matter how one feels about TWU, one must consider the impact of any decision.

Decisions cannot, and should not, be made in a vacuum.

So, let’s recap.

The Federation of Law Societies claims to be the national co-ordinating body . . . [more]

As an educator of undergraduate and post-graduate students who often contemplate a legal career, I still encourage my students to consider law school, despite the tuition burden and uncertain opportunities given changes in the legal profession.

Then I came across something curious – a Canadian Business ranking of the best jobs in Canada, with lawyers topping the list at #1.

The magazine’s methodology lists the following factors for the ranking:

• employment growth of the past 5 years (25%),
• median compensation (based on a 40-hour workweek) in 2013 (40%),
• the change in median compensation from 2007–08 to 2012–13 (10%); and,

Many people are only starting to get used to the idea of ODR – Online Dispute Resolution. ODR uses increasingly familiar things, like online communication and information sharing, and uses the internet to combine them with dispute resolution. But what is stopping us from combining ODR with our justice systems?

In his CBA Legal Futures Initiative report, Key Trends in the Marketplace, Professor Richard Susskind invited us to contemplate whether court is a service or a place. If we commit to the view that it should be a service, then ODR would seem poised to become a key delivery . . . [more]

Voting is now underway for the Law Society of Manitoba’s 2014 Bencher election and will continue until May 6 at 5:00 p.m. As has been the case for the past several elections, voting takes place electronically. It’s a good system in that it works effectively and efficiently, at least from this voter’s perspective.

The Benchers function as the board of directors of the Law Society of Manitoba. The composition of this board is set out in s. 5 of The Legal Profession Act as follows:

• 10 practising lawyers elected for the City of Winnipeg Electoral District;
• 2 practising lawyers elected

In an earlier post, I described how Ontario’s courts drastically need to be modernized.

A new initiative went online last week at www.ontariocourtdates.ca. Members of the public can now access the site to obtain daily court lists of the Superior Court of Justice or the Ontario Court of Justice throughout the province. The information is presented in aggregate form.

Although this is a great first step, it is not a significant one. The Toronto Lawyers Association has been providing very similar information for Toronto court lists on its website for many years. All that this new information does . . . [more]