Like many in the legal profession, I spend a significant proportion of my days working at the craft of writing.

Sometimes, I write on risk management topics for Canadian Lawyers Insurance Association. Weekly, I sit down to write a post for publication here on Slaw. From time to time, I also write reports, meeting minutes and more.

Because I work mostly alone, I often have found myself lamenting the absence of another set of eyes to review what I have written. No matter how many times I review my drafts, it seems I always miss something that any good . . . [more]

The most recent Snowden revelation, as reported by the New York Times, has revealed that even law firms have become ensnared in the NSA’s ever-growing communications dragnet.

The top secret document, leaked by Edward Snowden, reveals that a US-based firm was targeted by the NSA over the period of time it represented Indonesia in trade talks with the US government. Controversial FISC court rulings grant the NSA permission to monitor the communications of Americans, even communications within the scope of attorney-client privilege, provided those communications are deemed to have intelligence value and are with foreigners.

Given these revelations, US-based . . . [more]

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

From both a client communication and a claims prevention perspective, reporting letters may be among the most important documents in a lawyer’s file.

Reporting letters support client communication by describing the work that has been completed and the results achieved. Good reporting letters should also communicate whether any issues remain to be resolved or tasks require completion – and whose responsibility it is to deal with these.

Should the matter result in a claim, having interim and/or final reporting letters in the file can be very helpful . . . [more]

The employment law landscape is expected to change over a number of key issues through 2014. Some of these changes provincially in Ontario follow changes initiated at the Federal level.

Changes to the Employment Insurance Act under Bill C-44 to s. 12 of the Act which now provides up to 35 weeks of EI benefits for parents who have taken time off work to provide support or care for critically injured or ill children.

These provisions were mirrored in the Canada Labour Code for Federally regulated employees through a coordinating amendment under the Bill to s. 206.1.

Changes were . . . [more]

You may already have been peppered with these—I’m not the person most tightly in the loop—but I thought you’d like to see what one of the big firms is doing by way of compliance with Canada’s Anti-Spam legislation. This arrived by email, allowing for an email reply. And there’s also a companion version on the Blakes website: . . . [more]

From my discussions with insiders, it appears that the carnage from the dissolution of Heenan Blaikie continues as professional administrative staff (IT, HR, marketing, support staff, etc. ) are left in limbo as to what will happen to those not moving with the mass exodus of lawyers to other law firms.

There have been allegations that the dissolution was not managed well by the firm’s executive team. From the descriptions I have heard, it very much seems like an “every man/woman for his/herself” situation with panicked lawyers desperately calling around for a job while support staff were left to watch . . . [more]

Commiserating on the demise of giant Canadian law firm Heenan Blaikie in a Letter to the Editor to The Globe and Mail of February 7, 2014, retired lawyer Stephen Barker took issue with referring to the legal profession as the “law industry.” He adds that most “industries” have low standards of public service. 

This is not new news. The law industry, is in fact, an industry; every industry has its own peculiarities.

More importantly, every industry is subject to the laws of economics (laws of supply and demand, market cycles), competition (and competitiveness), and the 4-stage marketing cycle. The fourth . . . [more]

There has been quite a bit of controversy in the past few years about the use of experts in court, the appropriate role of experts in assisting judges, the subject matters upon which experts may testify and the ever-present problem of experts being hired by parties yet having to remain neutral in the search for the truth.

Recently, this issue has been debated outside legal circles. In the wake of high profile crimes such as that of Guy Turcotte who killed his two young children in 2009, the media has grabbed hold of these questions and asked how it is . . . [more]

On January 23, 2014, the Supreme Court of Canada released its decision in the case of Hryniak v. Mauldin, in which it signaled a fundamental shift in the way that summary judgment motions are to be handled in the Province of Ontario.

A scheduling decision, released last week by Justice Brown of the Commercial List in Toronto, provides the first insight as to how summary judgment motions may be changing on a practical level.

Justice Brown noted, correctly, that it is conceivable that parties may end up having to make up to three appearances in connection with motions . . . [more]

One of the ideas that surfaced in the lively discussions at the OBA’s Civil Litigation program which I co-chaired last week, was the importance of “face time” between counsel, as a means of improving communication, reducing hostility and keeping lawyers focused on the efficient and economical resolution of disputes.

The view was expressed that counsel sometimes adopt a tone in emails that they would not use in person. Someone has described this as “courage from a distance”.

At the break I was introduced to a California practitioner in the audience who informed me that the rules of procedure in that . . . [more]

I suspect we will all be talking about Heenan Blaikie for a while, on Slaw and elsewhere.

Both Mitch and Gabriel have weighed in on this some more already, so I’d like to add here to my previous post on the subject and my brief interview with Drew Hasselback in the Legal Post.

Much of the commentary has tried to figure out what went “wrong.” Hasselback’s most recent article suggests that it was not strictly financial,

Just a month ago, things were looking good. Billings had hit a near-record $35-million for the month of December. And the full-year financial

Listening to Roy Heenan give his spin on the demise of his law firm, I couldn’t help but hear the strains of Elton John’s “Funeral for a Friend” in my head.

It will be some time before the full back story of this debacle will be known. But in my view, Heenan Blaikie died from a combination of greed, poor management and failed leadership wrapped together in an antiquated business structure ill-suited to “more for less” client demands in a marketplace gradually filling with non-traditional competitors.

As I have said repeatedly, the Canadian legal profession is now entering the . . . [more]