While it’s premature to call it a trend, Winnipeg-based law firm Thompson Dorfman Sweatman LLP (TDS) has once again merged with a small local law firm based in Western Manitoba, and thereby expanded its reach to Manitoba’s western borders.

Brandon-based Roy Johnston LLP operated for some 30 years, most recently as a six-lawyer firm. Managing partner Paul Roy told the Winnipeg Free Press that the merger is a response to the changing needs of firm clients who are engaged in more complex legal transactions:

“When we started out, we were doing simple farm deals and house deals. The institutions and

The Court of Appeal for British Columbia released a scathing judgment in Mide-Wilson v. Hungerford Tomyn Lawrenson and Nichols on New Year’s eve, upholding a Supreme Court decision earlier in the year which had reduced legal fees in a contingency arrangement from nearly $17 million to $5 million, in the interest of maintaining the integrity of the legal profession. The decision has implications for the understanding and application of contingency fee arrangements, which should be reviewed for contingency lawyers when evaluating the monetary worth of work in progress on their files.

The matter dealt with the million dollar estate of . . . [more]

The prevalence of cyber-related crime has been steadily increasing for a number of years. Many businesses invest heavily in the necessary IT infrastructure to protect their data, but despite best efforts and intentions, the frequent news stories in the press should serve as confirmation that breaches do occur.

The cost implications of having personal or financial information stolen are significant, especially for law firms, because the information they hold can be confidential and even privileged, and is often very sensitive. When you consider all the potential first- and third-party liabilities a major breach could place on a law firm, the . . . [more]

By this time of year most law firms have will have prepared their strategic plan for 2014, which should flow from their existing 5- or 10-year overall strategic plan.

Most firms will have also done a risk scan of the environment to determine what factors can adversely impact their strategy and use that information to adjust their plans accordingly.

Most firms will identify compliance-type issues as risk factors.

Others will consider the economic environment and how that will impact revenue and use that to determine hiring practices.

The more thoughtful will analyze where their revenue comes from to determine if . . . [more]

Last August I mentioned the CBA’s summary report on access to justice, Reaching Equal Justice: An Invitation to Envision and Act. This past week the Access to Justice Committee released the final report.

The report traverses many topics on the reasons why change is needed, including the growth of pro bono and unrepresented litigants, increase in poverty and legal illiteracy and increasing complexity of the legal system. The report also investigates several solutions to the problems, such as innovation in the courts, unbundled services and relying on technology.

There’s one idea in particular which has attracted my attention . . . [more]

I am dealing with an older lawyer who told me that he won’t be able to review my 3 page agreement until January 6, 2014 because his staff will be gone for the holidays and he needs staff to help him with technology – in this case, with blacklining my agreement, which would be tough since I sent the agreement to him in pdf format. I suggested that he make his comments in pen on the document and then fax it back to me. He did manage to do that.

This is not the first time that I have come . . . [more]

(Ed. note: This is the second of two parts on providing legal services in a coaching model. The first part is available on Slaw.)

Returning to the question of whether, and how, lawyers could provide coaching in self-advocacy for SRL’s, let me first put a few pertinent findings from my 2013 SRL study upfront.

86% of the (n=259) SRLs in told me that they had sought the assistance of a lawyer – via either the private Bar, a pro bono service, or Legal Aid. 53% had originally had counsel representing them; a further 33% sought pro bono legal services . . . [more]

The final report from the Envisioning Equal Justice initiative has just been released. I’ve only just had a chance to skim it, but in doing so I have noted a continuous thread throughout the report suggesting that it is essential, if we are to move forward effectively on the issue of access to justice, that we know what we know and what we don’t yet know. In other words, we need to establish a solid base of evidence that will support the actions we take to increase access to justice.

The report writers point out that:

We know little about

The Law Society of British Columbia has published a warning to members concerning a species of malware known as CryptoLocker Ransomware. The malware, thought to originate in Eastern Europe or Russia, infects your machine in the usual way, e.g. when you open a dodgy email attachment or other file; but then it proceeds to encrypt most of the files on your computer, eventually denying you access. The malware operators then contact you with an offer to decrypt your files if you pay a certain amount of ransom—often demanded in untraceable Bitcoin. Payment can result in the release of your encrypted . . . [more]

Much of what I heard from self-represented litigants in my 2011-12 study – and continue to hear in the mail we receive daily at the National Self-Represented Litigants Project – centred on what type of assistance they really wanted and felt that they needed.

How SRLs want help

SRLs want help – that is loud and clear. On-line resources get them part of the way – sometimes. But they want face-to-face help too.

Almost all of them say that they want lawyers. But they cannot afford to use a lawyer for every step of their case.

They want help to . . . [more]

“Is it just me,” asks a regular CBA FuturesChat participant, “or is there greater discussion and interest on ABS and technology than ethics and regulation?”

It’s not just him.

Since the CBA’s Legal Futures Initiative began conducting its Tuesday night Twitter chats in October, the greatest engagement and participation came during discussions about innovating within the legal profession with new kinds of business structures, many of them made possible by technological advances.

“Ethics” seems an immutable concept, something for philosophical debate late into the evening rather than an action item – as Joshua Lenon, in-house-lawyer for Clio, said in the . . . [more]

As part of my recent tour of Australia – well, the south-eastern part any way – George Beaton invited me to speak at a few of his live and taped events. One of the many points that interested me was his modelling on Axiom. As many know, Axiom provides embedded counsel to companies needing to fill gaps in its skill sets on short term bases. It has grown rapidly and profitably over the past 10 years.

According to George, Axiom, grew its revenue at a 72% compound annual growth rate from 2002 to 2011 while at the same time, . . . [more]