The debate over access to justice isn’t only on the agenda here in Canada (see the recent Slaw.ca posts entitled CBA’s Map to Equal Justice and CBA Access to Justice Report Is More Pie-in-the-Sky).

In 2011, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) produced a series of 27 Country thematic studies on access to justice:

“The national thematic studies constituted the background information drawn on by the FRA in order to compile its comparative report on ‘Access to justice in Europe: an overview of challenges and opportunities’. The summaries provide further details on the national situation in

Last week I visited the newly created Corktown Common. For those readers familiar with Toronto, it’s a new urban park that sits on the west bank of the Don River, just south of King Street – on lands that 25 years ago, were considered to be irredeemable industrial wasteland. Plans to revitalize the site as the Atiritari housing project never got off the ground for a variety of reasons – cost of environmental remediation being one, and lack of a burning platform another. It’s human nature not to do anything unless we absolutely have to. So it was only when . . . [more]

So a lawyer gets an email / letter saying:

Congratulations, based on our extensive research and review you have been named as a top ranked / elite / awesome lawyer in your practice area and will appear in our print / online publication. You can obtain / enhance your listing by completing form X / sending a profile and the (non-trivial) sum of $X.

The questions are:

• Do these publications do any more than feed our egos?
• Do buyers of legal services actually look at these print or online publications to find a lawyer?
• If so, do they trust the

Should you find yourself with a surplus of clients, the following tips may be of some assistance.

1. Speak only in legalese. Make a point of using Latin terms and providing complex answers to simple questions from clients. Above all, avoid plain language and clarity in your communications.
2. Keep your clients in the dark. Don’t send regular updates or otherwise inform them of what you are doing on their behalf.
3. Never focus your attention on what your clients are saying to you. Take calls, read emails on your Blackberry and check your watch during face-to-face client meetings.
4. Raise your rates without

A vodka martini is the libation of choice for the James Bond of film – famously shaken, not stirred. The actor may change but Bond’s drink remains the same: the viewer understands that he likes its taste, he likes its style, its strength; that he has a comfort level with it that will not change.

When it comes to many lawyers’ seeming lack of engagement with the issues facing the future of the legal profession, it has been suggested that, like the Bond of film (though, it must be said, not the literary character) lawyers with a certain amount of . . . [more]

My last post, about alternative fee arrangements, generated a lot (relatively) of comments from both private practice and in-house lawyers. It seems that there is a desire on Slaw to discuss the often hidden world of interactions between private practice lawyers and their in-house counterparts. Having recently made the switch myself, I’ve found that part of my job to be incredibly interesting and rewarding.

While I don’t plead cases anymore, I am still involved in complex legal issues, but am focused more on providing business-orientated advice – making sure that I enable my colleagues to accomplish their mission rather . . . [more]

The Canadian Bar Association’s Access to Justice Committee has released a new summary report today, Reaching Equal Justice: An Invitation to Envision and Act. The report explains why fundamental change in the legal system is necessary, exploring issues like the growth of unrepresented litigants, the role of technology, and potential partnerships between private practices and public resources.

The report emphasizes greater public education over the law, and approaching law as an essential life skill given that over the next three years given that 45% of the Canadian population will encounter some problem with a legal component to it. One . . . [more]

Recently I gave the closing keynote at a mid-sized insurance company’s annual conference for outside lawyers. The company (which we’ll call “Acme”) annually invites a selection of their outside counsel to discuss issues of importance to it; the items on the agenda for this year, and for the last few years, have been innovation, providing more client value and finding blue oceans.

Here is a company that totally gets it, AND more importantly, is focussed on working with its outside counsel to achieve results. I see very little of this and so I was greatly impressed; far too often, change . . . [more]

Can a member of the public post a tweet about a sentencing hearing as it is taking place in a Canadian courtroom? It depends on which court and in which province, but in most of Canada the answer is no. And what about checking email during the course of a long-winded closing submission? The answer, is yes, in most jurisdictions, but only if you’re a legal profession insider.

The Canadian Centre for Court Technology (“CCCT”) has posted a Canada Wide Summary of Court Policies on Live, Text-Based Communications from the Courtroom as of June 2013. The Summary confirms what Dean . . . [more]

Preparing for the bar exam was one of the most challenging things I have ever done.

I attended law school because I wanted to use the law to foster systemic change. I knew law school would be challenging. And it was, not just due to the work load, the social pressure and job application process, but also because the road well-travelled for law students is a corporate one. The law is conservative, slow changing and it looks backwards. Nevertheless, I flourished by taking a mixture of ‘black letter’ law classes, critical theory seminars and clinical legal programs.

Students often talk . . . [more]

Your tools are a law degree, and a country bound by the rule of law.

Your obstacles are law school debt; an ever-growing access to justice crisis; an economic downturn that has raised the volume on client demands for more services at a lower cost; and a regulatory system made increasingly complex by the globalization of business and trade.

Your mission – should you choose to accept it, Agent LLB – is to find a way of doing business that uses the tools at hand to overcome the obstacles and create a successful legal practice.

This message will not self-destruct, . . . [more]

I now continue sharing some of the lessons I learned from walking the historic pilgrimage route in France and Spain, the Camino Frances, over six weeks in May and June. Sometimes we are our own worst enemies. Fear or a negative attitude can prevent us from getting to where we want to be or getting what we want. We saw this time and again on our walk. Allow me to share two such stories that stand out in my mind:

One day toward the beginning of our trip we had a very long, tiring journey. We arrived into a . . . [more]