This is taken from Know How Administrative Dismissal Claims Happen, and Take Eight Steps To Immunize Yourself Against Them which appears in the September 2013 issue of LAWPRO Magazine. The article also contains the Dimissal Motions: What is the Test? chart by Debra Rolph, LAWPRO’s director of resarch.

Rule 48 [of the Ontario Rules of Professional Conduct] claims arise when it is alleged that the dismissal of a claim was due to the lawyer’s negligence with respect to either a defended (Rule 48.14) or an undefended (48.15) action. Many of these claims have been very costly for LAWPRO. While . . . [more]

the (proclaimed by others) progenitor of the law and economics movement.

http://www.worldeconomicsassociation.org/newsletterarticles/ronald-coase-1910-2013-by-david-westbrook

The appeal of the Coase theorem, and to lesser extent the “Theory of the Firm,” to legal scholars is somewhat puzzling. While many law professors resisted the impulse to explain the world in terms of implicit contracts and around alleged costs (the even more speculative reliance on alternative uses of factors of production has been, to my knowledge, ignored), more subscribed. This is odd. One might have thought that lawyers would viscerally sense the importance of history, of power, of institutional arrangements — of lots of things besides

The real estate lawyer’s job is more than just conveying title, and not every matter will be straightforward. Communication errors and inadequate investigation are the biggest causes of real estate claims at LAWPRO, respectively 41 per cent and 26 per cent of claims reported between 2001 and 2011. Busy, high-volume practices often lead to situations where the lawyer is not taking the time to communicate with the clients properly.

Lawyers need to take the time to speak to clients to ensure they’ve gathered all the relevant information.

Here are five questions lawyers should be asking their clients or themselves on . . . [more]

Cyber criminals and identity thieves want to steal your personal information to commit fraud. They may try to get a credit card in your name or to access funds in your bank account. On top of directly losing money, your credit status can be damaged and it can take a great deal of time and expense to restore your good name.

And this goes beyond being an issue of personal concern. LAWPRO has seen situations where law firm bank accounts were hacked and where law firm bank account information was used on counterfeit cheques.

There are many different ways to . . . [more]

One of the pleasures of dabbling in the law and literature field is finding an overlooked treasure. The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald is one such gem.

The Bookshop is the slow, graceful telling of Florence Green’s attempt to establish a bookshop in a quiet English town. Green is described as “small, wispy and wiry, somewhat insignificant from the front view, and totally so from the back.” She is a character to be ignored and bypassed by the social structure and politics of the town until she purchases a derelict, abandoned property to start her shop. Undeterred by the shop’s active . . . [more]

“Are we happy being lawyers?” That’s the question Nancy Levit and Douglas O. Linder tackle in The Happy Lawyer: Making a Good Life in the Law (Oxford University Press, 2010). Lawyers themselves, they have anticipated your next question:

What do you mean by “happy”? On a scale that runs from having root canals to a night of fine wines and sex on a tropical island, where does “unhappiness” turn into “happiness”? Do you mean “happy” right now as I write footnote 17 on this brief for Acme Investments or “happy” during the course of my ten-year legal career? … Also, . . . [more]

In the September 2010 issue of LAWPRO Magazine, we asked our claims counsel about what they feel are the biggest malpractice hazards in each area of law based on the claims files they work on every day. Here is an excerpt from that article that discusses the risks that can arise when dealing with elderly clients. Click here to read the full article “Practice Pitfalls”.

Changing demographics are leaving their mark on trends that concern LAWPRO counsel: We are seeing increased potential for claims surrounding issues of the capacity of elderly clients and undue influence. The increased number of elderly . . . [more]

Yesterday gave us rare opportunity to see the glory of the delivery of the famous “I Have a Dream” speech, as many in the world commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington.

Commentary about the March and the speech, their context and their legacy abounded this week. But many also heard the entirety of Dr. King’s speech, delivered in his own voice. The copyright in the speech is protected and strictly enforced, now by his estate.

Some media outlets secured the required permissions for wide reproduction of the speech or its broadcast. Licence fees . . . [more]

In the September 2010 issue of LAWPRO Magazine, we asked our claims counsel about what they feel are the biggest malpractice hazards in each area of law based on the claims files they work on every day. Here is an excerpt from that article that discusses criminal law, which while not a large source of LAWPRO claims, still has its dangers. Click here to read the full article “Practice Pitfalls”.

Criminal law has not traditionally been a fertile source of malpractice claims, notes LAWPRO Claims Counsel Karen Granofsky, but “ineffective assistance of counsel” claims are a growing trend.

For example, . . . [more]

I am impressed with the sharing aspect of Canada’s legal community, and the generosity everyone shows in blogging. Every day we see great new examples of this with both thought leadership and informational blogs. On Friday members of the CALL-L listserv received a note from the CALL/ACBD Website Editorial Board chair Michel-Adrien Sheppard reminding us about the blog on the Canadian Association of Law Libraries/L’Association canadienne des bibliothèques de droit website.

Even as a CALL/ACBD executive board member I didn’t quite realize how much blogging was going on inside the members’ area! Fortunately now members have the option of . . . [more]

In the September 2010 issue of LAWPRO Magazine, we asked our claims counsel about what they feel are the biggest malpractice hazards in each area of law based on the claims files they work on every day. Here is an excerpt from that article that discusses the hazards of family law. Click here to read the full article “Practice Pitfalls”.

When a starry-eyed couple is about to get married, no one likes to think about the possibility of divorce. However, in some cases one side (e.g., the husband – or the husband’s family) has assets it wants to protect in . . . [more]

In the September 2010 issue of LAWPRO Magazine, we asked our claims counsel about what they feel are the biggest malpractice hazards in each area of law based on the claims files they work on every day. Here is an excerpt from that article dealing with clients who urge a quick settlement. Click here to read the full article “Practice Pitfalls”.

When lawyers think about real estate fraud, they tend to think about fake clients with forged ID obtaining fraudulent mortgages, or flip frauds where the value of a property is artificially inflated. They rarely think of shelter fraud – . . . [more]