The Ottawa Citizen reported last week that a lawyer who posted confidential information about his own client online was caught in a police sting operation. The Ottawa criminal defence lawyer posted a PDF of disclosure that he received from the Crown in a criminal case against his client. The PDF contained blacked-out information and the lawyer used the web to seek someone to help him read the blacked out portions of the disclosure document. A man in Australia saw the post and contacted the Ottawa police who then caught the Ottawa lawyer in a sting operation. Read the Citizen . . . [more]

As medicine advances and we live longer lives, late-life marriage is more common today than it was when the law governing both marriage and wills first evolved. Where the lawyer learns that an older client has entered into a recent, late-life marriage, a degree of caution is recommended and issues of capacity and undue influence should be considered.

In the new Wills & Estates issue of the LAWPRO Webzine, Nora Rock (corporate and policy writer at LAWPRO) interviewed Kimberly Whaley of Whaley Estate Litigation and asked for her practical recommendations for lawyers working with wills clients who have married late . . . [more]

My Dean, Bruce Feldthusen, has written an article for Canadian Lawyer in response to criticisms in the legal profession about legal education and allegations that we are responsible for creating the perceived articling crisis in Ontario. The title of Dean Feldthusen’s article is pretty self-explanatory: “Legal Profession in Turmoil: Let’s Blame the Law Schools“. . . . [more]

This story out of the UK highlights the dangers of repeating libelous content on social media.

In the midst of an ongoing sexual abuse scandal revolving around senior figures in the media and accusations of coverups at the BBC, the news program Newsnight claimed a “senior Conservative politician” was involved in the abuse of children at an orphanage. Another program claimed to have a list of names. Soon those names leaked onto Twitter, and Lord McAlpine (a member of Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet) found himself wrongfully identified as one of the abusers. The accusation was retweeted over and over.

Lord McAlpine . . . [more]

The following article by Nora Rock (corporate writer and policy analyist at LAWPRO) appears in the October 31 edition of the LAWPRO Webzine, which focused on wills and estates matters.

Will-drafting is an area of legal practice that demands extremely careful attention to detail. Decisions in this area make it clear that even where a will is well-drafted and is consistent with the testator’s known intentions, failure to have the will executed in accordance with the applicable legal formalities will render it invalid.

When that happens, the lawyer responsible for arranging and supervising the execution of the will may . . . [more]

Four new titles were launched yesterday evening at the Osgoode Society’s 33rd annual book launch and reception for authors and supporters. As usual, the event was presided over by Roy McMurtry, the progenitor and President of the Osgoode Society, and the genial host of most if not all of these occasions. He proudly noted that the Osgoode Society had now published 88 titles, over the thirty three years of its existence, and has established itself as one of the leading historical societies in the world.

The Osgoode Society is well known and respected for its approach to legal history. As . . . [more]

Like many areas of practice, family law is going through a period of change. Both clients and their lawyers are questioning traditional modes of practice. Economic woes both cause legal problems, and leave clients with limited resources with which to resolve them. Stress – for both families in crisis and for their lawyers – is a constant reality. Still, within this challenging climate, family lawyers are expected to work diligently and professionally in the service of their clients’ interests.

To understand how the bar is coping with the demands of modern family law practice, in the August 2012 issue of . . . [more]

For the thirteenth year in a row, Altman Weil, Inc. has surveyed Chief Legal Officers or CLOs on the issues of importance on the management and operation of their corporate law departments. These surveys capture current thinking of Chief Legal Officers and give lawyers in private practice a good indication of what corporate clients are think about and want from firms that do work for them.

Survey Findings

Corporate law departments report that they are re-negotiating outside counsel fees, shifting work to lower-priced law firms, increasing in-house capacity, opting for alternative service providers and using new technology — all to . . . [more]

Adam Smith, Esq. is on a roll. Or at least, Bruce MacEwen, author of the Adam Smith, Esq. blog is. His blog posts, “Growth is Dead” have been an on-going series looking at the changes to “BigLaw” since the economic problems of 2008.

Revenues of firms have significantly dropped since that time. One pressure is coming from clients with respect to pricing. From Part 1 of the blog:

Simply put, clients are pushing back as never before. Among other things, they are:

• serious, for the first time, about alternative fee arrangements, caps and blended rates, rate freezes, and so on

In today’s difficult economic environment, it’s not unusual for lawyers to find themselves dealing with requests for representation from clients of limited means, or clients who want to keep their legal fees at a minimum. The economic issues these types of requests raise is but one consideration: Access to justice – which has become a prominent issue in Ontario lately – also figures in the equation.

Instead of turning away clients with limited budgets, lawyers often consider ways of providing limited scope or non-traditional legal services. From a malpractice exposure perspective, lawyers should appreciate that providing limited services can create . . . [more]

I enjoyed reading Philip Roth’s “Open Letter to Wikipedia,” published earlier this month in The New Yorker‘s Page Turner blog, from which flowed amendments to a Wikipedia entry.

In quick summary, as I understand events: Mr. Roth read a Wikipedia entry on his The Human Stain. He noticed “a serious misstatement” about the inspiration of the story. He petitioned Wikipedia for correction of the entry on his novel. Correction was not immediately granted. The New Yorker published Mr. Roth’s Open Letter. This letter recounted Wikipedia’s explanation that Mr. Roth, the author, “was not a credible source: . . . [more]

A few weeks ago LifeHacker posted the “Top 10 Simple Things Every Computer User Should Know How to Do” to its LifeHacker Top 10 collection.

I had this post on my list to post personally and for LAWPRO and practicePRO’s follower’s today, but decided I would give it a mention on SLAW as I think that the advice in it is just so critical to every computer user.

This is a must read post. The steps mentioned are simple to do and they will save your bacon in the event you experience one of the more common computer . . . [more]