There is no doubt that residents of rural communities in Canada face greater access to justice limitations than their urban dwelling counterparts. In the last column we explored one such limitation, being reduced access to legal advice and legal advocacy due to a comparatively smaller number of lawyers practicing in rural areas. As we discussed, this is a trend that is forecast to get even worse in the near future. In addition to challenges in regards to legal advice and legal advocacy however, rural communities face additional challenges in another important access to justice factor, that being access to legal . . . [more]

The Virtual Chase, an online website for U.S. legal research founded by law librarian Genie Tyburski, is now powered by Justia.

Virtual Chase was launched in 1996 by Tyburski, a law librarian at Ballard Spahr LLP in Philadelphia. It was a popular destination for law librarians and legal researchers but was closed down a few years ago.

It is now back with a redesign and new content sections:

• Legal Research: guides to U.S. federal and state law, and links to subject-specific guides
• Community: links to law librarian blogs, Twitter feeds, the Law-Lib listserv, etc.
• Law Libraries:

. . . [more]

Just about a month ago I reported here that CourtCanada, the private software development company that had a deal with Ontario to provide some court services, had sued the Ontario government for breaching an understanding. The statement of claim [PDF] was made available then. CourtCanada’s electronic booking system, OSCAR (Online System for Court Attendance Reservations) was implemented in the Estates Court as a pilot project and expanded to the Commercial Court, where it ran alongside FRANK, the government electronic booking system in place for a number of years. In essence, the dispute is about the government’s decision not to expand . . . [more]

How much should you charge for your work? That’s a tough call for any lawyer to make, which is one of the reasons many of us default to a billable-hour system that we know doesn’t really reflect value delivered. So here’s one way to solve that problem: let your client decide how much to pay you.

In case you think that’s ten kinds of crazy, you should know that that’s exactly what UK firm CMS Cameron McKenna is doing. The 300-lawyer firm is making this and similar suggestions the centerpiece of a new marketing campaign that highlights its alternative fee . . . [more]

I sat on a legal project management panel at the CBA conference on Tuesday. It was moderated by Barbara Boake of McCarthy’s. Andrew Terrett of BLG (and Slaw) provided the PM expert’s perspective, Brian Armstrong of Bruce Power spoke from the internal counsel’s perspective and I provided the practitioner’s perspective.

We had a very enlightening discussion, and spent a good deal of it talking about the challenges of planning for and pricing litigation (meaning any form of representation in an adjudicative process). I’ll follow-up on the discussion later, but thought I’d first lay some groundwork with a short and very . . . [more]

A British man, Haroon Zafaryab, has won a larger victory than he planned for. His battle began, as modern struggles so often do, when his car was ticketed and “clamped” — i.e. had a “boot” attached to a wheel. He had parked in a no parking zone behind a shopping mall while he went to the mosque for Ramadan services, and his car was clamped by a private towing company, as is allowed in England. These are, apparently, free to “hunt” those who have parkd wrongly on posted private land, and they charge a hefty fee to remove the clamp. . . . [more]

Following my customer service post last week, I had an experience on the weekend where store clerks were so intrusive that it was annoying. So much so that it makes me wonder if I want to go back to that store again. It’s a reminder that while we need to be attentive to customer / client needs, it’s possible to cross the line from good service to annoying and creepy. And it’s possible to try too hard to sell our services.

I went into a new store, and was immediately asked by a greeter if they could direct me to . . . [more]

InformationWeek recently reported on a very interesting turn of events in the outsourcing arena. The article titled U.S. To Train 3,000 Offshore IT Workers states that the Obama administration has launched a $36 million program to train workers, including 3,000 IT specialists and related functions in South Asia. Following the training, workers will be placed with outsourcing vendors in the regions that provide offshore services to American companies looking to take advantage of the Asian subcontinent’s low labour costs.

Clearly there are two ways to look at this. You can either view this as an inappropriate use of public funds. . . . [more]

Back in January, I announced the formation of a working group under the auspices of the Canadian Centre for Court Technology (CCCT). The objective of this working group was to draft guidelines facilitating the modernization of Canadian court web sites. Since that time, we have made progress and expect to have finished a first draft of the Court Web Site guidelines before the upcoming Canadian Forum on Court Technology.

One of the five parts of the guidelines is titled “Principles – Cutting Through Context and Issues: What Principles Should Guide the Design of Court Web Sites?”

In . . . [more]

That’s right: not the virtuous life — though it may be that — but the virtual one. Those of you who are considering opening a virtual law office might like to go that extra furlong and emulate Kelly Sutton, who has sold pretty much everything he owned and now lives a life enhanced by not much more than a bike and a computer.

The BBC has just picked up on the Sutton saga, that began over a year ago, when, stimulated by a book on escaping the 9-5 work drag, he set himself the project of selling off his possessions, . . . [more]

In June, Hicks Morley launched its first external blog, “Human Resources Legislative Update”. The blog replaces a monthly newsletter on legislative changes in human resources law that was sent to clients by email and posted on our website. The downside of the newsletter format was that by the time it was published, it was often already out of date due to the frequency of legislative changes and updates. We needed a time-sensitive solution that was accessible 24/7 to our legislative writers, provided a quick and easy publishing solution and gave readers the ability to ask questions or leave . . . [more]

Canadian Association of University Teachers and Canadian Federation of Students object to new Access Copyright Tariff.