It can be very rewarding, both personally and financially, to be asked to serve on a client’s board of directors. It’s also easy to understand why a client might make the request: the lawyer may have worked closely with the corporation’s founders to establish the company, and will likely have a solid understanding of the corporation’s objectives, the marketplace challenges it faces, and its relationships with industry partners, suppliers, customers and others. . . . [more]

Being mindful means to pay attention – not just to stop and smell the roses but to be aware of the roses, their intricacies of their form and scent and the effect their presence has on their environment. How would you extend that analogy to the practice of law?

Last year around this time, the CBA Legal Futures Initiative issued its report (Futures: Transforming the Delivery of Legal Services in Canada) calling for a new legal order. The report suggests that we find new models for legal education, that we reflect on our practice in order to innovate, . . . [more]

Alison Macrina is the founder of the Library Freedom Project (LFP) an initiative she founded shortly after news that the U.S. National Security Agency was systematically combing through American’s online activities and phone records. She shares her concerns about the effect of this NSA scrutiny in the announcement of her nomination as a 2015 Library Journal Mover and Shaker: “… surveillance is not only counter to the ideals of a democratic society, it’s detrimental to the future of libraries.”

Earlier this year Macrina secured a grant from the Knight Foundation which will help fund the LFP for the next . . . [more]

Last year the CBA Legal Futures Initiative released its report, Transforming the Delivery of Legal Services in Canada, in St. John’s.

The Futures Initiative has been gratified by the largely positive and enthusiastic reaction to our report, which has had a much broader reach and impact than we could have hoped. We outlined a bold vision for the future of the legal profession, encouraging a crucial conversation that’s taking place not just within Canada, but around the world.

Here’s a taste of what we’ve done since the report was published:

We’ve been talking

In the past year CBA President . . . [more]

Each Monday we present brief excerpts of recent posts from five of Canada’s award­-winning legal blogs chosen at random* from sixty recent Clawbie winners. In this way we hope to promote their work, with their permission, to as wide an audience as possible.

This week the randomly selected blogs are 1. Michael Spratt  2. Susan on the Soapbox 3. Global Workplace Insider  4. Lee Akazaki  5. Canadian Appeals Monitor

Michael Spratt
The man who went into Rideau Hall the PM and left with his pants on fire

Welcome to the 42nd general election. On Sunday Stephen Harper went to the . . . [more]

Our national, decentralized, legal aid system is an important part of the access to justice landscape in Canada. Because of the presence it commands within the justice system overall, legal aid has the potential to play a crucial role in expanding access to justice in Canada. Innovation has long been a defining feature of legal aid, driven by the perennial need to do more with less or, at least, with less than was required. As to what we mean by a “legal” problem, justice and access to justice evolve with innovation and new ways of thinking. Legal aid plans are . . . [more]

Tomorrow morning hundreds of hopeful law students (and some law graduates) will descend upon the City of Toronto in search of an articling position.

It is not unusual for a law firm to receive two hundred applications or more for every available position. The process is competitive and it is intense and gruelling.

As a member of my firm’s student committee, I will be spending the next three days away from clients and files and instead will be eyeballs deep in interviews, committee meetings and dinner engagements trying to find the right students for our firm.

Since tis the season . . . [more]

One year after the CBA Futures Report, the debate over ABS still rages on and appears to be the most contentious issue, even while foreign firms state they’re eyeing our territory for opportunities. Although there are concerns about professionalism, much of the resistance, especially by personal injury lawyers, is based in protectionism.

Yet ABS may be the great bait and switch of legal innovation. The alternatives to practice may not come in the form of other business structures, but in other technological structures which allow for law to be conducted in different ways.

Legal services rely on enormous amounts of . . . [more]

The Canadian Football League (CFL) has just taken a seemingly strong stance against violence towards women, an issue that has been a hot topic over the past year, with several high profile incidents making the news. The league has instituted a new employment policy that imposes harsh penalties for acts of violence. The penalties, which range from suspensions to lifetime bans, will apply not only to players, but to all employees of the league.

The CFL policy provides that:

• The policy applies to everyone who works for the CFL – not just players, but coaches, officials, executives and staff.

For the next while the Friday Fillip will be a chapter in a serialized crime novel, usually followed by a reference you might like to pursue. Both this chapter of the book and the whole story up to this point can be had as PDF files. You may also subscribe to have chapters delivered to you by email.

MEASURING LIFE
 
Chapter 23
The Unbearable Impossibility of Complete Harmony

Whether you are drafting a message to your boss, a client or prospect there are a number of key elements you should consider in order to get your point across and ensure that the recipient will understand what it is you are trying to convey. Obviously, depending on the message, the amount of time needed to develop will vary, however, the basics will stay the same.

For this post let’s stick with broader messages, where you need to convey an idea. To start with, you need to understand that messages are not necessarily “facts” no matter how they are presented. . . . [more]