One winter day, not too long ago, I found myself at the edge of a small bay on Lake Ontario. The night had been still and so the bay had frozen as smooth as if Zambonied. There was no snow on the ice. Prompted by some childhood impulse, I picked up a smooth stone from the shore and fired it to slide out along the frozen surface. To my amazement the ice sang under the caress of the stone. Disbelieving, I tried it again. And again. Each time an uncanny sound returned to me, something like the whine of a . . . [more]

There are too many lawyers. Too many law schools. The bar exam is too easy. The Law Society should fail more applicants. Such statements are familiar in Canada but they are also heard in Israel where I am spending part of the year as a Visiting Scholar at the David Weiner Centre for Lawyers’ Ethics and Professional Responsibility and as a Visiting Professor at the Halbert Center for Canadian Studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

When I was much younger, I worked for a year in the Israeli court system as a law clerk so I know something about . . . [more]

Employees must participate in their employer’s accommodation process, even where that process has not produced satisfactory results. In the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal case of Perera v. St. Albert Day Care Society, Theresa Perera found this out the hard way when, due to a disabling injury, she refused to perform the work she was assigned and her employer terminated her for insubordination. However, the tribunal found Perera’s injury was a factor in the termination, and therefore the termination was discriminatory. Nonetheless, the insubordination made reinstatement impossible

As I write, awards season is in full swing: gala dinners at glitzy venues, grip ‘n’ grin photographs, grateful recipients thanking their mothers. Is this annual ritual just an ego boost for a few and a waste of time—and money—for many? Or can it produce results beyond those fleeting 15 minutes of fame?

Law firms receive many solicitations for award nominations. Legal publishers create awards events to augment dwindling advertising revenues, exhorting you to nominate clients or colleagues. Charitable organizations want you to help them acknowledge the contributions of volunteers and donors as part of their fundraising efforts. Local institutions . . . [more]

I recently traded in my iPad for a Nexus 9. It has made me look at the phone/tablet thing a bit differently.

When I had an Android phone and an iPad, they felt like very different devices, each with a different role. But now that my tablet and phone work the same, and seamlessly share information, they don’t seem so different anymore. For example, if I make a note on google keep, it instantly shows up on the other device.

The only real difference is the size of the screen, and that the tablet can’t make phone calls or send . . . [more]

In a recent survey of 1,700 knowledge workers, 79% of respondents indicated that they always or frequently work in dispersed virtual teams. The trend is echoed in law firms of all sizes, as business operations are reconfigured for greater efficiency and individuals seek increased flexibility in work arrangements.

Author and speaker Keith Ferrazzi published practical tips to set virtual teams up for success in the December 2014 issue of Harvard Business Review. Based on my experience working with groups in multiple law offices and time zones, his advice rings true.

Ferrazzi says that virtual teams should focus on . . . [more]

Each Wednesday we tell you which three English-language cases and which French-language case have been the most viewed* on CanLII and we give you a small sense of what the cases are about.

For this last week:

1. Bank of Nova Scotia v. Diemer, 2014 ONCA 851

[1] The public nature of an insolvency which juxtaposes a debtor’s financial hardship with a claim for significant legal compensation focuses attention on the cost of legal services.

[2] This appeal involves a motion judge’s refusal to approve legal fees of $255,955 that were requested by a court appointed receiver on behalf . . . [more]

Enthusiastic entrepreneurs consult with patent agents about the protection of their new product. Often a successful team for an entrepreneurial business includes someone with technical skills, someone with marketing skills, someone providing business direction as well, of course, with one of more persons providing financial backing. Often all want to be named as inventors on a patent application. A key question which comes up is to identify who are the inventors.

That question was answered by the Federal Court in Drexan Energy Systems Inc. v. Canada (Commissioner of Patents) 2014 FC 887, a case where four people worked together on . . . [more]

This December, Carswell migrated their eReference Library collection to the Thomson Reuters ProView platform. I was able to see this process purely from the content user perspective as the library team did all of the preparation, communication, and implementation for our side as the client partner in the vendor client relationship. Today, I had an opportunity to use one of the texts that my firm has access to through this new interface.

I like the clean and intuitive experience of using ProView content via a browser.

There are a couple of features that are interesting:

• the expanding chapter outline that

. . . [more]

Here are excerpts from the most recent tips on SlawTips, the site that each week offers up useful advice, short and to the point, on technology, research and practice.

Technology

Avoid Data Disasters by Properly Ejecting USB Devices Before You Remove Them*
Dan Pinnington

How many of you take the time to “eject” your USB devices before you remove them? I know some of you didn’t raise your hand. Does it really matter? Yes it does. Why? Because you can end up with corrupt data if you yank a device out while data is still being written to it… . . . [more]

Tenure is one of those sticky academic topics. Those on the outside of the acadame wonder why anyone would or should be granted a “job for life.” On the inside, the question was not “if” we should have tenure, but “who.” Throughout the entirety of my career as an Academic Law Librarian and Legal Research Professor, my colleagues and I debated with the question of whether or not we should be (1) tenure track and, if so, (2) considered part of the law school faculty and invited to participate in the governance of the school.

At the time, I held . . . [more]

No matter what the area of practice, the number one source of claims at LAWPRO is a breakdown in communication between the lawyer and client.

Between 2008 and 2013, nearly 4,600 communications claims – an average of 762 a year – have been reported to LAWPRO. The total cost of these claims to date is about $158 million – and likely to rise as more recent years’ claims are resolved.

In the Fall 2011 issue of LAWPRO Magazine we asked LAWPRO claims counsel with expertise in the various areas of law to provide insights into the communications mistakes they see . . . [more]