As a lawyer, you have likely been trained to maintain a laser focus on your client’s interests and how to express and defend them. Being a fierce advocate is usually a good thing.

But when preparing a will for a client, it can be a useful exercise, once you have a good first draft, to intentionally play devil’s advocate.

At the Law Society of Upper Canada Solo and Small Firm Practice Conference in June 2014, estates lawyer Lisa Barazzutti suggested that when reviewing a newly-drafted will, it’s useful to read the will from the perspective of the beneficiaries. “Ask yourself,” . . . [more]

Tina Gheen, Emerging Technologies Librarian at the Library of Congress, blogged about the Indigenous Law Portal introduced as part of the “A Dialog for Catalogers and Reference Librarians: Class K from Alpha to Omega” program at the recent American Association of Law Libraries annual meeting in San Antonio. Gheen, Jennifer Gonzalez, and Jolande Goldberg spoke about this new online resource “created to make tribal law more accessible and findable by providing a comprehensive listing of tribes, tribal websites, and online primary source materials.”

The Portal uses the structure of the new Library of Congress Classification . . . [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. Canadian Securities Law 2. First Reference Talks 3. Clio Blog 4. “AvoidAClaim” Blog 5. National Magazine Blog

Canadian Securities Law
Use of automatic plans to facilitate trading by company executives

Under Canadian securities laws, insiders of public companies such as officers and directors are generally restricted from trading in . . . [more]

The challenge for many women lawyers in the “Lean In” age is to lean in without falling over. This means developing sufficient resiliency to manage demanding clients in an increasingly competitive world while also managing family and personal responsibilities. Resiliency is a key leadership skill. However, women often need to approach resiliency differently than men.

While both women and men need to exercise, get sufficient sleep, and eat well, women often need to pay attention to three other important elements to gain sufficient energy to lead demanding lives as lawyers.

Firstly, women must give themselves permission to take time for . . . [more]

Is saying no to technology even an option for lawyers in modern practice? The Federation of Law Societies of Canada’s Model Code of Professional Content defines competence as follows:

3.1-1 1 “Competent lawyer” means a lawyer who has and applies relevant knowledge, skills and attributes in a manner appropriate to each matter undertaken on behalf of a client and the nature and terms of the lawyer’s engagement, including:
…
(j) pursuing appropriate professional development to maintain and enhance legal knowledge and skills; and (k) otherwise adapting to changing professional requirements, standards, techniques and practices.

If lawyers do not have certain . . . [more]

Summaries of selected recent cases are provided each week to Slaw by Maritime Law Book. Every Sunday we present a precis of the latest summaries, a fuller version of which can be found on MLB-Slaw Selected Case Summaries at cases.slaw.ca.

This week’s summaries concern:
Armed Forces / Civil Rights / Injunctions / Gifts / Practice / Trusts / Wills

. . . [more]

Every week we present the summary of a decision handed down by a Québec court provided to us by SOQUIJ and considered to be of interest to our readers throughout Canada. SOQUIJ is attached to the Québec Department of Justice and collects, analyzes, enriches, and disseminates legal information in Québec.

Rogers Communications inc. a porté atteinte à la réputation du demandeur en permettant qu’une information erronée soit publiée dans son dossier de crédit.

Intitulé : Nadler c. Rogers Communications inc., 2014 QCCQ 5609
Juridiction : Cour du Québec, Chambre civile (C.Q.), Montréal, 500-22-207716-138
Décision de : Juge Magali Lewis
Date . . . [more]

“For the rain it raineth every day”

I like rain.

I’ve figured out that it allows me to escape the parental injunction to go outside and play when all I really want to do is curl up in a chair with my nose in a book. Funny how these things stick around from childhood. But they do, and for me a rainy day drops the curtain on the infinite horizon and snugs things up cosily, whether I’m out in the wet complaining about it or inside and dry.

We get plenty of rain here in Canada — though it’s not . . . [more]

If a client asked you what else your firm is good at besides the services you provide, would you know what to say? If they had a legal problem outside of your expertise, would you know who in your firm could help them? If your answer is “Of course!”—put it to the test.

At a recent law firm retreat that I facilitated, we did an exercise where the lawyers had to tell the rest of the group something about themselves (professional, not personal). The most common reaction was, “I didn’t know that!” The conversation in the break afterwards was electric: . . . [more]

The Supreme Court of Canada has released its decision in the case of the unions’ constitutional challenge to the government’s use of employment insurance surpluses.

Two weeks ago, the Action Committee on Access to Justice in Civil and Family Matters released the Colloquium Report. This document captures the action-oriented strategies, reforms and innovations from leaders in the access to justice field in response to the recommendations made by the Action Committee in their final report, A Roadmap for Change (see a SLAW summary here).

One of the institutional and structural goals discussed in the Colloquium Report was to “Create Local and National Access to Justice Implementation Mechanisms”, such as the recently-formed Access to Justice Co-ordinating Committee in Nova Scotia. The report looked to . . . [more]

I hope JP Boyd was right when he recently suggested there is a growing fatigue with the subject of access to justice in Canada. Boyd has recently launched a blog on the subject (lauded here on Slaw) that focuses on concrete steps lawyers and other stakeholders can take to increase access to justice in small but significant ways.

If there is growing weariness, I expect some of that is generated by those on the frontlines who continue to slog forward while waiting for those in governments and courts to finish “exploring initiatives” and start funding and implementing initiatives that . . . [more]