Access to justice is an ongoing problem across Canada and the call is out for lawyers to contribute to the solution.

Late last fall, the Canadian Bar Association’s Task Force on Access to Justice issued a final report, Envisioning Equal Justice. The Task Force set targets to bridge the growing gap between those who can afford legal services and those who are eligible for publically funded legal services (i.e. legal aid). One of those targets is that by 2020, all lawyers will volunteer legal services at some point in their career.

Around the same time, the Action Committee on . . . [more]

CASL – the new Canadian anti-spam act – comes into force July 1. It contains extensive, complex provisions that apply to the sending of any email that has a hint of a commercial purpose (a “CEM”). In the short term it may increase the amount of email we get. We have all received emails from mail lists we are on asking us to confirm our consent. But there is another reason we may get more. The reason goes like this:

CASL requires express or implied consent from the recipient before a CEM can be sent.

The act contains a . . . [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 Montreal v Faibish 2014 ONSC 2178
   

   [2] Let me express my profound frustration as a judge who has tried to encourage both counsel and fellow judges to make greater use of modern information technologies in our Court. Those who make up the public court system – be they the judges adjudicating the cases or the counsel pleading them – provide a

Sandra asked the team of legal support staff she manages what would contribute to their motivation at work. They all told her “appreciation – being thanked when we do a good job.”

Mark , a young associate, is unhappy at his firm. One of the things bothering him about the culture is the lack of appreciation for people’s efforts.

Chelsea and her close colleagues laugh at themselves for being foolish: after all their years of practice they still hanker after an appreciative word from their partners for taking on some of the essential but non-billable work critical to the firm’s . . . [more]

I’ve been following the career of singer, songwriter, producer and entrepreneur extraordinaire Pharrell Williams for a while. Sometimes I’ll take a break from my work, find a video of people around the world dancing to his hit “Happy” and feel instantly energized (if not verklempt). And then I go back to my desk, review some of the latest online legal media and wonder where all the misery is coming from.

Are there any happy lawyers or legal professionals to be found online? Maybe social media isn’t the place for expressing career satisfaction. Maybe blogs are a place for giving advice, . . . [more]

If I were a character in a novel I would work at a think tank in a log structure in the mountains and would wear glasses that connect to the internet and flash a virtual keyboard in front of me with a voice command. And I would have a satellite phone with a secure line. And I would be really cute and tall.

Think tanks are not just plot elements in novels or adventure fantasy. They are potential research sources.

I received an email today from the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. The email shared an interesting report titled . . . [more]

We’re obviously talking about the high-minded ideals of the profession, and not the day-to-day reality of a sole practitioner trying to balance the books, but lawyers historically don’t like to think of themselves as being part of the rough and tumble of the business world.

The fear is that lawyers who are worried about the business end of the business will be distracted from their higher purpose – how do you preserve justice when at the same time you need to promote shareholders’ interests?

This sort of philosophical rhetoric is really the purview of big firms with separate accounting departments. . . . [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

A better microphone can really improve your online calls, podcasts or music recordings
Dan Pinnington

It is a safe bet that the microphone on your desktop or laptop probably makes you sound like you are under water or in the next room most of the time. If you make a lot of call calls on Skype, regularly participate in Hangouts, or record music or podcasts, a decent can make . . . [more]

As a PhD student studying the use of knowledge technologies and access to justice strategies, I am following with interest the development of the Civil Resolution Tribunal (CRT) [Civil Resolution Tribunal Act, SBC 2012, c.25;] in BC – an online dispute resolution process which will provide an alternative to the courts for small claims and strata property disputes. I want to share some thoughts regarding online dispute resolution processes and to pose the possibly provocative question: Are online dispute resolution processes necessarily access to justice strategies?

You might ask how an online process could not be . . . [more]

Organizations pursuing civil justice objectives need a website. On this point, there can be no doubt. Often operating with constrained budgets, these organizations need an efficient and appealing means to inform stakeholders and attract supporters and, in this regard, nothing can be more cost effective than a website. It’s now an article of faith that promotion of that website and engagement of those stakeholders also requires an active social media presence. But do the facts support that view?

Based on analysis[i] of social media engagement with CanLII (a free-to-access legal information site containing nearly 1.3 million court and tribunal . . . [more]

The current issue of the Canadian Journal of Law and Society (volume 29, issue 1) is free until the end of May 2014 according to a tweet at the beginning of April from Cambridge Journals:

New issue of the Canadian Journal of #Law and Society is now free for 2 months: http://t.co/wlce03EhNI #slsa14 @Legal_Editions @slsa_uk

— Cambridge Journals (@CambridgeJnls) April 2, 2014

From the website:

 [CJLS] is a bilingual periodical publishing cutting edge research in the broad field of law and society scholarship. Rooted in the innovative Canadian Law and Society movement, CJLS features international scholarship concerning the intersection of

This article from February 13, 2014 is by Nora Rock, corporate writer and policy analyst at LAWPRO.

At the risk of sounding like a self-help book designed to help you find Mr. or Ms. Right, we’d like to remind you (the day before Valentine’s Day, no less!) that being selective about the clients you represent is an important claims-prevention strategy.

Depending on your area of law and how established your practice, you may be tempted to dismiss this advice as being valid only for lawyers in the enviable position of having more referrals than time. But turning away clients that . . . [more]