It is easy to be sceptical, perhaps even cynical, about professional self-regulation whether for lawyers, doctors, accountants or other professions. A clear-eyed reading of history shows that protectionism, usually cloaked as high principle, has played a significant part of the history of professional self-regulation. 

One example was the early resistance to inter-provincial law firms. As an articling student in 1982/83, I had the pleasure of helping to develop arguments under the then new Charter of Rights and Freedoms to attack the Alberta professional conduct rule that prohibited inter-provincial law firms[1]. I particularly recall that the report to the . . . [more]

This week the randomly selected blogs are 1. Youth & Work   2. The Trial Warrior   3. The Treasurer’s Blog   3. Barry Sookman    5. Canadian Appeals Monitor

I am seeing it increasingly commonly – newly called lawyers who set up their own shingle without working for a law firm as an associate. In part, it’s due to the changes in the market which have left a scarcity of opportunities for young lawyers, or opportunities that are otherwise undesirable. But it’s also becoming a preferred option for a generation which values creativity, personal relationships, empowerment, self-determination and entrepreneurship.

Luz E. Herrera, who launched her own solo practice in 2002, described this phenomenon in the Denver University Law Review,

The Great Recession has caused many new attorneys

. . . [more]

This week's summaries concern: Family property / Occupational health & safety / Obligation to notify insurer / Opinion evidence / Conditional sentences / Validity of anti-prostitution laws:

Des détaillants de produits pétroliers qui contestaient pour des motifs constitutionnels l'obligation qui leur est faite d'agir, sur leur réserve de Kahnawake, à titre de mandataires ou d'agents percepteurs des autorités fiscales voient leur requête pour jugement déclaratoire rejetée.

If the corporate veil distinguishes a corporation as a legal person separate from the shareholders in said corporation, what do you call it when an individual exists as an investment opportunity as an IPO like a company? The transfer of legal characteristics to corporations is multifaceted issue with positive and negatives that is subject to significant conjecture. In a bit of a flip of this action, a story from a few months ago caught my attention where the concept of transferring characteristics of a corporation to an individual was proposed.

In this particular case it involves a running back for . . . [more]

“Legal search algorithm” … now there’s a phrase to make your head spin. I’ve been thinking about legal search for years, but I confess that I hadn’t given the algorithm much thought until recently. Type it into Google, and you come up with an excellent post by Aaron Kirschenfeld in the Cornell LII blog: “Everything is Editorial: Why Algorithms are Hand-Made, Human, and Not Just for Search Anymore”.

For legal publishers, ensuring that our users can find what they are looking for is one of the biggest challenges we face. I’ve never encountered legal information that isn’t incredibly dense. We . . . [more]

In my previous article, I detailed a series of reasons why traditional, scheduled (e.g., weekly or fortnightly) status/progress reports provide low value to clients. Project managers, of course, already know that they’re a royal pain to produce.

Today, I’ll describe an effective status-report format that’s easy to produce, valuable to the project manager as well as the client, and useful to (most of) your clients. Clients might even read it. [1]

It’s called the 3×3 (“three-by-three”).

It consists of three headings, each with no more than three bullet points:

1. Progress This Period
2. To-Do Next Period
3. Action Needed/Alerts

For some . . . [more]

We are a dull lot, I fear. Look around this winter and see what people are wearing. Chances are good, in cities at least, that whatever the shape or style of coat, it’s a dark colour and likeliest of all to be black. What is that about? Winter all by itself leaches colour from the environment, and though a good greyscale can be lovely in the right hands, there’s no need for us to go along with winter’s plan of severity.

Wouldn’t it be more fun — dare I say, exciting — to walk down a winter street and feast . . . [more]

Devyani Khobragade’s counsel was refused an indictment extension today, with the result that the US issued the indictment alleging her visa fraud, something that both sides had been hoping to avoid by working out a settlement.

Ms Khobragade’s arrest and strip search by US marshals has caused outrage in India, and relations between the two countries are in danger of serious deterioration. She was arrested for having obtained a visa for an Indian servant by fraudulently promising to abide by US labour laws.

The Wall Street Journal has put the indictment online. It alleges a deliberate, calculated fraud, replete . . . [more]

Cybercrime dangers are many, complex and ever-changing. Hardly a day goes by without another news report of a data breach or other cyber-related scam or theft. Cyber criminals have considerable resources and expertise, and can cause significant damage to their targets. Cyber criminals specifically target law firms as law firms regularly have funds in their trust accounts and client data that is often very valuable. This article, from the December 2013 issue of LAWPRO Magazine, reviews the specific cybercrime dangers law firms need to be concerned about, and how they can mitigate their risks.

Many of the technology devices . . . [more]

Part 1: The failure of the Law Reform Commission of Canada’s Evidence Code

For decades experts in the law of evidence have called for comprehensive legislative reform of the law of evidence in Canada, but it hasn’t happened. The great success of the U.S. Federal Rules of Evidence (the FRE), operative from July 1, 1975 (but from Dec. 1, 2011, known as the Restyled Federal Rules of Evidence), makes Canada’s failure to enact a true code of evidence a considerable loss to its administration of justice. Almost all U.S. states have adopted the FRE as their state codes of . . . [more]