A Toronto lawyer has reported to LAWPRO that almost $80,000 was removed from his trust account over the last four days by a series of 10 fake cheques. The fraud was discovered when a bank reconciliation was done this morning (Wednesday). All was fine when a bank reconciliation was done last Friday. The cheques were obvious copies of the firm’s trust cheques (cheque numbers were not in sequence and different). The cheques were used to pay off credit cards and 2 were payable to a specific individual. It is not known how the fraudster obtained information about the lawyer’s trust . . . [more]

Jordan Furlong published a good piece today about the importance of fact checking for blogging lawyers, and “…the enormous damage you could do to your reputation by producing inaccurate or insufficiently credited material.”

He says in part:

But you need to be careful about exaggerations: overstating what a case means or what a lawyer said, overemphasizing a warning or a guideline for dramatic effect, that sort of thing. If you get called out by a commenter or another blogger for exaggeration, it will make readers doubt the veracity of everything else you’ve said. The sexy headline or sound bite just . . . [more]

I’ve set up a new site to collect commentary on judicial opinions: commentary.slaw.ca

At the moment — and for the near future, certainly — it contains only commentary on Supreme Court of Canada cases, starting with 2011. (It goes only a small way into 2012 in order to give commentary time to appear and me time to collect it; generally it’ll run somewhere between four and six months behind the present date.) The commentary is that which is available free online, essentially from Canadian law blogs and law firm web publications. And by “commentary” I mean material that offers some . . . [more]

In the Internet age, people still have the same interests and passions as they had before electronic communications became pervasive, but they have different methods of expressing them. It may be a challenge to apply traditional rules of law to those methods. This note reviews one example of such a challenge, with respect to the use of evidence from Facebook and the reliance on Wikipedia to inform the tribunal of relevant facts.

In Landry c. Provigo Québec Inc (Maxi & Cie), 2011 QCCLP 1802 (CanLII), Madame Landry complained about harassment at her workplace at Provigo, the Quebec grocery chain. . . . [more]

We renewed the family public library card on the weekend. This morning I used my public library membership to search for news articles using a database that the library makes available. I love public libraries.

Consider, I can walk into any of the more than 300 libraries in Alberta, I can consult with a search expert, access services and a vast collection of material, including newspaper databases. All for $20.00 a year for my entire family – a fantastic value. Some of the P. Mireaus have eReaders, so we are also able to borrow eBooks from our library without even . . . [more]

One of the interesting developments during the summer slowdown we failed to note here on Slaw was the BC Court of Appeal decision in John McCormick’s case against Fasken Martineau. McCormick is an equity partner in Fasken’s Vancouver office who resisted the mandatory retirement at age 65 required by the partnership agreement, arguing that it contravened the BC Human Rights Code’s prohibition on age discrimination with respect to employees. The critical hinge to his action is whether an equity partner in a law firm should be regarded as an “employee” for the purposes of the Code, thus giving the Human . . . [more]

Do you really know who you are? Maybe… maybe not. When I work with lawyers to articulate their personal brand it is generally clear… that it is not clear. What is the solution? We need outside perspective. So, I have them ask a few people who know them very well, to answer a few questions. Such as… How would you describe me? What do you see as my strengths? The answers are often times extremely enlightening. We just don’t see ourselves as other do.

Why is this so? Heidi Grant Halvorson, a contributor to Forbes Magazine has some answers . . . [more]

The following is the introductory article to LAWPRO’s new commercial transaction checklist that appeared in the August 2012 edition of LAWPRO Magazine. The full checklist can be downloaded from our Checklists page at www.practicepro.ca/checklists

Many commercial matters involve the preparation of one or more documents. These documents are drafted based on communications between the parties to the document and/or their respective lawyers, the specific circumstances of the matter and applicable substantive law.

While the majority of commercial deals in Ontario are concluded without difficulties, all too often LAWPRO sees claims arising due to various real – or alleged – problems . . . [more]

Last Friday the Globe and Mail carried a piece about how authorities here in Canada are dealing with threats made using the internet. In a somewhat confused article the question was raised as to whether our Criminal Code should distinguish between threats made using the internet and those conveyed elsehow. Currently the applicable provision is s.264.1 of the Code:

(1) Every one commits an offence who, in any manner, knowingly utters, conveys or causes any person to receive a threat

(a) to cause death or bodily harm to any person;
(b) to burn, destroy or damage real or personal property;

At the Canadian Bar Association 2012 annual meeting in Vancouver, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin again made the case that access to justice is probably the most urgent policy challenge facing Canada’s justice system. The Chief Justice argued,

Being able to access justice is fundamental to the rule of law. If people decide they can’t get justice, they will have less respect for the law. They will tend not to support the rule of law. They won’t see the rule of law, which is so fundamental to our democratic society, as central and important.”

This message is one that she has . . . [more]

The Canadian Bar Association (CBA) is the voice of the legal profession in Canada. It promotes the independence of the judiciary and legal profession, seeks to improve the law and administration of justice, and promotes equality.

But none of that is possible if lawyers aren’t members of the CBA, because membership is voluntary. Approximately two-thirds of all lawyers in Canada are CBA members, and the 37,000 members include lawyers, judges, notaries, law teachers, and law students.

Changing times mean changing demands from the membership, and at the past annual meeting earlier this month in Vancouver, council approved a resolution that . . . [more]

Since what happens in the U.S.A necessarily affects Canada (eventually). It might even get past Alberta’s firewall.

DEATH AND TAXES AND ZOMBIES

Adam Chodorow (Professor of Law at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona.)

The U.S. stands on the precipice of a financial disaster, and Congress has done nothing but bicker. Of course, I refer to the coming day when the undead walk the earth, feasting on the living. A zombie apocalypse will create an urgent need for significant government revenues to protect the living, while at the same time rendering a large