Periodically on Thursdays, we present a significant excerpt, usually from a recently published book or journal article. In every case the proper permissions have been obtained. If you are a publisher who would like to participate in this feature, please let us know via the site’s contact form.

Anticipating and Managing the Psychological Cost of Civil Litigation

Michaela Keet and Heather Heavin have published extensively about Litigation Risk Assessment. For access to some of this work, see the CREATE Justice website. Professor Heavin is Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Studies at the University of Saskatchewan, and Professor Michaela . . . [more]

A renewed scrutiny of corporate governance was inevitable in light of the current political climate and the backdrop of the recent recession and notable market failures.

This revisionist approach towards competition law expands the scrutiny beyond notions of consumer welfare standards into non-traditional economic considerations like fairness, underemployment, income inequality, wealth concentration and broader social contexts. Derisively referred to as “Hipster Antitrust,” it finds its modern roots in America in the 1978 text The Antitrust Paradox by Robert Bork, which has already influenced American competition law. Hipster Axntitrust would go further and reconsider historical assumptions in a new information economy . . . [more]

This article appeared in the February 2018 issue of LAWPRO Magazine.

The legal profession is in the midst of significant change, and is headed into a period where there will be even greater change. These changes are driven by disruptions that alter the very nature of how traditional legal services have been performed and provided to clients for decades. These disruptions include:

• access to justice
• client empowerment
• technology
• alternative legal service providers

This article will give some insights into these disruptors and suggest how members of the legal profession can respond to them.

What is a non-lawyer?

To start, a . . . [more]

For Canadian business, the threat of U.S. withdrawal from NAFTA is the biggest and most immediate challenge. Without progress that satisfies the U.S. Administration, the current NAFTA negotiations may end with the U.S. issuing a Notice of Withdrawal that starts the six month clock on formal U.S. withdrawal from the Agreement and the market uncertainty that will likely follow.

Canada can and will survive the U.S. withdrawal from NAFTA. Canada and the U.S. have deep economic ties and market integration that will result in trade between the countries continuing, but on different terms. To address the problem of dependence on . . . [more]

The access to justice discourse is increasingly focused on modernization. This involves drawing on technology as well as new methods to guide the development of justice system improvements. The user experience (UX) figures prominently in modernization efforts. It underscores what Usability.gov – the leading authority on UX best practices for both the public and private sector – describes as, “a deep understanding of users, what they need, what they value, their abilities, and also their limitations.”

As a generation, Millennials are squarely at the modernization and user-experience intersection. Their comfort with change and technology is disrupting industries by reshaping work . . . [more]

This article is by Nora Rock, corporate writer and policy analyst at LAWPRO.

The success of books like Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink and Norman Doidge’s The Brain that Changes Itself, has brought discussion of neuroscience out of the medical lab and into everyday conversation. The potential for what we know about the brain to be used to our advantage in the business and professional realms has spurred a growing body of research, and lawyers are beginning to pay attention.

From LawPRO’s perspective, the most interesting implication of this research is that a basic understanding of neuroscience may provide lawyers . . . [more]

Each Thursday we present a significant excerpt, usually from a recently published book or journal article. In every case the proper permissions have been obtained. If you are a publisher who would like to participate in this feature, please let us know via the site’s contact form.

Trust Accounting in One Hour for Lawyers

© 2017 American Bar Association. All rights reserved.

Slaw readers can receive a 10% discount on purchase of this book. Use the discount code TAOH17 at checkout; this offer is valid from 1/26 – 4/26.

Sheila M. Blackford (@sheilablackford) is a Practice Management Advisor . . . [more]

Each Thursday we present a significant excerpt, usually from a recently published book or journal article. In every case the proper permissions have been obtained. If you are a publisher who would like to participate in this feature, please let us know via the site’s contact form.

Knowledge Management in Law Firms: Expertise In Action
Consulting editors: Luis Felipe Mohando, Silke Gotschalk, Martin Schulz and Gerard Tanja
© 2016 Globe Law and Business Ltd. Use the promo code SLAWGLB to receive 15% off the regular price.

Excerpt: Showcasing outside the library walls: growth through collaboration
by Emily Allbon, . . . [more]

LAWPRO is seeing an increase in claims against Ontario lawyers by franchisees and franchisors. These claims tend to involve significant damages which often approach or exceed the available limits under the primary LAWPRO policy.

Franchises are governed by the Arthur Wishart Act (Franchise Disclosure), 2000 (the “Act”) which was enacted by the Ontario government to provide protection to franchisees in relation to their dealings with franchisors, and to address the imbalance of power that exists between the parties.

Franchisees often share similar characteristics: They are not sophisticated business people or are not experienced with franchises; they are running a “mom-and . . . [more]

Diversity matters. Not just for the optics of it, or because it’s the right thing to do.

Having diversity at the heads of our social institutions, especially our judiciary, actually helps them do a better job. Diverse experiences, as a Canadian and as a lawyer, provide unique insights that other judges simply do not have. If you dispute that notion, it’s better saved for another day.

Today we’re dealing with a government that has made a commitment to diversity in the judiciary. The problem is that those commitments already appear contradictory.

Although the lack of racial diversity in Canada . . . [more]

Perhaps it didn’t make as many waves in the rest of the country, but the Quebec legal community has been buzzing about a report on the employment situation among young lawyers in Quebec published by the Young Bar Association of Montreal (YBAM) earlier this year. This organization, which represents close to 5,000 members, compiled impressive amounts of data to establish trends about young lawyers’ job prospects.

Essentially, things are bad for young lawyers in Montreal and they are getting worse. The issue has now made its way into mainstream media, with La Presse running a few articles last week about . . . [more]