Residential School Case Aftermath

There's a fairly good (although somewhat biased) article on the controversy surrounding contingency based lawyer fees for the Canadian Residential School case here. If you are interested, there are quite a few articles on the subject, and especially on Mr. Tony Merchant and the Merchant Law Group. Tony and his firm stand to make the most out of the deal, and that has left a lot of Native people, as well as other lawyers and citizens in general pretty upset.

New Lawyer for Letourneau Eden LLP

We just hired a new lawyer for our firm. I am very excited about this. It is my goal to one day have the largest firm in the area I live in. I am now one step closer to this reality! It's great to set goals like this. You just never know what might happen. I have a habit of asking unreasonable requests of others (it often results in magical happenings), so why not ask unreasonable things of yourself from time to time.

Leading Partner

My wife gave me a great idea the other day. She said you really shouldn't try to be a Managing Partner for your law firm. You should try to be a Leading Partner. It was a small side comment on her behalf, but it has sent my mind on fire in many ways, both for my own practice/firm, but also for other law firms. Some of the major firms have CEO's, from my understanding, but I would venture to say that most firms have simply a managing partner, which is changed on a rotating basis.

I really like the idea of a business leader at a law firm, not unlike the President of a Corporation. Lawyers need real leaders to lead them towards success. A Leading Partner would not get himself dirty in the day-to-day operations. They would employ an office manager, who could be a lawyer or non-lawyer to do this. The Leading Partner would focus on business development, strategic partnerships, firm strategy, both growth and maintenance. Things like that.

For us smaller firms, I like the idea of taking on more of a leadership role - leading by example, and strategizing for future growth. This is really more my cup of tea when compared to administrative management. I hope one day to be able to lean more towards the leadership than the management, but it may take a while to make the complete transformation. In the meantime, I think it would be very healthy to at least take on more of a leadership mindset, and put more of my brainpower towards building the business, encouraging strong lawyers in the firm, and making sure that everyone is as happy as they can be in their jobs.

Anna Nicole Goes to Law School

It's all over the blogosphere now: various law profs across the country are discussing Anna Nicole Smith's will in their classes, as a way of making the law more accessible, or at least more interesting in this age of pop culture. Her early death and poorly drafted will--and the ensuing legal battles over her young daughter and her burial--make this a case of truth truly being stranger than fiction.

You can start your own legal research of the subject with this AP article (reissued via MSNBC.com) and with blog posts on TaxProf Blog and Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog. And don't forget this March 8 article from the Phoenix New Times, which reports that Smith may have had a secret love child in 2001. (A more concise, and less melodramatic, report appeared on March 12 in the New Zealand Herald.) How does that play into the mix?

Note that the media coverage of this law school trend seems positive. Should it be? Is this truly a case of making the law "come alive" through current events? (No decedent jokes, please.) Should her case be discussed in law school classes because students with computers are reading about it online anyway, instead of taking notes? Or is the fact that Smith's case is being discussed in law school classes somehow being used to legitimize the media frenzy surrounding her death?

I don't know, but I suspect some of you have opinions about it--please share them here.

Part-time Law Studies

I received an email inquiry from a mother who wants to attend law school in Canada, but would like to do so on a part-time basis. She was afraid that this might not be possible.

This is a very possible and feasible option for some who attend law school in Canada. I had a friend who had two children while attending law school, and chose to reduce her last two years to a part-time schedule. It worked out great for her. She did very well in her classes, became the Editor-in-Chief of the law review, and managed her family time very well, considering. Although it took her a while longer than some of us, she ended up at the same destination.

The options for a part-time schedule were reduced once she got to the articling year, where part-time work just doesn't exist. Very few, if any, law firms would be open to this type of schedule, at least at the beginning. And, I believe that this would go against the requirements of the law society articling requirements.

But, by my friend's articling year, she had already spent a few years giving lots of time to her new children, and they were perhaps at an age where out-of-home childcare was a viable option.

So, part-time law school, no problemo.

Anonymous Coffeemaker

I've been reading a new blog lately called BabyBarista, which blogger BabyBarista describes as "a fictional account of a pupil barrister undergoing the trials of pupillage at the English Bar." I lived in the UK for a time, and I love it. I heartily recommend it.

BabyBarista's blog is quintessentially British, in a very modern way: eloquently verbose, cutting, witty in the extreme. In the short time it's been online it has garnered significant readership. I see it as a UK counterpart to Jeremy Blachman's US-based Anonymous Lawyer. Like Anonymous Lawyer, BabyBarista's blog is populated by characters with clever nickames such as "Teflon" and "Worrier," so perhaps this similarity is intentional. However, it should be noted that BabyBarista's nicknames are characteristically British in their understatement--in stark contrast to Anonymous Lawyer's wonderfully blunt nicknames like "the Jerk," "the Bombshell," and the ever-classic "Young Guy Badly Hiding Your Impending Baldness." Should we be looking for a novel soon?

US readers should pay particular attention to the fact that BabyBarista's fictional challenges and travails are quite literally the same as those faced by lawyers on this side of the pond: billing by the hour, poor mentoring, working with abnormal people, intolerance and impatience, burnout, lack of idealism, etc. Perhaps it's comforting, since misery loves company. Then again, perhaps not.

Libel and Slander

On Thursday, March 1, the law students at my law school held their annual "Libel Show." It was open season on 1L profs, including me. There was a skit called "Bowman's Bad Day," in which very brave (or foolish) 1L Leon Cameron channeled me giving a Contracts lecture. Clearly, next year's videographic team needs to get the camera and mike closer to the stage; much of what you hear is the sound of rowdy law students in the audience. But the gist of the skit is this: a self-important professor (where'd that come from, I wonder?) is teaching class hopped up on caffeine (got that one right), and he uses the purchase of a cup of coffee as an example of contract law in action (another bullseye). Of course, the barista gets the order wrong, and the prof goes ballistic.

OK, so I do wave my arms around a lot. And Mr. Cameron did an excellent job of imitating my speech patterns (sans curse words, of course). But here's the part that really struck me: how'd he know that I love cinammon? The coffee gag involves me ordering a cup of joe without any flavoring, and the barista puts cinammon in the coffee, and I go nuts. Now that's spooky. Did I mention my cinammon addiction in class? Or was this pure chance?

I suppose, perhaps, that it's like multiple choice exams: it's nice to know the answer, but once in a while you can get just as many points by being lucky.

Final question: if slander is defined as defamatory statements made in a fixed medium, and libel is defined as defamatory statements in a non-fixed representation (i.e., oral), then why is this show not called the Slander Show? Although I suppose that recording and posting the video on YouTube is slander.