PM bypasses hearing, appoints N.S. justice to Supreme Court

Last Updated: Monday, December 22, 2008 | 2:40 PM AT CBC News

"Stephen Harper has officially appointed Thomas Cromwell of the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal to the Supreme Court, bypassing a parliamentary hearing process the prime minister has championed to more openly scrutinize nominees.

The appointment came the same day Harper named 18 people to the Senate.

'The Supreme Court must have its full complement of nine judges in order to execute its vital constitutional mandate effectively,' Harper said in a statement on Monday. 'Not only is Justice Cromwell one of Canada's most respected jurists, his appointment will also restore regional balance to the Court which now, once again, has an Atlantic Canadian representative.'

Cromwell replaces Michel Bastarache, who told the cheif justice that he would retire at the end of the court's spring session."

Congratulations Mr. Cromwell. This is a wonderful achievement on top of an already illustrious career:

"Cromwell, 56, from Kingston, Ont., initially studied music but got his law degree in Ontario in 1976. He practised and taught law, including two stints at the Dalhousie Law School in Halifax. He was the executive legal officer in the chambers of the Supreme Court's chief justice for three years...He first became a Nova Scotia appeals judge in 1997."

York law student caught with fake degree

Excalibur Web Edition
Written by By Andrew Fletcher, Sports & Health Editor

Wednesday, 17 December 2008

"A York University student is under investigation for allegedly committing an act of degree fraud. Third-year student Quami Frederick is under review for academic dishonesty after she allegedly submitted a degree that she never earned, for admission to Osgoode Law School. The Toronto Star reported on Dec. 13 that Frederick bought a BA degree in business administration from St. George’s University for $1,109 in 2004. St. George’s University, located in Grenada, has recently confirmed that Frederick did not attend the school."

Read the whole story here.

I sure get a lot of spam for these fake degrees. I always wondered if someone would actually try to pass one off. I wonder for this one caught person, how many have successfully duped law school admissions staff? Bet she would make a good lawyer! I'm glad she is being screened now, rather than later, such as the guy I posted about the other day (see here), although she really should have been caught sooner - "Granada"???

LU's law-school dream could take step forward

Tb News Source
Web Posted: 12/17/2008 10:33:12 PM

"Despite Ontario's denial for funding, work continues at Lakehead University to develop a new law school."

Is this just a pipe dream, or is there any reality to this headline? Is it possible for them to privately fund a new law school, and could they gain the support of the heads that be? And further, would there be any true advantage to a law school in that area of the country? Would it create new jobs? Would it fill any voids? Are there any voids? Last I heard, there were an abundance of law graduates in Ontario (maybe even the country) who could not find an article upon graduation from law school.

Getting that first law job

I was pleased to hire a couple of students recently to assist me with some projects. One is a first year student, the other a second year student. I really wished for a practical opportunity in my first year(s) of law school, and would have probably done it for free at the time (not that I condone free labour). I really appreciated the resumes that were submitted by various students. It was really neat to see the variety of backgrounds of the law students, and also to see where their interests were developing in law school.

I have said in the past that law school grades are not important, in my mind, but on the other hand, seeing transcripts certainly allows for a peak into what actually interests a potential candidate. A high grade in a particular subject could perhaps indicate that the student is more keen in that area. On the flip side, it could simply reflect that they liked the professor, that the examination style suited their learning style, etc.

On this note, I recently applied for an exemption to the Law Society to reduce the 4-year requirement before I can hire an articling student. Their response was interesting - they can't provide a decision until I actually apply, or the student applies for an article with our firm. Then, they use their discretion, and we would have to show extenuating circumstances. I would argue that if a student wanted to come practice in Southern Alberta, and they wanted to start their practice at our firm, or if they wanted to focus on an area of law that our firm practices, that this would meet the extenuating circumstances test. So, if you are interested, let me know, and we'll test the waters. :).

If it doesn't work out, I'll just have to wait out the 4 years (another 1.5 years), and do it the old fashioned way.

Mediation should be emphasized in law school - all law schools

I conducted a great mediation this morning. It would seem that there would be no negotiated settlement at many points during the mediation, but in the end, I was able to assist the parties towards a negotiated settlement. What a great feeling of satisfaction. The parties shook hands and smiled at each other afterwards. Success!

It got me to thinking that mediation should be a mandatory course at Canadian law schools. It should also become part of the designation of a lawyer. Just as we all become Notary Publics upon completion of law school, we should all become certified mediators upon graduation. It would save our court system bundles, and would result in a much less litigious society. What do you think?

The power of emotion in advertising

I have been amazed this past couple of weeks at the power of emotion in advertising. This applies to both companies and individual who are advertising themselves.

I put out an ad this week that said "Enjoy Peace of Mind for the Holidays" - it was an ad for a discounted last will & testament. Our phones have been ringing off the hook. I would like to say it was because of the discount, but I've tried that tool before. I am convinced it is the hook line at the beginning of the ad.

Something to think about for you budding and existing lawyers as you strive to promote yourself as a lawyer. Emotion sells. Good service keeps the customer. You might even want to consider this thought when preparing your resumes and cover letters for upcoming summer and articling positions. A great first line or title goes really far.

Critics clash over role of law schools

From The Lawyer's Weekly:

By Nora Rock
Toronto
December 12 2008

"If the goal of medical school were to teach students not how to be doctors, but how to think like doctors, would you want to be a graduate’s first patient?

Professor David Chavkin of the American University Washington College of Law put this question to attendees at a symposium about the future of legal education hosted by Ryerson University on Nov. 25.

The curriculum being delivered in today’s law schools and its relationship to the demands of modern legal practice were scrutinized by speakers including Michael Bryant, Ontario’s minister of economic development, who noted the trend toward self-representation in our courts. “Over half of the people in Canada, when faced with a legal problem in their lives, have no idea where to turn,” said Bryant, who expressed the related worry that many of today’s law graduates emerge from law school ill-prepared to meet the needs of average Canadians.

While the Ryerson symposium’s intended focus was on future directions in education, attendee Noah Aiken-Klar, national director of Pro Bono Students Canada, pointed out that our legal community faces a chicken-and-egg style dilemma: while law schools struggle to recruit and train a more diverse student body, dysfunction in the profession causes attrition that hits non-mainstream lawyers — women, lawyers with disabilities and minorities — hardest.

Two factors — the Law Society of Upper Canada’s latest redesign of the lawyer licensing system, and recent calls for the abolition of articling — have put pressure on law schools to provide the practical, “lawyering” training that articling and the Bar admission course were once intended to accomplish."

You can read the whole article here.

This is a very useful and necessary debate to have. Here are my thoughts from the field:

1. It is nearly impractical for a lawyer to know everything that she needs to know coming out of law school, or even coming out of her articling year. Each and every day as a lawyer is a learning experience.
2. The focus should not be on what is taught in law school. The schools, the courses and the instructors are just far to diverse to accomplish a strictly "practical" legal education. In other words, the system has gone too far towards academia and theoretical instruction as opposed to a professional training system.
3. I believe that the number of core courses required should be increased at all Canadian Law Schools to include: wills & estates, real estate (not real estate theory, but real estate conveyancing), family law (practical training, not case law theory training - in other words, how to file for divorce, how to defend a divorce, how to run a custody trial, etc.), basic incorporations law (i.e. how to incorporate a company, how to prepare resolutions, etc.), and chambers and trial advocacy (you should have to prepare for and run at least 2 uncontested applications, and at least 2 contested applications).
4. The law societies should work towards training principals (lawyers who are partnered with articling students - mentors) and law firms to, in turn, train new lawyers. It used to be an apprenticeship program with lawyers, and we should move back towards that model, where a new lawyer is provided more simple tasks for a year or two, and then moves towards more complicated transactions and files over the years. In fact, I believe that law school should be run similar to some trades programs, where you intersperse schooling with practical training (i.e. one year on, one year off). Some students have that opportunity, somewhat, with summer internships, but not all students land a summer position. It should be mandatory for all students. This model would perhaps prolong things, but I like the idea at its core.
5. I actually think that the US model where you get thrown into the deep end upon graduation isn't such a bad idea, if the mentoring is there. It seems like some firms have excellent mentoring programs set up for new graduates, but there are probably many who are lost through the cracks (think Grisham's Rainmaker for an extreme example).
6. Law firms should ultimately be accountable to new lawyers or lawyers-in-training.

I would be interested to hear your thoughts on this debate.

Ted Roger's Funeral Today

I have enjoyed reading about Ted Rogers over the past few days. I was surprised when I read the following today:

"Rogers founded Rogers Telecommunications Ltd. in 1960 with the purchase of CHFI while in law school with a loan of $85,000. Today, the company is worth more than $20 billion and employs 24,000 employees."

Is this not an amazing success story? I have had many readers ask me about alternative legal careers. Ted obviously had vision, and I would venture to say that the skills that he developed in law school proved useful during his immensely successful business career.

NY lawyer arrested for impersonation

Reuters Canada
Fri Dec 5, 2008 2:24pm EST

"TORONTO (Reuters) - A prominent New York corporate lawyer has been arrested in Toronto on a charge of impersonation, police said on Friday.

Marc Dreier, founder and managing partner of Dreier LLP, was scheduled to appear in court Friday morning to answer charges of "impersonation with intent," said Constable Tony Vella, a spokesman for Toronto police...

Dreier, 58, headed the litigation department in the New York office of law firm Fulbright & Jaworski LLP and had been a litigation partner at Rosenman & Colin LLP before founding Dreier LLP in 1996, according to a biography on his firm's website.

He is a graduate of Yale College and Harvard Law School and has worked as a commercial litigator for more than 30 years, the website said...

The New York Times, in a website posting on Friday, said the law firm, which has more than 250 attorneys, canceled a holiday party that had been scheduled for Thursday evening at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in Manhattan."

No wonder they cancelled their holiday party...they were all busy checking their heads. Somebody didn't do their due diligence! Sounds like the character from "Catch Me If You Can".

Read more about the $100 fraud this guy is charged with here.

Critics clash over role of law schools

The Lawyer's Weekly
By Nora Rock
Toronto, December 12 2008

"If the goal of medical school were to teach students not how to be doctors, but how to think like doctors, would you want to be a graduate’s first patient?

Professor David Chavkin of the American University Washington College of Law put this question to attendees at a symposium about the future of legal education hosted by Ryerson University on Nov. 25.

The curriculum being delivered in today’s law schools and its relationship to the demands of modern legal practice were scrutinized by speakers including Michael Bryant, Ontario’s minister of economic development, who noted the trend toward self-representation in our courts. “Over half of the people in Canada, when faced with a legal problem in their lives, have no idea where to turn,” said Bryant, who expressed the related worry that many of today’s law graduates emerge from law school ill-prepared to meet the needs of average Canadians."

Read the whole article here.

Back in the Saddle

Ok, so I have taken a hiatus from this blog since July. Can't blame me too much...life got in the way. A brief update:

I sold my publishing company (Writing on Stone Press) on July 1, 2008 to a group out of British Columbia. Some of you might not have made the connection that the publisher of my book was owned by the author. We put out a Canadian Career Series that will continue, along with a number of other titles. My previous life before law school was in publishing.

Anyways, it is nice to be free of the responsibilities of owning a side business. I have been able to focus on my law practice and my family, which has been really great. I even went on a family holiday, much to my children's delight.

The economy has started to shift, and that has meant a shift in my practice. Less real estate. More divorce. Kind of funny, if you think about it. Still doing lots of wills and estate administration, which I really enjoy.

Well, I will try to keep this blog active and current going forward...

Thanks for your ongoing support.

The Most Important Day of Class

Last week was my first week of classes for the 2008-2009 academic year, and I was all ready to write a post called "The Most Important Day of Class." The whole premise was that the first day of class is the most important day of class for the whole term. But I didn't write that post, because I decided I was wrong.

The first day of class is not the most important day of class. The second day is.

Here's what I mean. The first day is important, because on that day the prof is likely to explain what the course is intended to be like. You're also likely to be treated to a lecture on why the course is the most important course you will ever take in law school, and perhaps your whole life. I'm exaggerating, but not overly so. This is called selling the course--and it happens not only in electives, but also in mandatory courses. I certainly do it. I think it helps students see where the course fits in the grand scheme of things, and it gives them a sense of what I think of the subject and why I am teaching it. And I do hope it generates a little excitement to get us all through the drier parts of the course. (And if you are in law school, you know some of it is dry.)

But that first class is often an anomoly. It's on the second day that students are more likely to get their first glimpse of a more average class--no calling of the roll, no grand views of the law. Instead, it's on to theory, doctrine, and the briefing of cases.

So for those of you in law school, pay close attention in those early days. And mark your calendars for class #2.

The Benefits of Senior, Junior, and Adjunct Law Faculty

There was an interesting post on the Law Librarian Blog this week concerning the benefits of senior, junior, and adjunct faculty in the classroom. The post can be linked to here. This is a subject that interests me greatly, and readers will remember that I recently wrote a law review article (in the BYU Education and Law Journal) about junior faculty teaching. You can link to my full article here, and to my previous blog posts on the article here and here. The latter post includes an exchange with UCLA law professor Stephen Bainbridge.

The long and short of it is that this Law Librarian Blog post reviews some of the current scholarship on law faculty teaching by senior, junior, and adjunct professors and provides some interesting commentary on this scholarship. Most interesting, perhaps, is the blog's observation that there seems to be little academic literature on the benefits of senior faculty teaching. Personally, I think this is because the common wisdom in the legal academy is that senior faculty are better teachers all around, so why write about it? I disagree with this view, however--and if you are interested in seeing why, look at my BYU article.

Bainbridge v. Bowman

My law review article on junior law faculty, The Comparative and Absolute Advantages of Junior Law Faculty: Implications for Teaching and the Future of American Law Schools, 2008 BYU Educ. & L.J. 171, was commented on recently by Professor Stephen Bainbridge of UCLA School of Law. It's fair to say he did not like it--his post on the article can be linked to here and reads, in its entirety, as follows:

Via Paul Caron, I learned of Gregory Bowman’s article The Comparative and Absolute Advantages of Junior Law Faculty: Implications for Teaching and the Future of American Law Schools, 2008 BYU Educ. & L.J. 171, in which Bowman argues:

In the ongoing debate about how to improve law school teaching, there is a general consensus that law schools should do more to train junior faculty members how to teach. While this may be the case, this consensus inadvertently leads to an implicit assumption that is not true—that in all facets of law teaching, junior faculty are at a disadvantage compared to senior faculty. In fact, there are aspects of law teaching for which junior faculty can be better suited than their senior colleagues. This Article reviews scholarship concerning law teaching and identifies three teaching factors that generally favor junior law faculty: generational proximity to the law school student body; recency of law practice experience as junior practitioners; and lower susceptibility to the problem of conceptual condensation - extreme depth of subject matter knowledge that makes it difficult to see subjects from the students’ perspective.

This Article employs the economic concepts of (a) economies of scale or productive efficiency and (b) absolute and comparative advantage to suggest how these junior faculty advantages could be harnessed to improve law school teaching. With respect to productive efficiency, it is suggested that greater intra-faculty dialogue can increase a law faculty’s output of effective teaching. Currently, senior faculty members often provide assistance or advice to junior faculty in areas of senior faculty expertise or advantage—such as depth of knowledge in a course’s subject matter—but this is largely a one-way flow of information. However, if junior faculty were also to provide insight and advice to senior faculty regarding areas of junior faculty advantage, the quality of law school teaching might be significantly enhanced. Junior-senior faculty dialogue might be promoted through a variety of means, including faculty workshops and even perhaps teaching reviews of senior faculty by junior faculty.

With respect to the concepts of absolute and comparative advantage, this Article suggests that law school teaching could be improved through the specialization of teaching functions. Instead of professors individually teaching separate courses, professors might coordinate their teaching (that is, team-teach) across a number of courses in the law school curriculum, as a means to more effectively harness the respective strengths (and minimize the respective weaknesses) of junior and senior faculty in the classroom. Through the leveraging of junior faculty advantages, overall law school teaching might be significantly improved. This Article concludes by discussing the implications of these recommendations for law school culture in general and for the legal profession as a whole.

The trouble is that I don’t buy any of the alleged advantages Bowman says junior teachers possess. As for “generational proximity to the law school student body,” it often translates into difficulty for the young teacher to gain respect from the students. Anyway, it seems more relevant to dating than teaching. As for “recency of law practice experience as junior practitioners,” most law professors (at elite schools, anyway) come into practice with only a few years of practice experience. Being bottom man on a deal or litigation team fora couple of years doesn’t translate into meaningful knowledge. At best, it gives you a few war stories. Personally, I’ve learned a lot more that I use in the classroom from consulting than I ever did in practice. Since sniors likely have more consulting opportunities than juniors, this is at best a wash. Finally, as for “lower susceptibility to the problem of conceptual condensation - extreme depth of subject matter knowledge that makes it difficult to see subjects from the students’ perspective,” I’d rather know too much then too little. When I was just starting out, I lived in dread of the student question for which I had no answer. Today, it almost never happens.

* * * *

Needless to say, I disagree with his critique, and I commented on his post as follows:

Thanks very much for the post about my BYU article. I appreciate your comments, and I have some thoughts in response.

First, with respect to generational proximity, you note that this “often translates into difficulty for the young teacher to gain respect from the students.” I agree with you. But this does not mean that understanding student mindsets better—due to generational proximity—is not an advantage. We accept the notion of generation gaps in our society, so why would this not have an effect in the classroom? As law professors, we are trying to reach an adult population of students who at times are disinclined to accept our views and the large workloads we impose in class. If junior professors understand student mindsets better, won’t that help counter that? I am not at all suggesting that more senior professors cannot do this just as well; rather, what I am saying is that as professors become more generationally distant from their students, it may take more active effort for them to stay closely tuned to student mindsets. And that is a comparative disadvantage—more input needed for the same output. In the article I discuss how this particular junior faculty advantage might be leveraged to improve law school teaching.

Your second criticism concerns the value of junior professors’ recent law practice experience. You point out, rightly, that “most law professors (at elite schools, anyway) come into [teaching] with only a few years of practice experience.” But I disagree with your judgment that that “being bottom man on a deal or litigation team doesn’t translate into meaningful knowledge.” For one thing, I learned a lot in my first two years as a corporate lawyer. For another, what will all of our students be when they get out of law school? Junior lawyers of one sort or another. So can’t junior practitioner experience help professors contextualize class material in a way that is relevant and accessible to students? And if a junior professor has done that very type of work within the past 5 years, rather than 20 or 30 years ago, won’t that resonate more with students? Again, this is not to ignore the many benefits of seniority or experience, and it is not to say that more senior faculty can’t work to keep their fingers on the pulse of modern junior associate practice. But they will have to work at it, and not come to it more naturally, as junior faculty often will do.

Third, regarding conceptual condensation, you simply note that you’d “rather know too much than too little.” I absolutely agree. Touting professorial ignorance as a virtue would be flat out dangerous, and I expressly disavow that in my article. But my point is not what we know as professors—the point is how effectively we convey that knowledge to our students. Knowing the answers to all student questions is a very different thing from being able to see issues from the level of student neophytes. I think many students have had professors in law school who were clearly brilliant but were hard to follow in class. And that was not because the students were all stupid. It was in many cases because professors were talking on a higher plane of knowledge than their students. Again, I am in no way saying that senior professors, with more depth of knowledge, cannot communicate effectively in the classroom. But I am saying that they are more likely than junior professors to take mental shortcuts that are clear to them but not to their students, and that they therefore will have to put more effort into guarding against that than junior faculty.

My article is, of necessity, dealing with generalities. But the one-way flow of information and feedback from senior faculty to junior faculty is a widespread characteristic of American law schools, and there is a casual dismissiveness of what junior faculty may have to offer in the classroom. If junior faculty as a whole bring particular teaching skills or strengths to the table—and I think they do—then we do ourselves and our students a grave disservice by ignoring this.

Thanks very much again for your post and your feedback.

* * * *

You be the judge--what do you, the reader, think?

Gilbert says LU not giving up on law school plan

Tb News Source
Web Posted: 7/29/2008 8:12:25 PM


The president of Lakehead University is vowing to continue the fight after a major blow Tuesday to the plans to bring a law school to Thunder Bay.

The McGuinty government has announced it will not be funding any new law schools in Ontario for the foreseeable future. Fred Gilbert said LU will carry on its plans to renovate the former PACI, but he admits that opening a law school in 2010 is no longer a realistic possibility.

When LU and the Lakehead school board signed the $850,000 purchase agreement for PACI last month, things appeared to be looking up for the university's plans to open a law school in Thunder Bay but the plans have hit a major snag. Liberal MPP Bill Mauro says his government has received advice that there are enough law graduates in Ontario as it is. Therefore, LU and three other universities will not get any financial backing for their law school plans.

The president of the Thunder Bay Law Association, Stephen Wojciechowski, says his group is very disappointed by the province's decision. He says Thunder Bay and other small cities are approaching a crisis situation with their limited influx of new lawyers, and he says the legal resources in the Northwest are slowly dwindling to unacceptable levels.

Gilbert says the LU law school would have turned out 55 graduates each year with expertise in aboriginal law, natural resource and northern issues. Despite the setback, he says LU will move ahead will their plans to renovate PACI will still proceed trying to achieve accreditation for its law school curriculum.

Eight years ago, Gilbert and local politicians convinced the province to reverse a decision and allow a full four-year medical school at LU. Gilbert says they plan to do it again and Mauro said he's on board to help LU reach its goal, as he pledged in his 2007 election platform.

But for now, Gilbert concedes that the chance of the law school opening as planned in September 2010 is no longer a realistic goal.

The province has six southern Ontario-based law schools and a new one hasn't been opened in almost 40 years.

Province lays down the law

Asearch through the Law Society of Upper Canada's directory shows there are 203 lawyers in Sudbury. Yep, that's right CCIII.

The Law Society of Upper Canada's membership data shows there are 38,879 lawyers in the province. (We won't trouble you with the Roman numerals.) Almost 1,500 new lawyers were called to the bar last year in Ontario.

A few in Sudbury aren't practising, a few are suspended, a few in the registry are deceased.

And while the North suffers from a chronic lack of professionals and specialists, with lawyers it is not because the province isn't churning out enough of them, it's largely because they don't settle here.

The argument made in favour of the medical school -- training doctors in the North, giving them a look at the lifestyle -- can reasonably be transferred to lawyers, since they must leave the area to enrol in one of Canada's 16 law schools (Ontario has six) to pursue their legal ambitions. But if the province is to put money into education, the legal profession, says Colleges and Universities Minister John Milloy, isn't a priority. He wants to focus on graduate studies and doctors.

We cannot disagree with those priorities.

Read the whole editorial here.

Ontario won't fund proposed law schools

KAREN HOWLETT - National

July 30, 2008

The Ontario government says it has no money to train new lawyers, dashing the hopes of three universities in the province competing to open the first new law school in Canada in nearly 30 years. Plans for the new schools come from Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Lakehead University in Thunder Bay and Sudbury's Laurentian University.

All three universities looking to set up full law schools, including two in Northern Ontario, say they developed their proposals in response to local concerns about the lack of legal services and the need to attract young lawyers to rural areas.

But in a letter to university presidents last Friday, the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities says it will not be approving any funding for new law schools in Ontario. The province's six existing law schools are meeting the demand for new lawyers, the letter says. As well, it says, the number of law-school graduates in Ontario exceeds the number of articling placements available.

Olympic hungry

Man, I have just loved keeping track of all of the Olympic trials, both for Canada and the US. Olympic time is my favourite time. I have gotten hyped during the summer every four years since 1984 when I watched the Olympics in my grandparent's living room. This year is even more exciting for me as my children are now getting to an age where they can start to appreciate some of the finer points of sports, and as they are now competing in sports themselves. Last night, my one daughter told me that she wants to be a doctor and an Olympian when she grows up. That really inspired me. Our swim team is called the Raymond Olympians, and both of my daughters are competing and my wife and I are coaching. Really cool. Really real.

I have also been getting in the water as much as possible, and my swimming is improving. Our family is all competing in a triathlon in August. I don't feel that I will be competitive at all, but I probably won't come in last place. I did a 10K in June that really hurt, but I was proud to have finished as I had not been training properly for weeks before the race, and I had woken that morning with aches and pains and a big headache. Work seemed to get in the way of training. Having my wife and daughters train for the triathlon is really inspiring and exciting for me. I have a bit of a cold/flu today, so training has taken a back seat again...at least for a few days.

I met with a fellow lawyer today at lunch, and was pleased to hear that my experience of seeing a decline in the amount of available work is not unique to my personal practice. He said that he is having to work harder to meet his own billable expectations. Those lawyers in Canada (especially sole practitioners) who think that the current state of affairs in the US and Canada is not going to affect them - they had better make sure that they are prepared, flexible and outgoing. Real estate has been the bread and butter for so many of us for a few years, but it's getting harder to rely on conveyancing to pay the bills...

It might be time to go do some more research into rainmaking tactics. Actually, my personal practice is thriving right now. Each month seems to bring an increase in client base and quality of work. There are some specific files that are bringing me great joy as I work on them. Further, I am getting better at firing those clients that I really do not appreciate working with. Also, each month I am gaining expertise in the areas that I am practicing in, and my confidence continues to grow. Each day brings its own challenges. It's not getting boring yet. This is the longest that I have held the same job (i.e. being a lawyer) in my life, I think. Well, that's not true - I was a lifeguard for many years, but that was usually part-time work, and I didn't really consider it a career. In any case, I feel I have reached a bit of a milestone in that my practice just passed its two-year anniversary (I opened my law firm the day after I passed the bar). Cool, huh?

Good reading makes a good lawyer

Over the past few months, I have been spending some of my down-time reading some great books. I found a website - 100 Must-Read Books: The Essential Man’s Library

Whether that list of 100 books is necessarily exclusive to men is obviously debatable. However, I do think it is a good collection of classics and potential classics that hold a considerable amount of knowledge, and entertainment.

I decided to read all or at least most of the books on that list, with the hopes that I might better myself. Enough of the John Grisham books. Besides, his latest work absolutely sucked. I'm ready for something bigger, something better.

So, to date, I have read from the list:

1. The Hobbit (read numerous times)
2. The Great Gatsby (I hated this book, and wouldn't even render a review of it)
3. 1984 (read a long time ago, and thought it was very depressing)
4. The Catcher in the Rye (I absolutely loved this book, and will provide some comments later on)
5. The Picture of Dorian Gray (a very strange, but fascinating read)
6. Brave New World (so strange, but very thought provoking. I will provide comments later)
7. Animal Farm (read a long time ago)
8. Frankenstein (one of my favourite stories, but getting to be a downer when I read it over again)
9. The Stranger (L'Etranger) by Albert Camus - one of my all-time favourite books, I have read it at least 10 times in both English and French.
10. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I absolutely loved this one. I liked the legal aspect of it, but it had so much more to say. More comments forthcoming.
11. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. I really, really enjoyed the first 3/4 of the book, and think that I will be a better person for having read the first 3/4. The last part had way too much US history that was totally irrelevant or over my head.
12. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I have read this book a couple times and really enjoy it. I am planning to buy a motorcycle soon, so I might have to read it again soon to relive the great feelings portrayed in this book.

I am currently reading The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris and Into the Wild by John Krakauer. I am really enjoying both, especially the latter. I have started The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, but it is slow going.

I tried A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, but found it too wispy of a book. Almost contrived. Maybe I was missing something. I got about 1/2 way through before abandoning it.

So, not too bad. Am I a better man now? I think so. I find myself thinking about these books a lot, especially the ones I have read in the past three months. I find I am thinking on a higher plain. Am I a better lawyer? Maybe - at least, I am more present in my thinking, and not just bogged down in real estate documents and wills and contracts.

Have any books that you would add to this list? Either for being a better person, or for being a better lawyer?

Senior Will & Estate Planner

Here's an example of a job posting that was on www.AlternativeLawJob.com. This is really cool. I'm glad to see these kinds of postings...

As one of Canada's Top 50 Employers for the fourth consecutive year, Scotiabank places great importance on recognizing and rewarding strong performance. We offer room for advancement, a stimulating work environment and the resources to help you make the most of your career. Together, we continue to make Scotiabank a great place to work. Incorporating the key personal investment and advisory activities within the Scotiabank Group, Wealth Management provides a full range of products and services that encompass retail brokerage, investment management advice, mutual funds and savings products, and financial planning and private client services for affluent clients. POSITION SUMMARY: Department assists clients appointing Scotiatrust as their Executor/Trustee with the development of an estate plan, and works with external lawyers for the preparation of client Wills. Key accountabilities for this role: Support the development of new Wills and estate / trust business and identify cross-sell opportunities Work with eligible clients to provide information / advice on planning options and record /confirm Will instructions Review draft Wills prepared by an external drafting lawyer as to form and content prior to execution Prepare and deliver seminars to staff and clients / prospects in Will and estate planning in conjunction with the Financial Consultants, SPCG and ScotiaMcLeod partners Develop relationships with Centers of Influence for the purpose of initiating new Will - estate opportunities QUALIFICATIONS: Expert knowledge and understanding of estates, trusts, Will and estate planning, and personal income tax, that may be supported by a LLB., relevant experience and Trust Insititute designations. Effective relationship management and networking skills with particular emphasis on supporting the sales team, working with affluent clients, SPCG and ScotiaMcLeod business lines, and internal and external centers of influence Excellent oral and written communication skills to effectively represent the department Demonstrated speaking and presentation skills in a sales team environment to attract corporate executor and other trust business. EDUCATION AND ACCREDITATIONS: LLB, or Trust Insitute Designation and Senior Estate and Trust Planning Experience The Scotiabank Group is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes applications from all interested parties. We thank you for your interest, however, only those candidates selected for an interview will be contacted. No agencies please. If interested, please apply online at Scotiabank Careers

www.AlternativeLawJob.com

Dear Adam,

I recently came across your blog, specifically your post of July 15th entitled "Leaving the Law". Given the nature of that post and your blog, I thought your readers would be interested in knowing about our new job posting blog for Canadian lawyers.

You can visit us at: www.AlternativeLawJob.com

Our blog focuses on a growing and under served group within the legal community, namely:

Lawyers who are seeking alternative career opportunities both inside and outside the legal profession.

Our site ONLY posts the following types of opportunities:

* In-house, government and non-profit counsel positions;
* Law related careers;
* Non-legal careers for lawyers;
* Opportunities to join start-ups and small businesses.

To ensure that our visitors have access to the largest number of career opportunities, posting jobs on our site is absolutely free (our editorial staff reviews and approves each job posting before it is published to ensure that it is relevant for our audience).

Feel free to email me if you have any questions about our website.

Regards,

Stephen Fine

Founder – AlternativeLawJob.com
--
Alternative Law Job
email: contact@alternativelawjob.com
website: www.alternativelawjob.com

Leaving the Law

A few of my friends and associates have already left law as a career. Most of them aren't sure if they will ever come back. That got me to thinking, what would I do if I wasn't practicing law. It is a difficult thought, now that I am deep into a personal legal practice. The idea of throwing away those three years of law school, that year of articling, that year of preparing for law school. Many, that would be hard. But, there are those out there who are desperate to get out of this career. Believe me, it is not for everyone. Here are some resources that I have recently come across:

1. www.leavingthelaw.com. "You can find meaningful, engaging work outside of the law and make a good living. Together we help you discover the alternative career you were meant to have and make your career transition with joy and ease.

A former miserable practicing lawyer, I’ve developed a variety of unique products and services that empower you to find fulfilling work.

Become someone you never thought you could be—a lawyer who looks forward to going to work."

2. The Unhappy Lawyer: A Roadmap to Finding Meaningful Work Outside of the Law (Paperback) by Monica Parker (Author)

3. Running from the Law: Why Good Lawyers Are Getting Out of the Legal Profession (Paperback) by Deborah Arron (Author)

4. What Can You Do With a Law Degree?: A Lawyer's Guide to Career Alternatives Inside, Outside & Around the Law (Paperback) by Deborah Arron (Author)

5. Nonlegal Careers for Lawyers, Fifth Edition (Paperback) by Gary A. Munneke (Author)

6. Alternative Careers for Lawyers (Princeton Review Series) (Paperback) by Hillary Mantis (Author)

7. Beyond L.A. Law: Inspiring Stories of People Who've Done Fascinating Things with a Law Degree (Paperback) by National Association for Law Placement (Author)

Women In Law: Bucci serves community and piles up accomplishments

By Robert Todd | Publication Date: Monday, 14 July 2008 - Law Times

Small towns in Ontario fighting to keep legal services may want to give Kristen Bucci a call for advice on luring law grads.

Read this inspiring article here.

The Attorney Multipass

July 2008 Issue
By Jill Schachner Chanen
ABA Journal

From his office at Butzel Long’s Detroit headquarters, lawyer Richard Rassel can watch the massive 18-wheel trucks driving across the Ambassador Bridge from Michigan into Windsor, Ontario, Canada.

Most of those trucks started their long journey north to Canada from Mexico, crossing through three countries with three distinct legal systems, observes Rassel, the firm’s past chairman and current director of global client relations.

In some ways that journey is a fitting metaphor for the needs of most businesses these days.

As foreign trade becomes more common for even the smallest of businesses, a need for lawyers versed in multiple legal systems has emerged. And now the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law is stepping for­ward to help fill this need.

Earlier this year the law school launched a dual-degree program with Mexico’s Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, a private law school in the Mexican state of Nuevo León. The program is modeled after UDM’s 8-year-old dual-degree program with the University of Windsor Faculty of Law in Ontario, which allows law students to obtain combined J.D./LLB degrees in three years.

That program has had a total of 120 students studying in both countries since its inception. And its dual-degree grads have found their way to big law firms in Toronto, New York City and Chicago, among other cities, where they have put their international legal and language skills to work, says UDM law school dean Mark C. Gordon.

Read the whole article here.

Goodbye to Robin Penker

A really good friend of mine died last week in a mountain climbing accident. I am really saddened by the loss of Robin Penker. He was one of the first people that I met in law school. He was an outstanding law student and lawyer. He was on the editorial board of the Alberta Law Review when I was Editor in Chief, and he always did excellent work.

I hiked with Robin and did some scrambles with him. He died doing a scramble by himself in Kananaskis. We will probably never know what happened. He was on Mt. Kidd. They had a hard time finding him because he didn't tell anyone where he was going.

Robin was a lawyer at FMC, and then in a firm in the Maritimes. He then went to work in-house, and was recently on a sabbatical. He traveled to South America and Europe.

He was just an outstanding person, and I am going to miss him very, very much.

In lieu of flowers, please send donations to Friends of Kananaskis Country (www.kananaskis.org).

I have information about memorial services if you know Robin and would like to attend.

Hands off LSAT students' fingers

Mon, July 7, 2008

By DAVID CANTON, FREELANCE WRITER - London Free Press

A recent decision by the Privacy Commissioner of Canada found that taking finger/thumb prints from those writing the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) is a privacy breach and must be stopped.

Read the whole article here.

That's some good news. Surely there are other ways that they can reduce cheating on this test.

An update on my life

I haven't written a personal post in some time. Here's the scoop:

I am a sole practitioner right now, searching desperately for a partner. I do not like working alone. At all. It's boring. Want to be my partner? I'm really fun to work with. Really.

I sold my publishing house. Now I can just be a lawyer. And an author. I am supposed to write another book soon. It's title is a secret. But, it should be good. It's non-fiction again. I'm also slowly working on a fiction book. That's a lot of fun, when I can get in the right mood.

I'm also supposed to be working on a book called A Practical Guide to Canadian Law Schools with another author. However, he might write the whole thing...we'll see how he does. It will be a great complement to my book. It will look specifically at each law school. It's a ton of work, I'm sure.

I'm helping my wife coach our girl's swimming team. I came up with a logo for it yesterday. I think it looks kind of cool. Being a swim coach is a lot more fun than being a lawyer, which means being a swim coach is really, really fun. (smile)

I am trying to stay away from my office as much as possible this summer, but it is hard because it is busy. Summer is always the busiest real estate time, and my firm does a lot of that work.

I miss law school. I miss taking off from life whenever I wanted to go run a few miles, hit the gym, or go swimming. But, I'm trying to do that as much as I can this summer. My assistants probably hate me for that. I am hoping to take some holidays in September.

Blasphemy law should be repealed

Jul 06, 2008 04:30 AM

Be the first to comment on this article...

Jeremy Patrick - TheStar.com

Last month, after a long debate, England abolished the ancient common law offence of blasphemous libel.

Historically, the crime of blasphemy was committed whenever "contemptuous," "reviling," or "scurrilous" statements were made about God, Jesus Christ or the Church of England.

The offence had been the basis for hundreds of prosecutions throughout the 18th and 19th centuries before falling into a period of dormancy after 1922.

Surprisingly, however, the offence was suddenly resurrected as the basis of a successful private prosecution against a gay newspaper in 1977.

Subsequent private prosecutions against Salman Rushdie's book The Satanic Verses in the late 1980s and against the musical Jerry Springer: The Opera just last year were unsuccessful but equally disturbing to modern proponents of free speech.

What most Canadians (even most lawyers) don't realize is that our own Criminal Code also prohibits blasphemous libel and sets a penalty of up to two years in prison.

Read this whole fascinating article here.

I had no idea this was part of our Criminal Code? I don't remember discussing this in Criminal Law class at Law School. What do you think? Should it be repealed?

Ontario schools compete for law faculties

ELIZABETH CHURCH

EDUCATION REPORTER

NATIONAL

July 2, 2008

Three Ontario universities are jockeying to be the first to open a law school in Canada in nearly 30 years, setting the stage for a battle of ambitions as they compete for government funding and approvals from the legal community, as well as the prestige that a new faculty would bring.

Plans for the new schools, in various stages of development, come from Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo and most recently Sudbury's Laurentian University, which last month announced it was conducting a feasibility study on a new law faculty.

Also in the works are plans for a graduate law program at the new Balsillie School of International Affairs, which would involve the University of Waterloo and could be linked to the Laurier proposal.

Read the whole story here.

Lots of you have indicated that you don't think we need another law school. How about three???

Ottawa law students file complaint over Facebook

Josh Visser, CTV.ca News Staff

A group of University of Ottawa law students have filed a complaint with the privacy commissioner of Canada against the social networking website Facebook.

The 35-page complaint alleges 22 separate violations of Canadian privacy laws by the California-based company under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).

"To boil it down simply, it's an issue of honesty and an issue of consent," Lisa Feinberg, a University of Ottawa law student who has just completed her first year, told CTV.ca. "Facebook isn't being completely honest with its users. It presents itself as a social utility site . . . but they are actually involved in a lot of commercial activities."

Feinberg is part of a team of University of Ottawa law students who filed the complaint as part of a project developed while they were interns with the university's Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, led by Philippa Lawson.

Read the whole article here.

Good on these guys. I happen to hate Facebook. I'm on it, due to some distinct family pressure, and an innate desire to track down some specific friends, but I always worry about people knowing a bit too much about me and my family.

Billions of dollars hang on Canada court's BCE hearing

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's top court has the potential on Tuesday to create several billion dollars in shareholder value for investors of BCE Inc. (BCE.TO: Quote, Profile, Research)(BCE.N: Quote, Profile, Research) when it considers whether to let the world's largest leveraged buyout proceed.

I would just love to be a junior lawyer in this case. It would be fascinating, I'm sure.

Queen's law grads to receive new designation

Bachelor of Laws degree will no longer be issued by the university

Posted By BY JANE SWITZER, FOR THE WHIG-STANDARD

What's in a name? that's what students and alumni of the Queen's Faculty of Law are asking themselves.

This April marked the last graduating class of students from the Queen's Faculty of Law who had a choice between choosing a Bachelor of Laws (LL. B) or a Juris Doctor (JD) designation on their diploma.

Controversy surrounding the change in designation has been building since William Flanagan, dean of the Queen's Faculty of Law, made the announcement that all future graduating classes in the Faculty of Law will have their LL. B designations replaced with JD designations in 2007.

Read this informative article here, and post your comments on this blog.

LLB VS. JD - As it Happens - CBC

LLB VS. JD

Duration: 00:05:23

MA. B.Sc.. MD. Ph.D. Those are just some of the letters graduates get to put after their name once they've completed a certain level of education. Well a certain set of letters are causing quite a controversy at the Queen's University Law School in Kingston, Ontario. Currently, law school graduates complete their LL.B. But Bill Flanagan, the dean of the law department, is urging that law graduates should actually receive a JD, or Juris Doctor, designation. Is it all just a bunch of BS? We reached Bill Flanagan at his office at Queen's University. My wife heard this little story on the radio this morning. Might be worth listening to. I understand Calgary recently voted to adopt the JD rather than the LLB. I am still waiting for Alberta to follow suit so that I can exchange my degree...

Law grad goes the distance

Read this nice story about the Gold Medalist at UVic Law School (Meagan Lang). Nice! Way to go Meagan! I especially like the part about running a marathon!

Doctoral student bestowed with award from Trudeau Foundation

Irvin Studin’s gamble to leave a lucrative career as a foreign policy specialist with the Privy Council office to become a doctoral student at Osgoode Hall Law School has paid off in dividends. Read more here.

This guy sounds like he's priming up for the office of PM!

I couldn't understand whether he was a lawyer or not. Perhaps just an academic? Why would you get a PhD in law if you hadn't received a law degree or Master of Laws?

Laurentian studies law school

Laurentian University is examining the potential of a Northern Ontario law school in an attempt to attract students and professionals north. Read more here.

Career shift offers fresh start for federal prosecuter

This is a nice little story about New Peterborough federal prosecutor Mauro DiCarlo, whose legal career does not fit the usual mold.

Isaac Lidsky to Become First Blind Supreme Court Law Clerk

I tried to get to this article, but no such luck. Isaac Lidsky to Become First Blind Supreme Court Law Clerk. It sounds really inspirational, so if you know where I can find the article, please let me know.

Aboriginal Law Student Scholarship Trust Launches in Vancouver

Read more about this trust here.

UBC and HKU forge law school alliance

From Financial Post - Legal Post:

May 28, 2008

Earlier this month the University of British Columbia and the University of Hong Kong established a new joint legal education program. The Faculties of Law at UBC and HKU will each accept up to five students per year, starting in 2009. All students enrolled in the program will be able to earn the law degrees required -- subject to admission and completion of the professional course requirements -- for law practice in both jurisdictions.

Read the whole article here.

This sounds like a really cool program. Wow!

Revenge of the Temps

In February 2008, I wrote a post about temps entitled Attorneys Suitable for Everyday Use. It was one of the posts I was particularly pleased with at the time--and I was pleased to receive a very interesting comment on that post earlier this week. The full comment is as follows. My comments are interposed in brackets.

Begin Comment:

I quit my associate job a few years ago and have been temping ever since.

I love it and hope the pattern continues.

I work 3-4 months out of the year and then spend the rest of the time out of the US (where the local wage is much lower -- preferably by a factor of 3 or 4 times cheaper) doing what I want to do (e.g., ski instructor, language study, intensive yoga retreats in India, or hanging out on a beach enjoying life. [I had a number of friends in Europe who lived like this and loved it. Their philosophy was, "why work like a dog to retire early in your 50s and live on the beach, when you can do it right now? You might be dead before 50 for all you know.] In effect, legal temping has allowed me to do now what the average associate is planning to do when they retire at 40 or 50. [News flash: No one retires from law practice at 40. You may change careers, but you don't retire. And virtually no one retires at 50--and certainly no one I know.]

Moreover, every time I come back the temp salaries are higher and the market becomes more specialized. This is great for me, now I can make more money in a shorter period of time. [Law temping is certainly more lucrative than the teaching and table-waiting jobs my Eurofriends did in between their stints leaving in cheaper locales.] Additionally, the firms generally offer full time positions (litigation assistants) to temp attorneys who perform well. So, when I decide to go back to a career, I can get a job as a litigation assistant and then after a year or so, get an associate position at a mid-sized firm. Or, if I decide to go [and] open a law firm with a partner, temping allows one of the partners to work and fund the firm while the other one takes care of the clients. [The only downside with this approach to going back to a firm is that it is harder to get into blue-chip law firms from temping positions--although I have in fact seen it done. But if you don't want to do that to begin with, that's not really a downside, is it?]

Also, even though the salaries are lower than what an associate would make, you have to figure the associate is paying huge amount of taxes. By temping 3-4 months out of the year, I pay a lot less in taxes. [This point actually does not make much sense to me--you're still keeping more of the money, right? But I suppose the point is valid from a Laffer Curve perspective.]

I'm very happy as a temp attorney and hope the legal temping trend will continue. [I love happy endings, especially when they concern legal careers. Too often we end up griping about law careers--me included. It's nice to hear a happy story from a satisfied and fulfilled attorney. Thanks for sharing your story.]

A House Divided

The timeworn saying is that "Truth is stranger than fiction." That's certainly true in the case of this house, which I drive past every day on my (wonderfully short) commute from my house to Mississippi College School of Law, where I teach. There it is, a house divided: one side painted blue, the other side painted red. What a wonderful image! It represents our national state of affairs quite nicely. I wonder what Abe Lincoln would think of it.

It gets better, too. The house is not painted just any shade of blue and red. It sports a very untraditional (shall we say liberal?) shade of electric blue, and a rather staid and conservative shade of brick red.

And, of course, the red side of the house is on the right.

I absolutely love this house. I keep waiting for someone to figure all of this out and paint the whole duplex some bland shade of brown. I sure hope that never happens.

And it gets even better: the cars in the carports match the house. Not in color, but rather in make and model. In the blue/left/liberal carport (which you can see in the picture), a Mercedes sedan is parked. In the red/right/conservative carport (which is obscured by the tree trunk), a Ford Escort is parked. I am not kidding or making this up. The cars are there every day.

So this little duplex is our nation in a nutshell. Which makes me wonder: if we did paint the house the same color, or at least colors that coordinate better than electric blue and brick red, would we get along better as a nation? It would be nice to think so--and as much as I love this house, I'd paint it in a heartbeat for a little more political conciliation and cooperation between Democrats and Republicans, and between red states and blue states.

More on the College Cost Reduction and Access Act

So after a very busy April and de facto blog holiday (blogiday?), I'm back to posting. Among other things, I will be taking a group of law students to Seoul, Korea to study this summer. That will be a lot of fun and the source of posts over the summer. But today's topic is something I have posted on in the past: law school debt and the College.

In September 2007 I blogged about the College Cost Reduction and Access Act (CCRA), which has been hailed in many quarters as "the single largest investment in higher education since the GI Bill." There's been a lot written about it; a good place to start, I suppose, is my September post, which gives a summary and links to some other very useful information online.

And then there's the recent post on the CCRA by nonprofit lawyer and blogger Fannie, who runs the blog Fannie's Room. Her comments on the CCRA are great (and more than a little frustrating. Anyone interested in the CCRA and student debt loads definitely needs to check it out.

More posts soon.

I really liked reading the last few posts on the Canadian law school blog, Lawyer Like

It's interesting to hear the emotion the poster has about finally getting through law school. Good for you!!!

A little heavier reading for while you are in class

Whether you are in your undergraduate classes or law school classes (although y'all are on summer break now), you might be interested in The Court. An initiative of Osgoode Hall Law School, The Court is a site where scholars, practitioners and other interested citizens can discuss the recent work of the Supreme Court of Canada.

From their About Us section:

"Student editors under the direction of a faculty supervisor solicit and write brief comments or informative notes about cases that the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear or has decided within the last two years or so. As well, we publish commentary on other aspects of the work of the Supreme Court. Readers are invited to submit responses to the commentary, engendering a lively exchange about current issues facing the SCC. We also encourage interested readers to apply to become “Friends of The Court” and submit commentary for publication.

In addition to the central blogging aspect, The Court offers resources about the Supreme Court and aims to become the premier online location for information about Canada’s highest court. We are constantly improving our collection and welcome suggestions and offers of relevant material."

I have read it for a while, and find it very interesting and enlightening, even though I am not that big on case law (i.e. it's not a personal hobby of mine to read it). Summaries are a lawyer's friend, although the really good lawyers seem to be the ones who can stand to read case law all night long, and quote it the next day in court :).

Oh, and I just noticed that the Editor-in-Chief is James Stribopoulos, Assistant Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School, one of my favourite law professors (he taught me Criminal in first year law school at the University of Alberta Faculty of Law).

New law school a step closer to reality

Law society gives Lakehead preliminary approval.

Law Times - May 5, 2008

Northern Ontario has inched closer to having its own law school after the Law Society of Upper Canada gave preliminary approval last week to a bid from Lakehead University.
But, while the law society benchers voted overwhelmingly in support of the initiative by the Thunder Bay school, some voiced concerns and voted against it.

Read the whole article here.

Some of you have commented that you think that Canada doesn't need a new law school. Others have indicated that this new law school could fill a gap in the area that it is proposed for. What are your thoughts on it now?

I am of the opinion that there are plenty of law schools already, and that they should put their money into a new medical school, or rather into creating new spots at current medical schools. We are somewhat over-lawyered, and very under-doctored.

“How many lawyers does the province of Ontario need?” “Do you think we should be studying that?” Some very good and obvious questions were asked by Ontario Bencher Bob Aaron. Why would you even consider a new law school without finding out this key information?

Interestingly, the law society’s licensing and accreditation task force in January reported that the current demand for about 1,300 articling placements in Ontario is expected to grow to 1,730 — a 30 per cent jump — by next year. This is different than the information provided in a recent post here at Law Eh? (I can't remember the date).

The school would accept 55 students each year, with preference given to those from rural, northern, or aboriginal communities. Lakehead hopes to have the new faculty up and running by next year.

Wow, that's quick!

Native judge named to lead healing forum

See the news story at the National Post.

Justice Harry LaForme, a Mississauga Indian from Ontario, was appointed yesterday to head a federal truth and reconciliation commission exploring the legacy of abuse in Indian residential schools. A former commissioner of the Indian Commission of Ontario, he is a member of the Ontario Court of Appeal and was the first aboriginal to be appointed to an appellate court in the history of Canada.

I am so pleased to see this appointment and this commission. It is wonderful to have an aboriginal heading this, and one so well respected and well educated. I hope that it will give some of the survivors a sense of comfort and safety.

I am currently working on some residential school files, specifically with the Independent Assessment Process. It is proving to be extremely interesting. My grandmother went to a residential school, so I have a real empathy for these people.

Law firms do the math - outsourcing

I just read an interesting article at Financial Post published today. It was the 2nd part of a series, and is about the concept of outsourcing legal work to offshore companies (i.e. India). My eyes are opened so often in this career. Who would have thought that an Indian lawyer just outside of Mumbai could take on a legal task that me or my colleague here in Canada might be in charge of. If there is any truth to this article, I think that the lawyers in North America, the U.K. and Australia ought to make sure that they are doing their homework and that they are prepared to provide some added-value legal services, if they want to retain the kind of work that they so readily enjoy.

An interesting read.

Running low on lawyers?; Attracting attorneys to Peterborough a tough sell

Here's an interesting article on a subject dear to me: staying away from Big Law:

Posted By GALEN EAGLE

Peterborough Examiner - April 19, 2008

Coming out of law school, local lawyer David O'Neill could have done what most law grads do - move to Toronto.

The big money, the big firms, the big city is attracting a mass exodus of young lawyers from across the province at increasing rates.

Instead, the Peterborough native came home and joined a small firm. "Most of my classmates moved to Toronto," O'Neill said. "There are a lot more opportunities there and higher pays."

At 32, O'Neill is bucking the trend. He represents a minority of young lawyers who have chosen a smaller locale.

With the average age of Ontario's lawyers reaching 50 and most law school graduates heading to the Greater Toronto Area, communities such as Peterborough could be heading toward a lawyer crunch.

It's a tough sell telling people they need more lawyers.

Read the whole article here.

Law society should still teach ethics, say critics

By Nora Rock
The Lawyers Weekly
Toronto
April 18 2008

A Law Society of Upper Canada (LSUC) Bencher has said she is appalled by a proposed retreat by the LSUC from ethics teaching in the Bar Admissions program. “I think it is a retrograde step... We are doing the wrong thing. We are betraying the profession,” said Bencher Heather Ross at a recent conference on legal ethics.

An interesting article...read it here.

Revised proposal for LU law school being reviewed

From Thunder Bay's The Source:

Lakehead University's latest proposal for a new law school is now in the hands of officials in southern Ontario and they may have their final answer by the end of April.

Read the whole article here.

Results of the Yellow Pages Ads

Sorry for not posting lately. It's been over a month. But, here's some good news:

Last year, I had a small sized ad in the yellow pages. I only remember getting one telephone call from that ad. This year, we did the ads in my last posting. The Estates one was a 1/2 page and the divorce one was a small business card sized ad. We have received numerous telephone calls from both. We have been keeping track, and everybody we talk to seems to like the simplicity of the messages in the ads. We have gotten about 5 new clients from the estates ad, and about 4 new clients from the divorce ad. So far, the increased ad costs have been paid for and then some! I am very pleased about this. And, it has only been a month since the pages were released, so I hope for more in the future. I have also had a number of people call about separate legal issues (i.e. not estates or divorces), which I find really interesting.

2009 U.S. News Law School Rankings--Peer Reputational Rankings

Yesterday I posted about the 2009 U.S. News & World Report rankings for law schools. Paul Caron at TaxProf Blog has posted a complete list of schools ranked only by their academic peer reputation. The results--located here--are extremely interesting, since rankings by peer reputation vary (sometimes significantly) from overall rankings. Remember that peer reputation is one of the most heavily weighted factors in the U.S. News rankings, so this particular variable matters a great deal.

In particular, check out the comments to Caron's post. A difference of one-tenth of a point can mean a huge move up or down with respect to ranking within this variable.

2009 U.S. News Law School Rankings

U.S. News & World Report has published its annual rankings of law schools, but the ABA Journal reports that bloggers (again) beat U.S. News to the punch with leaked rankings. The U.S. News rankings can be linked to here; an ABA Journal article on the rankings (and links to the leakers) is online here.

Much is made annually of the rankings. Many observers are critical, and some say they do not matter. But for better or worse, they do, since many current and potential students, current and potential faculty members, and current and potential donors pay attention to them.

My view is that the rankings can matter far less at the top than they do at the bottom. Harvard is not #1. Does that deter people from going to Harvard? No. NYU and Columbia traded places this year. So what? They are in the top of the top. A slip from the top 10 to the top 30 can be a crisis, but that happens not too often, I think. And as Theodore Seto has pointed out in his article Understanding the U.S. News Law School Rankings (available on SSRN here--I highly recommend it), much of what affects a law school's rankings is outside that school's control.

I also think that what matters more than year-to-year shifts are mid- or long-term trends. A school may misreport and fall from tier 2 to tier 3, or may have a temporary spike due to a new building, or some such thing that has a short-term impact for good or ill. But what really matters is a school's position over a period of years. It's like global warming in that sense. What matters is not the weather in any given year. What matters is climate change over a period of years. "Climate" can be defined as the "average of weather." Perhaps a law school's "real" ranking for U.S. News purposes can be defined as its average ranking over a period of years. So that in any given year, a school like George Mason's rise in the rankings might not mean much--but its climb in the rankings over the past decade and more is decidedly significant.

There's one other thing about these U.S. News rankings that is extremely interesting compared to years past: the online version can be used to rank schools in ALL tiers. In years past the 3rd and 4th tiers were listed alphabetically only. But now, schools in the lower tiers apparently can be ranked. And in my opinion that is where the rankings can really matter, and perhaps be the difference between life and death of a school, or good fundraising versus tuition-dependence, or strong recruiting versus weak recruiting (of both faculty and students). If you are #1, or #3, or #9, yes, that matters. But it matters much more, I think, whether your school is in the 3rd or 4th tier--and where in that tier. If you are in the 4th tier, you'd much, much prefer to be at the top than at the bottom. At the top, you can claim to be "on the cusp" of a move up. But at the bottom, or in the middle, that's a much harder argument to make.

Mississippi Secunda and the Lateral Market of Doom

My friend and soon-to-be ex-Mississippian Paul Secunda has written an excellent article on negotiating the vagaries (treacheries?) of the law school lateral hiring market. The article is available on SSRN here. I highly recommend it as general reading for pretty much anyone interested in how law schools work--students, professor wannabees, current profs, and so on.

As Paul points out in the article, there has been a good deal of commentary on the entry-level hiring market for law faculty, but there is a paucity of literature on the lateral hiring market (the market for law profs who move from one school to another). So Paul, who is in the process of moving from the University of Mississippi School of Law to Marquette University Law School, has bravely set out to rectify that.

Personally, I think the article is great for a number of reasons. First, as already stated, it is a great resource. Second, it is an easy and fun read--not a common characteristic of scholarly writing. Third, while the advice is focused specifically on the law school lateral hiring market, some of the advice translates well to any interviewing scenario. Especially helpful, I think, is Paul's point that many of the variables in the hiring process are beyond the interviewee's control. Understand that, accept it, and focus instead on the factors you can control. That likely will increase your chances of success, and it certainly will reduce your stress level a good bit.

And finally, the article is a perfect example of how blogging can directly promote scholarship: parts of the article appeared as a series of blog posts by Paul on Concurring Opinions (see his first of eleven posts here). After all, novels by Dickens first appeared in serialized form, so why not law review articles? Dickens might even have been a blogger were he alive today--although perhaps not a law prof.

New Yellowpages Ad for Letourneau Law

The 2008 Yellow Pages came out today. My firm tried something totally different this year. We focussed our advertising on two areas of law. The ads are below:


My wife came up with the slogan below. I thought it was pretty funny, and my test subjects thought so too.



We tried to make the message really simple, with lots of white space, and a very clear message. We wanted to stand out from the other ads, which tend to be busy.

Let me know what you think. Thanks. I'll let you know if they prove to be successful or not.

This is one of the really fun parts about a personal practice - it's one big experiment, day after day.

New residence planned for Osgoode students

Written by Renata Valz, Production Associate, Excalibur online

Wednesday, 5 March 2008

Some students protest residence relocation

York University will be implementing a housing initiative next academic year that will provide a dedicated residence community for Osgoode students.

The new initiative came after Patrick Monahan, dean of Osgoode Hall Law School, did a tour of six American law schools in the fall as part of a renovation plan for Osgoode.

“In the process of those meetings, we realized that a number of law schools had their own residence facilities for law students,” Monahan said.“We were told that this had proven to be a very attractive option for the students and that it had increased the acceptance rate of students accepting offers that were made by the school.”

Upon the dean’s return, he and his team investigated whether a dedicated law school residence would be feasible.

According to Monahan, consultation with students proved favourable.

“The students felt it would be a very desirable option.”

Read the whole article here.

New courtroom drama worth a look

As played by JuliannaMargulies in the newcourtroom drama Canterbury's Law , Elizabeth Canterbury is impulsive, impetuous and struggling with substance abuse and turmoil in her personal life. She burned through law school in recordtime, awhiz kidwith a bright future in front of her. Now, though, hardened by experience and disillusionment, she feels that future slipping away.

Canterbury's Law has terrific style. It's fast, fast, fast - jumping from frenzied image to frenzied image. There aremore moments in the first fiveminutes than there are inan entire hour of other courtroom dramas.

Anybody seen this new show? Read more about it in the Calgary Herald here.

Behold, UofT's new law school

When Toronto architect Siamak Hariri was looking for inspiration in designing a law school, he visited the esteemed campuses of Yale and Harvard, along with Columbia University and New York University, some of the top legal institutions in the U.S.

The research bore fruit, as his design was picked over two other firms today, in the bid to build the University of Toronto’s new $60-million law school.

Read the whole article here.

Boy passes law school exam

An eight-year-old boy with dreams of becoming a judge has passed a law school entrance exam, shocking Brazil's legal profession and prompting a federal investigation.

This is a really sweet little article that makes you wonder :).

Law is Cool

I've added a new student blog to my blog roll. Law is Cool features a whole slew of law students from law schools in Canada, and it has a nice, eclectic blend of posts. Check out the March 8, 2008 post called Virtual Genocide in the U.S. No, it's not a political screed--just funny.

Most interesting to me are the podcasts. Check out Podcast Episode #7. It features Law is Cool bloggers commiserating about their workload, stress, and general level of exhaustion. Which I find very heartening. If these folks were having an easier time of it in Canada, I think U.S. law schools might be in trouble--there might be a mass transfer of U.S. law students to Canadian schools. (Actually, I'll bet many Americans would like the U.S. to export thousands of future lawyers to Canada.) I know that when I was a law student, I would've been tempted by the lure of kinder, gentler law schools in the Great White North. But fortunately--I mean, alas--that is not the case.

Updated online CANS / outlines

I haven't kept up as well as I should in tracking down law school outlines or CANS. Here's what I know about. I also have a bunch that I collected during my law school years, and I am happy to email them to you upon request.

UVic Law Student Resources—Student Outlines

http://outlines.law.uvic.ca/

Lots of first year and upper year CANS, updated yearly

Queen’s Law Students Outlines Site

http://qsilver.queensu.ca/~lss/outlines/

This was by far the most comprehensive site, with the best quality CANS, in my opinion. However, as of this second edition, it can no longer be found on the Internet. You may want to do some work to track it down, because it was so great when I was in law school

University of Calgary—Women in Law

CANS—http://www.fp.ucalgary.ca/womeninlaw/

A large selection of first, second and third year CANS

UBC Law Students’ Association CANS

http://faculty.law.ubc.ca/cans/

CANS used to be provided on an as-is basis. This was a very good site. However, as of this edition it no longer exists. Perhaps you can track it down with some work

Ed Chan—Outlines

http://www.edchan.ca/outlines.htm

Intended for University of Manitoba Students, but some very useful CANS for every law student

Melanie’s Law Notes http://www.geocities.com/melanie_lawnotes/

A few good sets of notes here

If you have any further sources, please let me know so that I can post them here.