By Julius Melnitzer | May 27, 2025
GETTING EXPERT WITNESSES BACK ON TRACK
There’s little doubt that courts have manifested an increasingly critical look at expert testimony lately. Gerald Genge, a claims adjudicator and expert witness with 25 years’ experience, is not surprised: he says the quality of experts’ reports has dipped with the introduction of mandatory mediation because the lack of judicial scrutiny encourages “a lack of rigour”. Insurance companies, he adds, aggravate the problem when they insist that counsel retain experts from pre-determined lists: “Lawyers used to look for individuals they knew and trusted and would give them a fair answer,” Genge says. In the belief that “It’s time to restate what experts are supposed to do and better ways to do it”, Genge, who has engineering and LL.M. degrees, has written The Expert Witness, a guide to “qualification, credibility, reliability, bias, writing, testimony, court attendance, and practice management” that is available on Amazon. It’s a must-read for lawyers as well as experts.
Related Article: OCA hammers experts again
UK REGULATOR DROPS DEI PROPOSAL
The Bar Standards Board (BSB), which regulates barristers in the UK, is not proceeding with its plan to impose a diversity and inclusion duty on its members. The upshot is that barristers, unlike their solicitor colleagues, will not be subject to a core responsibility to “act in a way that advances equality, diversity, and inclusion”. The Bar Council, barristers’ representative body in the UK, led the charge against the proposal, claiming that it would be counter-productive and “probably unlawful”. In withdrawing the proposal, Mark Neale, the BSB’s director general, told The Law Society Gazette that the challenge was “to ensure that merit, not background, determines success at the bar”.
Related Article: Osler bulletin: corporate diversity tanks
NORTON ROSE LEADER CHALLENGES SUSSKIND
Nick Abrahams, the global co-leader of Norton Rose Fulbright’s digital practice, has challenged futurist Richard Susskind’s claim that if AI developers are correct about the speed of technological advancement, traditional lawyers will have “little work left by 2035.” Writing in The Law Society Gazette magazine, Abrahams noted that, in the 17 years since Susskind’s prediction, “there are more lawyers than ever”. Lawyers will survive, he argues, because all technological advances have legal consequences that create more work for the profession; because “human nature still favours lawyers”; because quick AI adoption is not assured; because technology will unlock an “unmet demand” for legal services by allowing lawyers to offer them “at much lower cost”; and because AI is “likely to fuel a significant rise in the number of disputes”. But none of this, Abrahams warns, means that “lawyers can afford to be complacent.”
Related Article: World’s first AI law firm says system can do “anything”
OGILVY RENAULT PARTNERED WITH LEAFS
In a recent article, LegalWriter.net noted that a UK law firm had paid millions for naming rights to soccer team Everton’s new stadium, and wondered whether the Leafs would soon be beneficiaries of what might be a trend to “branding mania” for law firms. It turns out that Ogilvy Renault, the first Canadian firm to merge internationally when it joined Norton Rose Group in 2010, was also ahead of the sports-associated branding trend as far back as 2006 when if formed a partnership with MLSE, the owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs, by sponsoring Level 200 at the Air Canada Centre (now Scotiabank Arena), renamed as Ogilvy Renault Executive Suites. A source close to the arrangement says the partnership was “productive”.
Related Article: Law firm branding mania: Are Leafs Next?
LAWYER STALKS COLLEAGUE WITH RAP THREATS
Carlos Santi, a Florida attorney, found himself in a Miami courtroom after repeatedly stalking another attorney to his home and business. He also sent him as many as 100 text messages that contained “threatening lyrics from rap songs”. Police arrested Santi as he was carrying two pizza boxes bearing the names of the alleged victim and his spouse. He told police he was delivering the pizza to the alleged victim’s home. Santi did manage to get out on bail after posting a $2500 bond requiring him to stay away from his alleged victim.
Related Article: Lawyer disbarred for extramarital affairs
Julius Melnitzer is a Toronto-based legal affairs writer, ghostwriter, writing coach and media trainer. Readers can reach him at julius@legalwriter.net or on his website.