BARE BONES BRIEFS: Ontario Superior Court approves $900M counsel fee | Equity partners’ income soars 42% | Four-day work week making inroads for lawyers | Airlines can’t hide behind “safety” excuse in denying passengers compensation for delay or cancellation

By Julius Melnitzer | August 26, 2025 $900M COUNSEL FEE APPROVED IN TOBACCO LITIGATION Ontario Superior Court Chief Justice Geoffrey Morawetz, who is presiding over the CCAA proceedings brought by victims of tobacco-related diseases against the tobacco companies, has approved (2025 ONSC 4497) a request by plaintiffs’ lawyers in the two Quebec class actions for […]

Going the Distance: 45 years of Litigation, 10 Golden Nuggets

By Jeffrey Leon | August 22, 2025 Editor’s Note: The author, Jeffrey Leon, is an active arbitrator and mediator at Arbitration Place in Toronto, capping a 45-year career as a trial lawyer and strategic advisor who recently retired from Bennett Jones LLP, where he formerly led the litigation group. He is a past president of […]

An Action Plan for Becoming Less Miserable

Photo by Martino Battista at Pexels By Murray Gottheil | August 15, 2025 I understand that newbies to the legal profession who have student debt and no client base often feel locked into jobs that they hate. I do not understand mid-level and senior lawyers who are financially stable and have a client base that stay […]

Should AI be declared a separate legal personality? Ask your motherboard

By Marcel Strigberger | August 14, 2025 Hey humans! Should AI be declared a separate legal personality? The Law Commission in the U.K. is studying the notion, noting that the thought is not far-fetched. This means the entity can be a “person” in the eyes of the law, such as corporations, sovereign states, etc., all capable of […]

BARE BONES BRIEFS: Smaller firms’ hourly rates outstripping Big Law | 87% settlement rate for mediations | Trump punishes immigration lawyers | Pension risk transfers down 60% | Rule of Law pledges growing slowly

HOURLY RATES NEAR RECORD RISE A Thomson Reuters study reveals that lawyers’ hourly rates in the US have soared by 7.4% in the last year. What’s surprising is that the growth for the profession as a whole considerably outstrips the 5.0-5.5% rise at top-100 US firms. While the number for the firms outside the top-100 […]

Law Firms Marching Obliviously into Oblivion

Photo by Akin Akdag at Pexels By Murray Gottheil | August 8, 2025 Back in the day, when law school cost very little and you could rent an apartment in Toronto for a reasonable amount, law firms hired newly qualified lawyers at modest salaries and gave them simple assignments. The firms also provided mentoring and training, so […]

Putting a contract out on contracts

By Marcel Strigberger | August 7, 2025 I do not like entering into contracts. The prospect of signing an agreement checks most of the boxes for a PTSD diagnosis. Mention the words “offer and acceptance”, and I quiver. I would say I have had these sentiments since I was 10 years old. Why, you ask? I have […]

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