The devil is in the details of the #MeToo Movement
Friday, February 02, 2018 The #MeToo Movement, a cause so noble in its aim of correcting the historical abuse heaped on women, should never have become mired in the controversy that now threatens it. But it did, the day that some of the movement’s proponents and publicists overstepped the boundary between “MeToo” and “YouToo.” It’s […]
Lack of law profession transparency preventing necessary culture change
Tuesday, February 27, 2018 If you’re Law Society of Ontario (LSO) treasurer Paul Schabas, you’ve got to be frustrated by the results of the recent LSO survey that prompted 20 per cent of responding articling students to reveal that they had received “unwelcome attention.” The results evidence the culture of a profession lagging precariously behind […]
Lawyers’ class action over unpaid employment benefits masks regulatory inaction over unauthorized legal services
Deloitte argues its use of such lawyers does not constitute unauthorized provision of legal services March 7, 2018 The strategy driving an employment class action between Deloitte and more than 400 lawyers is masking an issue fundamental to the future of the legal profession. On its face, the case is about whether Deloitte misclassified the […]
Canadian pension funds increasingly using co-investments to diversify real estate holdings
March 6, 2018 In their constant search for diversification, Canada’s largest pension funds seem to be continually restructuring their Canadian office building portfolios. “The goal has been to redeploy their investments by expanding internationally and developing new class A office buildings in Canada as well,” says Ayres Gonsalves, vice-president of commercial at Dorsay Development Corp., a […]
Dealmakers relieved as appeal court says privileged information can be shared
The unanimous ruling from the three-judge panel overturns a lower court judgment that treated the sharing of such information as a ‘waiver’ of legal privilege March 13, 2018 Dealmakers breathed a huge sigh of relief last week when the Federal Court of Appeal (FCA) gave them the go-ahead to share privileged communications with other parties […]
Don’t get too excited about the latest Canadian law firm rankings
Thursday, April 26, 2018 With a passing glance at Acritas’ Canadian Law Firm Brand Index 2018, many Canadian firms who have resisted the impulse to merge with global giants might just be patting themselves on the back. But the self-congratulation probably shouldn’t go too far, because any euphoria would be a tad hasty and somewhat […]
Chatbot aids firms’ privacy compliance by tagging clients’ exposure to data breach laws
‘Parker,’ with AI conversations, could save businesses from giant fines imposed by GDPR, PIPEDA legislation July 4, 2018 A chatbot named Parker will help clients of the global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright navigate new rules around how companies handle their customers’ personal information. The launch of the bot continues the steady incursion of artificial-intelligence-powered software […]
Blockchain is coming your way
Blockchain technology is transforming businesses in a wide range of industries. Are you ready? Jul 6, 2018 When Samuel Osei of Samuel Osei Law Corporation in Vancouver first found himself dealing with blockchain and cryptocurrency issues, he chose to keep his activities under wraps. “When I first started doing the work, I didn’t put cryptocurrency in […]
Meeting the AI Challenge
Firms are learning to adapt and prosper in the age of Artificial Intelligence Oct 10, 2018 As it turns out, the ongoing debate about the extent to which emerging legal technology, particularly artificial intelligence (AI), will make lawyers redundant or at least reduce the profession to a small colony of high-level strategists, misses the point. […]
Do incumbents have an edge?
01 Apr 2019 In the last bencher election, in 2015, all 22 incumbent lawyer benchers that ran for re-election kept their seats in Convocation, of 40 available spots, according to statistics from the Law Society of Ontario analyzed by Law Times. With the bencher election coming later this month and a record-setting number of candidates, hopefuls are […]