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 […]
Partnership – Not The Holy Grail, Part Three: The Disadvantages
Photo by August de Richilieu at Pexels By Murray Gottheil | August 23, 2025 In Part One of this series, I said that becoming a partner in a law firm is no longer the goal of every young lawyer. In Part Two, I wrote about the advantages of equity partnership. Now, let’s talk about the disadvantages […]
Partnership – Not The Holy Grail, Part Two: The Advantages
By Murray Gottheil | August 21, 2025 In Part One, I explained that as a young buck, becoming a partner was the ultimate goal of every young lawyer. I suggested that this type of thinking is, for good reason, falling from favour. There are good and bad things about being a partner in a law firm, and […]
Partnership – Not The Holy Grail, Part One: Introduction
By Murray Gottheil | August 19, 2025 At my first law firm, there were three partners. After one moved on and another passed away, the remaining owner announced that he had no intention of making any associate a partner soon. So I left. At my next firm, it was my job to create a corporate […]
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 […]