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 […]
How Can I Help You?
By Murray Gottheil | August 6, 2025 One day, several years ago, I was out for lunch with a banker whom I will call Neil. Neil was a commercial account manager at a large Canadian Bank. As I always did at such meetings, I asked Neil, “How can I help you?” (For those of you who need […]
Yes, You Can! (Maybe)
Photo by Elevate at Pexels By Murray Gottheil | July 20, 2024 In my heyday of clients and billings, my largest client asked me to handle an outsourcing transaction. I would hazard a guess that had it been completed, it would have made quite a ripple in the business community. A Bay Street firm was the […]
Does “AI” stand for “Abandoned Intelligence”?
By Murray Gottheil | June 24, 2025 There is no shortage of talk about the importance of lawyers delegating legal work to other lawyers and paralegals. Despite that, I have always believed that lawyers should not delegate work that they do not know how to do themselves. I questioned how anyone can check the quality of […]
Advice from Law Schools: Follow the Money to Big Law
Photo by Edotommo99 at Pexels By Murray Gottheil | June 16, 2025 One cold December evening, when I was 22, I lined up outside for almost an hour to get into an exclusive club in Montreal. The gatekeeper allowed the beautiful people in and passed over the others. I would still be waiting if I had […]
A Tale of Two Law Firms
By Murray Gottheil | June 12, 2024 Let me tell you about two different law firms. Big Law Group One is a well-respected Canadian firm with many hundreds of lawyers, some of whom appear to be happier than others. Some of their dearly departed professionals have told me distressing stories about their lives at that firm, […]
Be Careful What You Wish For
Photo by Abhishek Shekhawat at Pexels By Murray Gottheil | June 7, 2025 Those of my era may remember the comic book character known as “Richie Rich”. A nice little kid, but having been brought up by wealthy parents, he was not on the same wavelength as some of his friends. My friend Stan had a […]