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Category Archives: Ethics
E-document ethics and the rise of regulation
It’s been a great week for conversations with Law21 readers, because I’ve also had a terrific correspondence with John Gillies, head of Practice Support at Cassels Brock in Toronto. John brought to my attention an opinion issued this past summer by the New York City Bar Association regarding lawyers’ ethical obligations to retain and provide [...]
Also posted in Big Firms, Technology 1 Comment
Conflicts and the law of unintended consequences
The Recorder reports this morning on the rising number of law firm requests that clients sign broad advance waivers (or blanket waivers) that would allow the firms to act against those clients on future unrelated matters. Firms, looking to maximize the amount of business they can take on, are trying everything they can think of [...]
Also posted in Big Firms, Clients Leave a comment
Lawsuit investment and the limits of innovation
As you probably know by now, I’m a big fan of innovation in the law. But there’s good innovation and there’s bad innovation, and what’s emerging in the litigation field in the US and the UK looks to me like it belongs in the latter category.
LegalWeek reports that UK hedge funds are lining up to [...]
Also posted in Clients, Innovation 2 Comments
Professionalism revived
If you’re interested, here’s a version of the remarks I delivered this morning at the Chief Justice’s Colloquium on Professionalism here in Ottawa. Many thanks again to the organizers for inviting me to speak!
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When we talk about professionalism, we can start getting bogged down, because it’s a word that means a lot of different things [...]
Conflicts for “sophisticated clients”
When Clifford Chance General Counsel Chris Perrin talks about conflicts of interest, lawyers pay attention. The man whom the Financial Times calls the “czar” of conflicts has been working on the subject for nearly a decade, most recently as chair of the City of London Law Society’s Committee on Professional Rules and Regulation. It’s in [...]
Also posted in Big Firms 2 Comments
Give up on anything but yourself
A thought-provoking post by Seth Godin today that isn’t really about politics, even though it asks whether Hillary Clinton should quit the Democratic race. What it’s really about is quitting, which Seth endorses in a book (that I endorse) called The Dip, and the danger of changing who you are in order to achieve your [...]
Also posted in New Lawyers, Satisfaction Leave a comment
Page 123, and More
It’s a holiday in many North American jurisdictions today (including mine — someone decided that a day off in mid-February needed the patronizing label “Family Day”), and I’m at home working on a couple of projects anyway, so this seemed like a good day for something a little lighter. From Michel-Adrien Sheppard at SLAW comes [...]
Also posted in Purpose Leave a comment
Offshore reflections
It’s a few weeks late, but this article about offshore legal services published early last month in The Hindu is worth a read, although it’s not offered on the basis that all its contents should necessarily be taken at face value. It comes across rather as a corporate Q-and-A for SDD Global Solutions, an Indian [...]
Also posted in Billing, Globalization, New Lawyers, Outsourcing Leave a comment
21st-century legal education
This article was first posted at Slaw on September 28th, 2006.
I wasn’t much of an articling student. I worked hard, but not smart: my learning curves were more like sheer cliff faces. I’m sure I wasted a lot of clients’ money and lawyers’ time during my year of service, and the firm was right not [...]
Also posted in Law School, New Lawyers Leave a comment
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