Ottawa is a long way, literally and figuratively, from the financial core of the United States, and my wife is the economics major in the family. So I’m not going to pretend to have any insights to offer on the sucking chest wounds opening up on Wall Street these days. If you’re looking for good… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Purpose
The day after tomorrow
As Patrick J. Lamb of Valorem Law Firm reminds us, change is inevitable once a marketplace has decided to do things differently. In a week in which the American Bar Association not only gave offshoring a passing grade but positively embraced it (Ron Friedmann and Russell Smith contribute their thoughts), and in which the prospect… Read more »
Could clients drive firms to do more pro bono?
Australia, the legal profession’s innovation laboratory, is busy delivering another dose of fresh thinking. The state of Victoria is requiring all law firms that take on legal work for the government to perform pro bono work as a condition of the retainer — specifically, to the tune of 5% to 15% of the total value… Read more »
Restoring the culture of trust
Seth Godin served one up on the legal profession last week, and he wasn’t even trying. He was writing about marketers and their responsibility to serve a greater interest than the narrow, short-term goal of increasing a client’s sales. He identified two points at opposite ends of an aspirational spectrum — statesmen and lawyers —… Read more »
Professionalism reloaded
The Law Society of Upper Canada has just published the papers submitted as part of the Chief Justice’s Tenth Colloquium on the Legal Profession, which was held here in Ottawa last month and at which I appeared as the keynote commentary speaker. If you’re battling insomnia and would like to read the full, 6,700-word version… Read more »
Life after lawyers
We need to start thinking about what the post-lawyer justice system is going to look like. I can see how this might be an absurd or even heretical notion to some people. But there’s reason to believe that lawyers won’t be an essential part of the legal system in the future — and if so,… Read more »
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! ========= When we talk about professionalism, we can start getting bogged down, because it’s a word that means a lot of… Read more »
Seeing justice through clients’ eyes
At the moment, I’m working on a paper about professionalism in the law, tying it closely to lawyers’ mandate to serve the best interests of others, including clients and the public. I thought you might be interested in this brief excerpt; I’d certainly be interested in your thoughts about it in return: There is a… Read more »
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… Read more »
If I had two billion dollars
There is persuasive authority for the proposition that if I had a million dollars, I’d buy your love. So what would I be able to buy with two billion dollars? Apparently, a whole lot of wide-eyed attention and breathless commentary from various legal media outlets. That’s pretty