Why Do We Regulate Lawyers?

This is my first legal ethics column for Slaw. I am delighted and honoured to be taking the place of my former colleague, mentor, and all-around legal ethics and regulation rock star, Malcolm Mercer, who recently assumed the role of Chair of Ontario’s Law Society Tribunal. In the coming months and beyond, I look forward to using this space to consider rules of professional conduct and discipline; governance issues in lawyer regulation; legal education and training; and the future of legal servic...
Tags: Law, Society, Alberta, Legal Ethics, Columbia, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Law Society, Malcolm, Gillian Hadfield, Alice Woolley, Malcolm Mercer, Lisa Trabucco, Ontario The Society, Michael J Trebilcock, Professional Organization Committee Ministry

Call Upon Departmental New York Disciplinary Committee To Disbar Rudy Giuliani

Even before urging that a mob engage in 'combat' during a coup attempt, Rudy Giuliani was an embarrassment to the legal profession.
Tags: Law, Rudy Giuliani, Legal Ethics, Jonathan Wolf, Coup Attempt, Upon Departmental New York Disciplinary Committee

Is It Time to Regulate Collaborative Practice?

Collaborative practice is a dispute resolution process that is primarily used in family law, and it is currently unregulated in Canada. The forthcoming amendments to the Divorce Act include collaborative practice as a “family dispute resolution process” that a lawyer ought to “encourage” her client to consider, where “appropriate”. This suggests to me that a process that has for the last 30 years has been largely community-based, has finally come into its own – into the federal scope of the Divo...
Tags: Minnesota, Law, California, US, Toronto, Canada, New Brunswick, Court of appeal, Department Of Justice, Alberta, Legal Ethics, Ucla, Cpc, Cfl, Ontario, Webb

Former Skadden Associate Taken Down In Mueller Probe Gets Pardoned By Trump

But his career as a lawyer was already beyond help.
Tags: Crime, Law, Government, Donald Trump, Pardons, Biglaw, Legal Ethics, Trump, Skadden, Mueller probe, Alex Van Der Zwaan

Kraken Bill Comes Due As Judge Moves To Boot Lin Wood Off Carter Page Case

And Michigan AG has Sidney Powell in her sights.
Tags: Law, Government, Legal Ethics, Sidney Powell, Michigan AG, Election Law, Lin Wood, Kraken Bill

Judge Writes, ‘To Say That This Case Is Trouble Is Like Saying 2020 Has Been Difficult’

Things promptly go downhill for defendant from there.
Tags: Law, Courts, Legal Ethics, Legal Recruiting, Headhunters / Recruiters

A Taxonomy for Lawyer Technological Competence

Over the past decade, many commentators, myself included, have argued that lawyers should have a duty of technological competence. This duty now exists: in October 2019, the Federation of Law Societies of Canada amended its Model Code rule on competence to include explicit reference to technological competence. Several provincial and territorial law societies have incorporated this amendment into their respective codes, and more will hopefully soon follow suit. The fact that there now exists a f...
Tags: Law, Canada, Legal Technology, Legal Ethics, Ontario, Kira Systems, Federation of Law Societies of Canada, Alberta Court of Queen 's Bench, American Bar Association House of Delegates, Advocates ' Society, Richard Moorhead, Jill Presser, Charles Yablon Nick Landsman Roos

The Lawyers Filing And Promoting Trump’s Frivolous Election Lawsuits Should All Be Disbarred

It is up to us to hold people accountable when they profane the credentials we all share.
Tags: Law, Donald Trump, Legal Ethics, Election Law, Lawyers Defending American Democracy

Spicing Up Zoom Client Meeting With Oral Sex

Partner apparently fired after video surfaces.
Tags: Florida, Law, Sex, Legal Ethics

If You See Something, Say Nothing: Why Lawyers Don’t Report to the Law Society

In identifying professional misconduct, legal regulators are heavily reliant on client complaints and receive relatively little help from practitioners. For example, 71% of complaints to the Law Society of Ontario in 2019 were brought forward by members of the public (typically clients) while only 12% came from legal professionals. The problem is that there are many forms of professional misconduct that only professionals, and not clients, can readily identify. Misconduct therefore goes undetect...
Tags: Law, Legal Ethics, Ontario, LSO, Law Society of Ontario, Canadian Association for Legal Ethics, Criminal Law Division

A Holiday Most Fowl

It’s hard to choose those who belong in what we shall call the 2020 Turkey Hall of Shame.
Tags: Thanksgiving, Law, Biglaw, Legal Ethics, Jill Switzer

All The Unethical Lawyers

The role of Trump’s lawyers in this election underscores that solutions to promote democracy lie at home, not abroad.
Tags: Law, Legal Ethics, Trump, Mandeep S. Minhas

Trump Lawyer Whines To Court About Getting A Mean Voicemail From Kirkland & Ellis

Linda Kerns is upset that lawyers who have nothing to do with her case are questioning her judgment.
Tags: Law, Government, Donald Trump, Biglaw, Legal Ethics, Trump, Ellis, Kirkland, Kirkland & Ellis, Election Law, Linda Kerns

Rethinking Ontario’s Anti-SLAPP Law After Bent v. Platnick

In 2015, Ontario passed legislation aimed at protecting defendants from lawsuits stifling expressions made in the public interest. One aspect of this law is that it allows defendants to successfully bring an expedited motion to dismiss even in circumstances where the plaintiff’s action has substantial merit and there are no valid defences that could reasonably be advanced at trial. This is known as the “public interest hurdle” analysis and, more exactly, provides that an action will not be dismi...
Tags: Supreme Court, Law, Canada, Legal Ethics, Ontario, Legislature, Justice Issues, Bent, Platnick, Ontario Trial Lawyers Association, Public Interest In Pointes Protection, Justice Act Ontario

The Myth of the Honest Negotiator

A lawyer has an obligation to be honourable and a duty of integrity. In a negotiation, a lawyer will not be completely honest. Both of these statements are true, but they seem contradictory. The Federation of Law Societies of Canada’s , does not expressly prohibit a lawyer from lying to another lawyer, but the Code does include provisions that promote integrity, honesty and honour. In this post, I attempt to defend the idea that an honourable lawyer can engage in a small range of permitted dece...
Tags: New York, Law, Toronto, Canada, Alberta, American Bar Association, Aba, Legal Ethics, Trump, Merriam Webster, Schneider, Fisher, James White, Machiavelli, Adler, McGraw Hill Education

Judge Crater-ing: Judges And Lawyers Still Behaving Badly, Still Wrecking Careers

Career destruction via one's own stupid, thoughtless, and/or arrogant conduct continues.
Tags: Law, Courts, Judges, Lawyers, Legal Ethics, Crater, Jill Switzer

Former Biglaw Associate Accused Of Being ‘Serial Bank Robber’

He allegedly robbed -- or tried to rob -- five banks.
Tags: Florida, Crime, Law, Biglaw, Legal Ethics, Aaron Honaker

Judicial Analytics: Facing Uncomfortable Truths

For as long as there have been judges, people have tried to predict judges’ decisions. In so doing, they have always understood that judges are human beings. They are not calculators from an assembly line, each of which will display the same result if one punches in the same inputs. Thus, at any watering hole where litigators gather, it will be overheard that “Justice Smith comes down hard on drug offenders,” or “If your client has soft-tissue injuries, you had better hope that you don’t draw Ju...
Tags: Law, France, Smith, Legal Ethics, Jones, Friedrich Hayek, Federal Court of Appeal, Amy Salyzyn, Sean Rehaag, Judicial Analytics, Dalhousie Jaw Journal, Jena McGill, Salyzyn McGill

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Lawyers

Lawyers work hard and their successes should be celebrated. Clients have a hard time self-evaluating the potential quality of legal services before hiring a lawyer. Both these statements are true; neither is a good reason for Canadian law firms to collectively spend millions of dollars and thousands of hours facilitating for-profit private lawyer rankings. This column argues that large Canadian law firms (and boutiques that serve similar clients) should collectively agree to stop participating i...
Tags: Law, Washington Post, Canada, United States, Legal Ethics, Ontario, Bay Street, Canadian Bar Association, Pro Bono Ontario, Advocates Society, Litigation Star, Canadian Criminal Lawyers Association

Mediation: A Warning Not to Bully a Client Into Settlement

If a lawyer fails to prepare his client for mediation, and bullies her into a settlement, a court may find the lawyer negligent and award damages to the client amounting to the difference between what she settled for and what she likely would have obtained in court (or arbitration). That is what happened in Raichura v Jones, 2020 ABQB 139, a recent decision from the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench.[1] In this case, the lawyer was ordered to pay damages of $131,939. In other words, this case is a ...
Tags: Law, Toronto, Calgary, Gates, Legal Ethics, Jones, Ontario, Turk, Standard of Care, Batna, David Gates, Alberta Court of Queen 's Bench, Aaron Franks, Lorne Wolfson, Deanne Sowter, Central Trust Co

Ding Dong Lawyer Dinged For Showing Dong

History of sexual misconduct finally catches up to attorney.
Tags: Law, Legal Ethics, Dong, Ding Dong Lawyer

AG Barr Blames Deep State For Making Him Tell So Many Fibs On TV

If it weren't for bad faith, these people would have no faith at all.
Tags: Law, Government, Department Of Justice, Legal Ethics, Election Law, Bill Barr, AG Barr Blames Deep State

Enlightenment Now!

Most of us watch politics in the United States with alarm. Falsehoods are routinely offered as if truth no longer matters. Genuine expertise is devalued in favour of unfounded opinion and conspiracy theory. Candidates espousing bizarre conspiracy theories have gained political traction. Calls for hatred and division have become normalized. Shame no longer seems to constrain. Canadian political culture has not descended to the same depths but there is reason for concern. On social media and elsew...
Tags: Law, Canada, United States, Belarus, Seinfeld, Legal Ethics, Ontario, Allen, Alexander Lukashenko, Jerry Stiller, Danielle Allen, Groia, Law Society of Ontario, Law Society of Upper Canada 2018 SCC, Hong Kong Belarus, Osgoode Hall Law School Last

Justice Patrick Smith’s Conduct Should Remain a Cautionary Tale

On May 21, 2020, the Federal Court released a decision (2020 FC 629) strongly in favour of Justice Patrick Smith, a judge of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, and highly critical of the Canadian Judicial Council. It is unfortunate that the decision is so one-sided. The CJC deserves some of the criticism. However, the position taken by the CJC is not as untenable as the court claims. More importantly, there is legitimate cause for concern about Justice Smith’s conduct. This litigation arises...
Tags: Justice, Law, Smith, Law School, Legal Ethics, Northwest, Federal Court, Dean, Ontario Superior Court of Justice, Patrick Smith, Judicial Council, CJC, Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre, Review Panel, Lakehead University, Justice Smith

NY Bar Properly Rolls Its Eyes At Ethics Complaint Against Chuck Schumer

But the conservatives behind the complaint just can't let go.
Tags: Supreme Court, Law, Government, Courts, Legal Ethics, Chuck Schumer

A Good Day for Self-Regulation: The LSO’s Family Law Paralegal Proposal

Paralegals have been licensed to independently offer legal services in Ontario since 2007. Their current scope of practice includes tribunal and small claims matters, provincial offences, and some other legal needs. Last month, the Law Society of Ontario’s Family Law Working Group proposed that paralegals, with special training, be allowed to offer family law services as well. The scope of practice proposed for paralegals in family law is surprisingly broad. I had expected that it might be confi...
Tags: Law, Washington, Legal Ethics, Ontario, Floyd, Law Society, LSO, Working Group, Family Law Working Group

Florida Judge Faces Reprimand Over His Crowd Control Technique

This judge reportedly flew right off the handle.
Tags: Florida, Law, Courts, Legal Ethics, David Miller, State Judges