A Law Society of Upper Canada disciplinary panel recently held hearings into the conduct of Dorothy DeMerchant and Darren Sukonick. The two lawyers are accused of having acted in a conflict of interest without disclosing the conflict and without getting the informed consent of each affected client. At the time of writing, the panel’s decision had not been handed down. A lot of people are nervously waiting for it.

The release of the Expert Panel on Securities Regulation’s final report (the Thomas Hockin report) reignited the decades-long debate of whether Canada needs a federal securities regulator. Notwithstanding broad, but not unanimous, political support for its creation, there is no compelling analysis to demonstrate that securities regulation would be improved or that the benefits of replacing our current system outweigh the risks. The constitutionality of such a move is currently before the courts.

This issue of Canadian Lawyer is all about money. Our cover story, “Good business or cheating the taxman?” takes a look at offshore financial centres, not something that is much talked about within the Canadian legal scene but which has become more and more part of the practice of business and corporate-commercial law internationally. Offshore financial centres, or offshore tax havens as they are more commonly referred to, have been the subject of heightened international scrutiny and pressure in recent years from governments in the developed world. We take a look at how Canada and Canadian companies and law firms are using the system.

 

 

The recent Legal Marketing Association annual conference really spelled out how law firm marketing has shifted over the past few years. When I started writing on legal issues 13 years ago, most firms didn’t have a marketing person, let alone a department. That has changed and most dramatically over the last year to 18 months, those departments have become the focus of business development for the firms. Publisher Karen Lorimer attended the LMA and wrote a piece for our canadianlawyermag.com on the attitudinal transition. Well worth the read.

 

Civility. Sometimes it seems the word is on every lawyer’s lips.

It’s not the Oscars but award season is upon us in the business-to-business magazine industry as well. Canadian Lawyer has a long history of winning awards for our top-notch editorial and art direction. But this year, the magazine has added a new feather to our cap, winning an American Business Media Jesse H. Neal Award for best single article for “War of the words,” our March 2009 cover story by Lisa Gregoire that examined the battle over the right to free speech versus the outlawing of hate speech. 

 

Commercial courts have been established in various business centres around the world and are common in developed countries. Factors leading to their establishment in other jurisdictions are very much present in Canada, namely, a judiciary lacking expertise in commercial matters, overwhelmed dockets, and complex commercial disputes requiring expeditious resolution. The results are overwhelmingly positive. Canada would benefit from instituting commercial courts in all of its major commercial centres.

 

As I write, Canada is in the grip of Olympic fever. Alexandre Bilodeau’s gold medal resulted in the roar of victory heard across the country; tremendous amounts of fist pumping; and spontaneous outbursts of O Canada on the streets. It was a beautiful thing. 

 

Whatever you think of Michael Moore, the millionaire filmmaker who dresses like a blue-collar shlep, you can’t deny his popular success. He directed the most lucrative documentary of all time, Fahrenheit 9/11, and three other liberal polemics in the documentary top 10. 

 

It is a commonly held perception that Alberta is a business-friendly province. With little red tape, skinny regulations, modest taxes, a sizeable pool of entrepreneurs, a can-do attitude, near-absent unionization, political invariability, abundant resources, solid infrastructure, a reasonable cost of living, great skiing, private liquor stores, and a young, well-educated workforce, it is difficult to argue against this perception.