In the course of five weeks last fall, four of Canada’s top 20 national law firms underwent significant facelifts by way of mergers. It began with a pair of firms joining forces to enhance the scale of their operations, continued with a firm linking up with a global powerhouse to expand its international presence, and ended with a fourth firm swallowing up a regional player to gain a foothold in one of Canada’s fastest-growing provincial economies. It will take years to determine the value of these moves by McMillan LLP and Lang Michener LLP, Ogilvy Renault LLP, and Miller Thomson LLP respectively. What is evident in the short term is that law firms are feeling pressure to solidify their position in the market as their global counterparts descend on Canada.

Mama always said, “If you want something done right, do it yourself.” But then Mama wasn’t a lawyer.

Illustration: Dushan Milic

Canadian workers have been gathering around water coolers to complain about supervisors for as long as they’ve been taking afternoon trips to Tim Hortons. But only recently has the workplace grumbling emerged online, with the dawn of social media sites like Facebook. A recent British Columbia Labour Relations Board ruling, however, should make workers think twice before venting online about their bumbling bosses.

In what may have been the biggest murder case of his career, criminal defence lawyer Michael Edelson had no opportunity to unsheathe his most potent weapon. Known for his ability to cripple key Crown witnesses with cutting cross-examination, Edelson struck no blows. His client, 47-year-old David Russell Williams, a former colonel in the Canadian air force and commander of the country’s largest airbase, took the remarkable step of pleading guilty to two charges of first-degree murder. “This plea was extraordinarily unusual because only a handful of people in Canada have ever pleaded to first-degree murder and he may be the first ever to plead to two first-degree murders,” says Edelson, a founding partner of Edelson Clifford D’Angelo Barristers LLP, a small Ottawa firm with a history of defending high-profile clients.

Illustration: Dushan Millic

Few people have observed the profound shift Canada’s legal profession has taken in recent years as closely as Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP chairman and CEO Scott Jolliffe. Called to the bar in 1978, he says the pace of legal practice has accelerated to a rate no one would have envisioned back then. When he started out, “You would send a letter out, and it would take several days for the letter to get there. Then they’d consider it on the other end, and a response would come back.” That lag time has now evaporated. “When a client asks a question, they want an answer,” explains the member of Gowlings’ international strategic advisory group. “They are expecting that you are attached to your cellphone or your BlackBerry, and receiving their message as they give it. It’s instant messaging on e-mail.” It also means lawyers now check their smartphones at least every hour during the day, and especially before going to sleep and upon waking. “That’s just the way it is now,” says Jolliffe.

Illustration: Jason Schneider

A broad patent claim for a groundbreaking stem cell technology has raised fears that medical research and the development of new treatments could be held back by a corporate monopoly on intellectual property in a promising new field.

Joel Kennedy sat down with a road map after being called to the Ontario bar in 1974. Raised in the burgeoning city of Brampton, Ont., he wanted to pursue a more relaxed lifestyle and was looking for some direction. He focused his gaze on the low-key and lush northern part of the province, and after a few calls to friends found an opening in the scenic town of Parry Sound. He has been there ever since. “It’s a good life,” says Kennedy. “I can look out the window here and see my boat in the water and sneak away early if I want to.”

 

By the time you read this, the highest court in the land may have already ruled on a landmark case involving the country’s humblest workers. If and when the decision does come, it will bring relief to the many labour experts who have been waiting as eagerly as teenagers anticipating the launch of the next iPod. “I think it may be the most important case in Canadian labour law in a century,” says Roy J. Adams, professor emeritus of industrial relations at McMaster University and the Ariel F. Sallows Chair of Human Rights at the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Law. “The implications are absolutely huge.”

 

The economy might have improved, but the benefits have not yet trickled down to legal departments, according to the latest annual Canadian Lawyer corporate counsel survey.

The last 10 years have seen a phenomenon sweep through the family law community in the form of collaborative law. The hallmark of that movement has been that lawyers are only retained for the purpose of negotiating a settlement, and if that fails to eventuate, the parties have to find new counsel to litigate the matter. The collaborative approach turns away from aggressive, adversarial behaviour and favours interest-based negotiations. While collaborative family law is growing exponentially and has almost acquired mainstream status, it is very much in its infancy in estate law. Practitioners all over the country extol the concept as an excellent fit for estate matters. Why then are so few estate lawyers actually doing it?