If Paul McCartney can still sing Helter Skelter at 70, why should lawyers be retiring at 65?

As this is the last episode of 2012, it is fitting that executive coach Debra Forman focuses everyone's attention on year-end closures.

 

Around this time of year, thoughts of Christmas bring peaceful images to mind. Unfortunately for many lawyers Christmas time brings images of stress and worry as we try to wind up our practices before the new year brings another 365 days of fires to put out. It is no wonder why talk at the water cooler often seems to centre around who put coal in your stocking that week. So before we become someone’s holiday nightmare, consider the advice of Don Miguel Ruiz from his book The Four Agreements. In it he speaks of four simple “agreements” that can help you act with integrity.

The impact of the Ontario Court of Appeal’s decision in Sharma v. Timminco has now been seen in three cases in which lower courts have struggled to manage the practical consequences that flow from it. Its application to a variety of factual situations has demonstrated it creates an imbalanced rigidity in the treatment of secondary market misrepresentation claims brought by investors in Ontario.

On Oct. 25 and Nov. 22, Canada’s largest law society, the Law Society of Upper Canada, webcast its debate on the future of articling. For the first time since 1797, the public caught a glimpse of the profession’s elected leaders going at it full throttle over the pressing issue of our day.

Thinking back to this time last year, I’m blown away by all the experience I’ve gained in such a short time. Despite the “trial by fire,” I’ve actually really enjoyed my first year of practice.

I think we should change the names of folks in their 50s and 60s to Baby Doomers from Baby Boomers. My basis for this is the simple premise that we have drilled into our children’s head that they can do anything they want if they just try.

The reader might well ask what an architect is doing prognosticating about law? In an effort to consider the shifts in legal practice, the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice asked an architect to describe how architecture is practised, how design decisions are made, and how one proceeds from client brief to physical design and construction.

The 2012 tag line for Human Rights Day (today, Dec. 10) is “My Voice Counts” — highlighting the rights of all people to make their voices heard in public life and be included in political decision-making.