Friday, November 30, 2012

140Law - Legal Headlines for Friday, November 30, 2012

Here are the leading legal headlines from Wise Law on Twitter for Friday, November 30, 2012:
- Rachel Spence, Law Clerk

Visit our Toronto Law Office website: www.wiselaw.net
 

Thursday, November 29, 2012

140Law - Legal Headlines for Thursday, November 29, 2012

 Here are the leading legal headlines from Wise Law on Twitter for Thursday, November 29, 2012:

- Rachel Spence, Law Clerk

Visit our Toronto Law Office website: www.wiselaw.net

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

140Law - Legal Headlines for Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Here are the leading legal headlines from Wise Law on Twitter for Wednesday, November 28, 2012:
- Rachel Spence, Law Clerk

Visit our Toronto Law Office website: www.wiselaw.net

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

140Law - Legal Headlines for Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Here are the leading legal headlines from Wise Law on Twitter for Tuesday, November 27, 2012:
- Rachel Spence, Law Clerk
Visit our Toronto Law Office website: www.wiselaw.net

Toronto's Ford Follies

Of course the mayor will now appeal his removal from office and attempt to run the clock until the next municipal elections in 2014.

(The guy spends more time in court than I do...)

It almost makes one yearn for the relative calm of the sedate and dignified Lastman years.
- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
Visit our Toronto Law Office website: www.wiselaw.net

Monday, November 26, 2012

Canadian Lawyer Magazine: "Brief Intro to Lawyers on Twitter"

Nova Scotia lawyer Damian J. Penny providers a kind take on our Twitter feed in  his Canadian Lawyer Magazine article, A brief intro to lawyers on Twitter:

Toronto lawyer Garry J. Wise, in particular, has turned his Twitter feed (@wiselaw) into a must-read for Canadian lawyers, especially those practising family law. As I write this, he has posted 20 tweets — on everything from disciplinary proceedings before the Law Society of Upper Canada, to a constitutional challenge to warnings on cigarette packages, to news about a major discovery on Mars.

If only he’d use his Twitter account to tell us how he manages to go without sleep.
Like many Twitter users, Wise uses his feed as an extension of his blog (which actually features a daily recap of his tweets). 
Thanks very much to Canadian Lawyer for the mention.

And about that "sleep" thing? Well, Damian, that will just have to stay between me and the tooth fairy...
- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
Visit our Toronto Law Office website: www.wiselaw.net

140Law - Legal Headlines for Monday, November 26, 2012

Here are the leading legal headlines from Wise Law on Twitter for Monday, November 26, 2012:
-Rachel Spence, Law Clerk

Visit our Toronto Law Office website: www.wiselaw.net

Friday, November 23, 2012

140Law - Legal Headlines for Friday, November 23, 2012

Here are the leading legal headlines from Wise Law on Twitter for Friday, November 23, 2012:
- Rachel Spence, Law Clerk

Visit our Toronto Law Office website: www.wiselaw.net

Reflections on the Articling Debate That Was

While I certainly didn't favour the Ontario Articling Task Force's majority recommendations that were adopted by the Law Society's Benchers at Convocation yesterday, I don't think the vote for approval was a terrible outcome.

Some good may well come of it, yet.

As clumsy, semi-feudal and wholly undefined as the new two-tier system may now appear to be, if the new pathway ultimately comes to fruition - and I still have genuine lingering doubts about that - it will at very least, and at long last, eliminate the articling "numbers crisis."  Nobody can seriously object to that.

We are left with many unanswered questions about the structure, curriculum, delivery and cost - to the Bar and prospective licensees - of the new, alternate path for licensing.

Many of us objected to the new approach because we felt it to be inadequately creative, bold, innovative or respectful of time-tested evidence as to the necessity of articling in the making of a lawyer.

Hope nevertheless remains that the development and refinement of this new educational path will begin with a deep and genuine analysis of the practical skills actually required to enter today's legal profession, a profession that is increasingly being better understood and defined by the Jordan Furlongs and Mitchell Kowalskis among us than our Benchers and regulators.

Let us not train our new lawyers for entry into a prior generation's legal profession.

We must first develop a better understanding of what it will take to succeed as a professional, proprietor and manager in today's and tomorrow's legal profession.

Advocacy, drafting and negotiation skills, business acumen, practical skills, knowledge base, legal ethics, technological literacy, communications skills, social media engagement, and cultural awareness of what being a lawyer is - these considerations may be but the most obvious tip of the iceberg of knowledge a new curriculum must embrace to prepare licensees to enter a modern legal landscape now marked by ever-hastening challenge and change.

The existing articling programme will necessarily be impacted and ultimately improved by the conclusions reached in developing this new programme.

Ultimately, this pilot project - whether successful or not in getting off the ground and developing enduring credibility - will be a catalyst for long-overdue modernization of legal education and the Ontario lawyer licensing process.

We have our work cut out for us.

Let us hope this new pathway will not turn out to be an alternate "mere formality" or rubber stamped rite of passage into the legal profession.

Not every candidate for licensing necessarily must succeed. Quality - and competency - control counts more than ever.

The public deserves and requires that.

Convocation's direction was ultimately a compromise - an imperfect solution that gave most stakeholders at least a little of what they wanted.

Let us hope our profession uses this important milestone as a window of opportunity for genuine improvement in the licensing process.

Credit is due to the Benchers. As tempting as it may have been to  bounce this ball forward for another generation or two, they resisted that temptation and have acted with resolve.

Cudos are also appropriate for the open process that was adopted. Webcasts of Convocation are an idea whose time has come. Our regulators and the public will benefit from the resulting transparency.

I was very glad - and honoured - to have been involved in this process as one of the profession's "designated tweeters." The Law Society deserves real credit for that initiative, as well.  I am pretty sure that there is no other regulator of any profession, anywhere, that is more advanced than our Law Society of Upper Canada (i.e. Ontario) in its utilization of social media as a communications tool in furtherance of its varied mandates.

May these innovations continue.

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

Thursday, November 22, 2012

140Law - Legal Headlines for Thursday, November 22, 2012

Here are the leading legal headlines from Wise Law on Twitter for Thursday, November 22, 2012:
- Rachel Spence, Law Clerk

Visit our Toronto Law Office website: www.wiselaw.net

Video: Wise and Kowalski on the "Articling Crisis"

I had the pleasure of sitting down for a recent chat on the state of the legal universe with Mitch Kowalski, Toronto lawyer, Legal Post blogger and author of Avoiding Extinction: Reimagining Legal Services for the 21st Century.

Inevitably, our discussion turned to the current articling debate, a topic upon which we certainly have very little agreement. Here's the video of the somewhat animated "articling segment" of our talk:



We also make a bit of news in this video, with Mr. Kowalski confirming his intention to run again in the LSUC Bencher elections of 2015. "When the Law Society gets stuff right, I'll go away," he declared.

I'll be posting video of the balance of our discussion - we canvassed Mr. Kowalski's book, his recent speaking tour in the UK, and the future of the legal profession, here and overseas - over then next short while.
- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
Visit our Toronto Law Office website: www.wiselaw.net

Webcast Today: The Law Society's Great Canadian Articling Debate II

Will Ontario law graduates soon have an alternative to the profession's articling programme?  Will the LSUC Benchers do away with articling all together?

Or will common sense prevail, with Benchers electing to devote the LSUC's resources and energies to strengthening, modernizing and expanding the province's current articling system, to ensure that an adequate number of quality articling positions will created by the profession for aspiring licensees?

Tune in to the resumption of the Law Society of Upper Canada's articling debate today at 9:00 a.m.

I will be live-tweeting from Osgoode Hall, along with a stellar panel of commentators.

For those interested in more of my thoughts, my previous post on the "articling crisis" is here.

(And while I have your attention -  don't forget to download WiseLii, our free mobile legal research app for the iPhone.  It's available at iTunes)

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
Visit our Toronto Law Office website: www.wiselaw.net

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

140Law - Legal Headlines for Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Here are the leading legal headlines from Wise Law on Twitter for Wednesday, November 21, 2012:
- Rachel Spence, Law Clerk
Visit our Toronto Law Office website: www.wiselaw.net

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

140Law - Legal Headlines for Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Here are the leading legal headlines from Wise Law on Twitter for Tuesday, November 20, 2012:
-Rachel Spence, Law Clerk
Visit our Toronto Law Office website: www.wiselaw.net

Monday, November 19, 2012

140Law - Legal Headlines for Monday, November 19, 2012

Here are the leading legal headlines from Wise Law on Twitter for Monday, November 19, 2012:
- Rachel Spence, Law Clerk
Visit our Toronto Law Office website: www.wiselaw.net