Tag: articlingstudents

Categories
Fluff

How Much is Enough?

Docks at a marina in the fall.

I accumulated some money practicing law. Not as much as I may have put away if I had practiced on Bay Street. Less than I would have held onto if I had not had a domestic reorganization. Not quite as much as I would have had if I had not made a few stupid financial decisions along the way. But, all in all, a tidy sum which should see me through my retirement in fairly good style if do not do anything stupid, get sick in an expensive way that is not covered by government health insurance or make any more dumb investments.

I have friends who have a lot more. They have bigger houses, fancier cars and more toys, and they travel more frequently and to more expensive destinations. Does this make them happier?

Yes, it does.

I really should have worked harder. And you should stop reading this nonsense and put in a few more billable hours.

Categories
Law Firm Management

Empowering Law Clerks

Old Letters Patent for an Ontario corporation.

During my career, I was fortunate to work with three phenomenal law clerks. I trained two of them. The third was trained on Bay Street. Each of them was exceptional because they were intelligent, capable, motivated, well-trained, and empowered.

Rarely accused of being overly immodest, I will take credit for empowering them.

How good were they?

read more about how to empower your law clerks “Empowering Law Clerks”
Categories
The Mentality and Attitudes of Lawyers

Lessons Learned from Boston Legal

Skyline of Boston Mass from East Boston.
King of Hearts, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

For those of you who never watched Boston Legal, my all-time favourite television show about lawyers, Denny Crane was the senior partner of Crane Poole & Schmidt.

read more about boston legal “Lessons Learned from Boston Legal”
Categories
The Mentality and Attitudes of Lawyers

Why I Hate the Law Society

Plaque in Niagara On The Lake, Ontario, memorializing the establishment of the Law Society of Upper Canada
Photo by Spudgun67 at Wikimedia Commons

Obviously, it would be utterly impossible to comprehensively address the topic of ‘Why I Hate the Law Society’ in the depth that it so richly deserves while complying with the LinkedIn limit on the length of a post. So, I will try to just hit the high points.

So, what exactly do I hate about the Law Society? Primarily its arrogance, and the high-handed nature of its decision making.

read more about why I hate the Law Society of Ontario “Why I Hate the Law Society”
Categories
Client Development

How To Be a Great Law Firm Client

White water rafters suggesting teamwork.
Photo by Pixabay at Pexels.

I suppose that the initial reaction of a law firm client to the question of how they can be a great client may be, “Why should I care?”  I certainly met my fair share of clients who could not possibly have cared less about whether their lawyer thought that they were a great client.

read more about great clients “How To Be a Great Law Firm Client”
Categories
Law Firm Management

Lawyers Know Everything

Note that says "You are amazing" .

Since lawyers tend to think that they know a great deal more than they do about just about everything, they often choose to do things themselves rather than pay money to experts to do them.

One of the things that lawyers typically do poorly is performance reviews.

read more about performance reviews “Lawyers Know Everything”
Categories
Substantive Legal Content

Murray’s Rant About Rights of First Refusal

Pedestrian Stop light.
Photo by Davis Sanchez at Pexels

Bob, Ted, Carol, and Alice own a company. They have a shareholder’s agreement. The only divorce mechanism is a right of first refusal (“ROFR”).

Bob wants out. He goes to Ted, Carol and Alice and asks them to buy his shares. They refuse. They tell him to use the ROFR.

read more about why rights of first refusal are useless “Murray’s Rant About Rights of First Refusal”
Categories
Firm Culture

An Alternate View of the Legal Universe

The galaxy.
Photo by Pixabay at Pexels.

When I was young, so much younger than today, I completely bought into the fairy tale that the best and brightest lawyers are all at the large law firms and that everyone else is just not that good. After all, they practically teach you that at law school, although they never quite say it aloud, so I imagine that they have plausible deniability.

read more about whether big law lawyers are smarter than the rest of us “An Alternate View of the Legal Universe”
Categories
People I Met Practicing Law

The Hat

Man wearing a fedora.
Photo by Frank K. at Pexels.

My father had a rocky start to his career. There were many years at the outset of his working life when he did not make much money and struggled to pay his bills. When creditors would call, he would explain to them about the payment hat. He would tell them that once a month he turned his fedora upside down and put all of his monthly bills in the hat. He described how he would then mix the bills up and pull them out and pay them until the money ran out.

Finally, he would warn the creditors that if they kept calling him and annoying him, their invoices were not going into the hat.

Read more about bad clients “The Hat”
Categories
Legal Fees

The Quebec Shuffle

Elderly man in a suit wearing headphones and dancing.
Photo by Andrea Piacquadic at Pexels.

Many years ago, Maurice called me to complain about a legal bill that he had received. Fortunately, it was not me who had drawn his ire, although I was his primary legal counsel.

Maurice’s accountant had convinced him to go to a meeting with Peter, a very sophisticated tax lawyer, to discuss something called the ‘Quebec Shuffle.’

read more about transparency in legal fees “The Quebec Shuffle”