Our Take On Things

If you're a fan of The Voice (or forced to watch it because your spouse is a fan) then you're familiar with The Blind Auditions that start this singing competition. If not, it's not complicated: four judges have their backs to a singer who walks on stage and the...

Over three years ago, the Law Society of Upper Canada agreed to a three year trial of an alternative to Articling for lawyers seeking to be Called to the Bar in Ontario. This program is called the Law Practice Program, or shortened to LPP. The Sub-Committee of the Law...

I was recently in Court, on a Civil Motions list. If you're not a lawyer, you likely don't know that in Order to get your case on a Civil Motion list you must: 1. Serve the motion; 2. File the motion and pay $ 127.00 at the Court House; 3. Serve and file a motion...

Did you hear the story about the entrepreneur who went skiing with their family over the holidays and unexpectedly hit a tree on their decent and suffered a debilitating brain injury? After a lengthy hospital stay and another month of care at home, this unfortunate...

Yesterday our Paralegal, Murray Brown, celebrated 5 years with our firm. A "workiversary' of this length is something that needs to be celebrated and certainly, our Paralegal needs to be celebrated. In Ontario, the relationship between Lawyers and Paralegals has been...

Recently we have heard of many businesses being hit with Crypto Viruses. This is a computer virus that holds your data ransom until money is paid to hackers and you receive some but hopefully all of your data. Each of the businesses that were hit did not have a...

September is a busy month for our firm: many businesses who were content to let receivables age over the summer turn the page on the calendar and think "gotta get that fixed before December 31". This leads to a lot of demand letters and claims flying out the door of...

Sometimes you just can't fix stupid. I'll double down on that statement and say all the time you cannot fix a fraudster. Recently, our firm was contacted by an individual who was convicted of fraud while he was a Chartered Accountant and expelled from membership as a...

On September 8, 2016 Ontario Employers must comply with the changes to the Occupational Health and Safety Act that address Sexual Harassment in the Workplace. The changes are not difficult to comply with, they essentially involve ensuring your current workplace...

It's that time of year - students are getting ready to start Law School, Law Practice Program (LPP) Candidates are getting ready for their first in person week. It's time to Law. (I know, Law is not a verb, but really, it should be.) If you're about to enter law...

First impressions: you never get a chance to make a new first impression. A couple of older teenagers I know recently decided to go to a Toronto restaurant for Summerlicious. The restaurant was Fred's Not Here. When they met the host, they were asked if they were...

A few weeks ago the City of Toronto floated an idea (which has become common in many circles) that 50% of all of its Board Members must be women. I am a woman. I am a lawyer. I sit on Boards. I do not like that idea at all. The reason I don't like the idea is that it...

As a Business Firm, we frequently represent employers in Wrongful Dismissal law suits and we also help them implement policies to avoid those law suits. One of the issues that often comes up is failing to put discipline issues in writing. For some reason, many...

It's summertime and that means it's time to think about hiring Law Students for 2017. Wait, that's not what summertime means? For law firms, this is the time of year that students apply, interview and are hired for their mandatory work experience after they have...

You don't have to use a lawyer to buy a business. Lately our firm has seen many creative alternatives to using a lawyer to buy a business. Some of these include using a Realtor or selling on your own. The Realtor situation, which we have seen more than a few times...

A few weeks ago the newspapers were buzzing with the decision of the Honourable Mr. Justice Nordheimer to halt criminal charges against an individual until Legal Aid paid the bill for his lawyer. The basis for this is that the $ 11,000.00 income limit before you are...

Effective July 1, 2016, if your business is a "storer of a Motor Vehicle for which there is an Ontario Vehicle Permit issued" you must give notice of the fact you're storing the vehicle to the owner within 15 days and not the current 60 days that you obtain the...

Our firm's fantastic Paralegal, Murray Brown, is various Ontario Small Claims Courts each and every week. When we discuss many of his files, I can't help wonder: is this system broken? Small Claims Court is mandatory for claims $ 25,000.00 and under. Most of the...

As Business Lawyers our firm often has to tell clients there are certain things they have to do, even if they don't want to. The most frequent conversations of this nature are: 1. You cannot contract out of the Employment Standards Act Yes, that means everyone. Yes,...