Our Take On Things
Articling – Should it stay or should it go?
The Law Society of Upper Canada, the governing body of lawyers in Ontario, is currently grappling with the issue of Articling. Articling is a “practicum” that lawyers, who have finished law school and the bar admission course, complete with a law firm before being...
Signing Apps
With the increasing digitization of documentation and the proliferation of smartphones, we’re seeing an interesting trend in the apps marketplace – apps that allow users to digitally “sign” PDFs or other document types with their fingers. As a techie, I am impressed...
Limitation Periods – How quickly do you have to sue?
It's funny how the same topic can raise its head in different ways on the same day. Today was that day for me with respect to Limitation Periods. I know, really? Limitation Periods are not that interesting at the best of times, let alone twice in one day. The first...
City Licensing Issues
There’s an interesting news item making its way around today about a lawsuit against the City of Toronto and councilor Adam Vaughan. The suit alleges, among other things (or “inter alia”, as they taught us in law school) that the City and the councilor went overboard...
Should you become a lawyer?
In the past few months I have had the privilege of being consulted by many students considering a career as a lawyer. These students come from different places in their education, high school, undergraduate degree and even a couple studying outside of Canada. Many...
Collections Litigation
One of the areas where our firm really excels – and it’s an area that I don’t have a lot to do with, so my beaming sense of pride is socially acceptable – is in the area of collections. Whether it be in making sure you get paid for the work you do at the outset, on an...
Laws Evolve – Even When It Comes to Death
There have been several recent stories in the papers relating to legal restrictions on the right to choose the timing of one’s death or that of a family member. One story related to Nagui Morcos, a man with late stage Huntington’s. He chose to end his life rather than...
Keeping your most important business asset safe
I am trying to think of an exception to the "Rule" I'm about to make, but am unable to come up with one - if you can think of one, please email me and let me know. The "Rule" is - your employees are the most important asset of your business. You need your employees to...
When a Court Decision Spawns Law Suits
Today I was reading the most recent Ontario Reports – the weekly digest every Ontario lawyer receives that includes some recent decisions of the Courts. I read with interest the summary of a case involving a lawsuit by a client against an Insurance Company and an...
Logos
There’s an interesting article in Huh Magazine about the costs of a few widely-known logos. Seeing the low price paid for some of the more iconic ones is a good reminder of how much value can be put into branding at the early stages of a business’ development by being...
Out of Office
During the summer months, with people on vacation or otherwise disinclined to come into the office, we face a variety of questions in the area of employment law. One issue that keeps coming up is that of smartphone use. We’ve dealt with privacy and security issues as...
Trustees
Recently we’ve had a lot of questions about trustees – both in the context of the estate (formerly called the executor/executrix) and in inter vivos trust situations. Generally speaking, the trustee is the person tasked with administering the trust according to the...
Moving
It’s summertime and a lot of businesses (particularly smaller ones) take this time of year to slow down a little; senior staff like to take some well-deserved time off, people are generally harder to get ahold of, and this is the time that a lot of reorganization work...
Log Off
An interesting decision was released last week by the Superior Court of New Jersey, a US state-level appeal court. According to the facts of the case, the defendant had accessed a co-worker’s Yahoo e-mail account from a computer lab terminal, which the plaintiff had...
An Important Victory for Creditors
Our firm recently was successful in arguing against the appeal of a decision that granted our client Judgment against the officers & directors of a company we had obtained a previous Judgment against, as well as all the other corporations they were using to carry on...
Policies and Procedures
Every once in a while we are lucky enough to get to work on the holy grail of a client’s operations – the policies and procedures manual. Sometimes it’s after our business compliance audit turns up some unexpected sources of liability, sometimes it’s after some...
Facebook: What were you thinking?
How the mighty has fallen – or at least received its comeuppance. By now, you will have heard of this public relations and legal disaster, also known as the Facebook IPO. The great gatherer of personal information and annoying games (which thankfully no longer remind...
We know what we're doing
Do you (without looking it up) know the percentage of your income that you would be required to pay as child support if you found yourself in a situation that you have to support a child? Neither do I and that’s a good thing, both from a personal perspective and a...
ILA
Amidst all the Facebook IPO hype this week, there was the release of an e-mail from Mark Zuckerberg to his corporate lawyer, instructing them to dilute Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin’s share in the burgeoning company. Aside from the obvious professional...
The Civil Law System in Ontario is breaking/broken – but no one is noticing
The news this week has been of health care cuts and reductions in spending in that sector – there is good reason for that. The average person needs health care and it impacts on them directly. Cuts can seep into government over time and produce a global result of...
Social Media Won'ts
I am reading more and more lately about the idea of putting together a Will for your social media accounts. Some are advising that you elect a trustee who will delete or otherwise take care of your twitterbookspaces after you shuffle off of this mortal coil, and...