Small ideas on legal practice, research and technology

Archive for ‘Practice’

A Step a Day to Leverage LinkedIn

How long have you been on LinkedIn? A few years? More? Have you added or changed anything since that time? Your headshot? Your profile? The type of content you post?

If it’s been more than a few years and not much has changed, now is the time to do just that! Even if you start with a single, small step.

Choose something easy…                                      

  • How about updating your headshot, so that it is current and engaging?
  • Simpler? You can change your title, so it’s not just accurate… it’s interesting.
  • Too much? Simply install the LinkedIn app on your smart phone
Posted in: Practice

Find Articling/Summer Students With the CPLED Student Resume Directory

CPLED is now hosting a Student Resume Directory on its website to assist students who are seeking articles. Students can create profiles here, indicating the type of position they are looking for, the location where they would like to work (Alberta, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan), and upload a copy of their resume. Employers can browse the student profiles and reach out to suitable candidates for opportunities in their organization using the Contact Form with each student’s profile. The Directory is free and available to law students seeking summer or articling positions.

[This tip originally appeared on the Law Society

Posted in: Practice

Celebrate Success

The holidays are just around the corner. Everyone looks forward to the cards, lunches, gifts, parties and general good cheer this time of the year. Maybe in some small way, it makes up for the cold!

So, here’s a thought to take all that goodwill up a notch. Why not use your holiday events as a platform to celebrate success? Whether it’s with your partners, your staff or your clients.

Here are some ideas to get you thinking about this:

  • Have you made new connections this year? Can you get specific about that eg how many connections, how were the
Posted in: Practice

#Detox: Putting the Smartphone Away

Smartphones provide lawyers with constant availability and the convenience of responding to queries and communications from any location at any time. But our devices can also be a source of distraction and addiction that discourage productivity and negatively impact our mental health.

A recent survey by Deloitte found that the average person checks their smartphone 52 times a day, while another study found the average person spends more than 3 hours on their phone daily. My own phone tells me that I receive an average of 78 notifications each day, causing a daily average of 73 “pickups”—each one interrupting workflow …

Posted in: Practice

How Do You Get Other Lawyers – or Yourself – to Write for Publication?

Making it happen is not always easy.

Chris Riley of Lexology has some helpful suggestions for increasing lawyer engagement in what he calls ‘content marketing’:

  • write about topics your clients tell you they’ve been worrying about
    • describe the issue and propose a solution
  • don’t simply parrot news items
    • add your own perspective to the story or legal issue
  • keep it short!
    • Lexology’s readers overwhelmingly prefer to read something between 600 and 1,000 words in length
  • use analytical data available through Lexology (and your own firm’s marketing department)
    • identify articles and topics that have worked in the past
  • consult Lexology’s ‘popular
Posted in: Practice

Take That Vacation, It Will Make You a Better Lawyer!

Administrator’s note: thanks to Erin Cowling for this week’s tip.

We all know that taking a real vacation makes us less stressed, more focused, and in return, better lawyers, better employees, and better bosses. Even though I love my job, I still need a break from it. I need to unplug and unwind. I need to think about something other than the law. When I do, I return to my practice with more energy and commitment.

When I worked for someone else, I always took all my allotted vacation. I felt I was working hard and I rightly deserved the …

Posted in: Practice

Get More Mileage With CanLII Connects

Today’s practice tip is to get more mileage from your writing with CanLII Connects.

If you write commentary on caselaw for a personal or firm blog, client publications, or any other publication, you can upload it to CanLII Connects, where it can be discovered by anyone who searches for that particular case, both on CanLII Connects AND on CanLII.org.

CanLII cases that have corresponding CanLII Connects commentary will display this info just under the case name:

Not only is CanLII Connects commentary discoverable via individual cases, the full-text is integrated in search results within CanLII, too. Per the …

Posted in: Practice

Set Small Goals

September always seems to be a time when Canadians get more serious about work. Well, we have a short summer and we need to make the most of it, right?

One simple tip that can take some of sting out of leaving vacations behind and getting back to the daily grind is to get into the habit of setting small practice development goals. Large or small, every goal adds value. Starting small allows you the opportunity to see results quickly, sparking the motivation to continue. Starting small also helps to manage procrastination, by reducing larger projects into bite size chunks. …

Posted in: Practice

Unclear Days: Computing Time in Statutes and Regulations

What does it mean when a statute or regulation says that there must be “x days between” two actions? What about “at least x days between” two actions? In keeping with the relative, wibbly-wobbly nature of time itself, the answer sometimes depends on where you are.

Federally, ss. 26-30 of the Interpretation Act set out rules for computing time in Federal legislation, such as how a time limit that expires on a holiday is automatically extended to the following day (s. 26); or how one month after March 30th is April 30th, while one month after March 31st is… …

Posted in: Practice

Get Free Ontario CPD Papers on AccessCLE

It’s been a few years since AccessCLE was cited here on SlawTips, and a recent mention of it on the CALL-L listserv made me think it would be worth pointing to again, especially since there’s been a recent development that makes it even more accessible.

So what is the AccessCLE database? It’s a repository of LSO continuing professional development papers from 2004 onwards. While there was originally an embargo on papers newer than 18 months, the LSO recently lifted that restriction and now all papers are free.

The Great Library’s Know How blog reminds us that:

“Continuing professional development

Posted in: Practice