When you go to a conference and network with a diverse group of lawyers it isn’t necessarily obvious what you should do to prepare. The typical advice is to get a primer on recent headlines within the industry, or at the very least with local happenings. While this is good advice to start up a conversation, the tip I want to give today is that it’s possible to network well and make a memorable mark by “knowing nothing”.

The trick is to take a deep interest in people you seek to make a connection with. What are their hobbies? What …

The law, for starters – but there is a bit more to it than that.

Here are some suggestions, adapted from the Law Society of Upper Canada’s Guide to Business Development for Women Lawyers (January 2013). They are equally applicable to men.

• Choose your topic carefully
  • write about something you actually practise, know about or want to develop as an area of specialisation
  • you don’t want people to think you’re an expert on the basis of one article
• Recycle old work
  • a memo for a file could be the basis of a client piece
  • but be careful to remove any

When I speak to lawyers about improving productivity, some of the best feedback I receive is how to stop distractions. Research has shown that every time a person is interrupted from a task, it takes some 20 minutes to return to it. Each interruption costs productivity and, if you bill by the hour, you lose the chance to docket “0.3”. Here are some common distractions and what you can do about it.

Turn off cell phone notifications

Every cell phone beep pulls you out of the task you’re working on. If you are in the office, chances are the notification …

My sincere thanks to my fellow law librarian Diane Crossley, and to the judicial staff at the BC Superior Law Courts for collaborating with me on this column.

In a recent tip about what’s on CanLII, we learned that “Most routine matters aren’t written up in decisions, so the information related to them is not generally publicly available online. This means that the information available on CanLII (or any source of caselaw) for subjects like sentencing is mostly for unusual matters and outcomes.”

In today’s tip, you’ll learn more about when and how criminal conviction and sentencing decisions are made …

1. Slow Down.The point is to use email to increase productivity, not be the fastest to respond.  Common courtesy is to respond within 24 hours.

2. Be Professional.Yes, that joke your buddy sent you last night was a hoot, but you should never forward such communications to business contacts.

3. Protect Your Friends. When sending a message to a group, do not disclose your recipient’s email addresses.  Use the “bcc” (blind carbon copy) field for multiple addresses and place your own email address in the “To” field.

4. Do Not Use “Forward to All” and “Reply to All” Functions.I

The infinitive of a verb is the form with ‘to’ in front of it. As in, to be or not to be.

A split infinitive is a verb in this form, but with something stuck between to and the main bit: to not be, by way of example.

People (OK, grammar nerds) have been getting their knickers in a twist about split infinitives for ages.

Writing back in 1926, H.W. Fowler divided the world into (1) those who neither know nor care about split infinitives, (2) those who don’t really know what they are, but think they’re bad, …

A law firm retreat is an opportunity to bring together those most invested in the future of the firm, to discuss just that… the future of the firm.

Yes, it’s true, some firms treat it as a perk, a mini-vacation if you will. But don’t let that cloud your assessment of the true potential of a retreat.

For law firms that take the time to do it right – pre-planning, professional facilitation and action planning – a retreat can be absolutely invaluable. The clarity and insight that comes out of that single meeting can drive the firm’s plan for the …

My tip follows up on Bronwyn’s recent tip about noting up case law. Noting up legislation allows you to see how courts have interpreted a specific piece of legislation; generally the court refers to a section or sections of an act or regulation rather than the entire thing.

The fact that legislation is constantly changing does add some challenges to the noting up process. When noting up legislation, keep the following things in mind:

• Legislation changes. Legislation is constantly being amended, and a section of an act may be dramatically different after an amendment. Check that the text of

In 2008, I attended a talk by the late (great) Eddie Greenspan, Q.C. at the Law Courts Inn. His topic was digital security, in particular public CCTV, email, and smartphones, especially those with recording devices. He despised all three. Public CCTV, because of the invasion of privacy by the state (I can get behind that to a certain extent). Email, because it meant he received so much more communication that it took ages for his assistant to print and for him to scrawl shorthand replies for her to type. Smartphones were especially problematic in his view. He suggested that a …

Said
I think you’ll agree that ‘said’ (as in ‘the said party’ when you’ve previously referred to that party) is a little fusty-sounding, and has no place in your jazzy client-focused blog post or article.

And even in contractual drafting, it sounds more than a little antiquated. Said is an unnecessary archaism: be done with it.

Same
More persistent is ‘same’. To use an example from a few weeks back (emphasis added):

A recent case from the ONSC clarifies the law on whether municipalities can regulate boathouses and whether the Building Code Act applies to same, finding that (i) …