Civil Litigation
Resolutions to avoid litigation claims
I will enter target dates a few days early to avoid last minute complications. Unforeseen circumstances can arise on the day a document needs to be filed. Setting your target date a few days before a deadline could prevent a snow storm, traffic jam or sick-at-home clerk resulting in a missed deadline. I will familiarize… Read More »
Categories: Biggest Claims Risks, Civil LitigationLAWPRO Tales of Horror: The Phantom Client Returns…Again and Again
Recent LAWPRO claims have driven home to us the importance of formal retainer arrangements and avoiding the spectre of the phantom client. Unfortunately, these issues are not new. In 1991,William S. O’Hara wrote an article for the Law Society of Upper Canada Errors and Omissions Bulletin entitled “Beware of the Phantom Client.” He wrote: Of… Read More »
Categories: Communication Errors, Civil LitigationBeware the “too quiet” file (and Rule 48)
If you are lucky enough to have a busy practice, you may welcome the brief respite you get when a legal matter goes temporarily dormant. There are three rules for taking advantage of these lulls, however: first, any such periods must in fact be brief and temporary; second, you must understand the reason for the… Read More »
Categories: Civil LitigationGTA lawyers take note of New Motion Practice Direction (Toronto)
On November 18, 2013, the Toronto Motions Scheduling Unit circulated an email with details of a new scheduling policy. The contents of that message are as follows: Please make note of the following important new information for the Motions & Scheduling Unit: As of November 18, 2013, any date requisitioned for a motion will be… Read More »
Categories: Civil LitigationLAWPRO Magazine article: Eight practical precautions to avoid Rule 48 claims
This is taken from Know How Administrative Dismissal Claims Happen, and Take Eight Steps To Immunize Yourself Against Them which appears in the September 2013 issue of LAWPRO Magazine. The article also contains the Dimissal Motions: What is the Test? chart by Debra Rolph, LAWPRO’s director of resarch. Rule 48 claims arise when it is… Read More »
Categories: Civil LitigationLAWPRO Magazine: Avoiding the Unintentional Expansion of Retainers
Here’s the scenario: A lawyer is retained to assist a client with a tort claim and an accident benefits claim. The client, meanwhile, has been informed that the long-term disability (LTD) benefits provided by her employer’s group plan are about to be terminated. In an effort to forestall the termination of benefits, she asks the… Read More »
Categories: Family Law, Civil Litigation, Communication ErrorsAccess-to-justice barriers hurt ALL of us. What can lawyers do?
Here at LAWPRO, we monitor the news, especially legal journalism, to better understand the challenges facing lawyers. It’s rare that a week goes by without a story about barriers to access to justice. Indeed, while doing research for a feature about the challenges facing family lawyers in August 2012 (read it here), we were struck… Read More »
Categories: Family Law, Civil LitigationAdministrative dismissals: Don’t be caught standing when the music stops
This article by Nora Rock (corporate writer and policy analyst at LAWPRO) originally appeared in the August 31 issue of The Lawyers Weekly published by LexisNexis Canada Inc. Like fossil fuels and the saber toothed-tiger, judicial patience is a non-renewable resource. We at LAWPRO are especially mindful of the limits of judicial forbearance in the… Read More »
Categories: Civil Litigation