The Final Report of the CBA Task Force on Conflicts of Interest: The triumph of common sense over formalism

In August 2008, the CBA Task Force on Conflicts of Interest released its Final Report, setting out 21 recommendations designed to modernize the Canadian bar’s ethical rules on dealing with conflicts of interest.

As I indicated here previously, the CBA adopted all 21 recommendations at the Canadian Legal Conference on August 18, 2008.

The Task Force has done an excellent job of articulating the ethical principles upon which our rules on conflicts of interest are based.  By keeping those principles firmly in mind, the 21 recommendations will streamline and modernize our rules on conflicts of interest, while maintaining the protection that the underlying principles have always provided clients.

Properly understood, the clarity that the recommendations offer has the potential to lead to a better understanding both on the part of the public and the profession of the expectations surrounding the legal retainer.

Judges and the politicized public inquiry

Jurist reports that Canadian Judicial Council head Richard Scott of the Manitoba Court of Appeal warned Canadian judges that they should exercise caution in agreeing to head up public inquiries intended to address controversial political issues.

Canadian Bar Association adopts conflict of interest rule change recommendations

The Canadian Bar Association voted at the Canadian Legal Conference to accept the 21 recommendations of the Task Force on Conflicts of Interest set out in its Final Report.

The recommendations would loosen the rules on when lawyers can act in situations that, up until now, have been seen as conflicts of interest.

More commentary will follow once I have had a chance to digest the report.

Legal offshore outsourcing: An ethical pandora’s box?

Gavin Birer posted this intro to legal offshore outsourcing at Slaw.ca.

Most interesting was his assertion that “… [l]awyers … perform qualitative, skill-intensive legal tasks … . By contrast, offshore legal outsourcing vendors typically perform quantitative, ‘lower-skilled’ legal tasks, and serve as a support to their law firm and legal department clients. …”. According to Birer, these tasks include “… document review, document drafting, legal research, due diligence, and much more. …”

Would Australia’s “hot tubbing” approach to expert evidence work in Canada?

Legal Ethics Forum questions whether it would work in the United States.

Legal Ethics Forum’s Rob Vischer refers to a New York Times article published August 11, 2008. That, in turn, refers to a speech by Justice Peter McClellan of the Land and Environmental Court of New South Wales, Australia.

Acting against former clients - the view from an appellate court

The Nova Scotia Court of Appeal’s decision in Brookville Carriers Flatbed GP Inc. v. Blackjack Transport Ltd., 2008 NSSC 22, is an instructive look into when a matter for which a law firm is retained is sufficiently related to a previous matter that the firm will not be permitted to carry on the representation against its former client.

The background facts are fairly simple.

Do lawyers lie?

I was relieved to see that a paper entitled “Fitting Lying to the Court into the Central Moral Tradition of Lawyering” by Fred C. Zacharias was, in fact, an argument in favour of the ethical principle, articulated in virtually every ethical code, that a lawyer must never knowingly mislead the court, even when that principle might appear to be inconsistent with the lawyer’s role of zealous representation.

The perils of being everybody’s lawyer

Once in awhile, lawyers whose practices involve business transactions are asked to represent both sides to a transaction.

On the surface, this seems like a reasonable plan:  why waste money on separate representation when no one is at odds with anyone else?

Everybody’s happy - they are all about to embark on a journey that will net them lots of money, and they don’t need a lawyer to rain on their parade.

These adventures rarely end well.

Insults: $1.00

Reuters reports that a schoolteacher and a beautician have sued CNN for $1.3 billion for violating the dignity and reputation of the Chinese people.