BarTalk February 2004
Volume 16, Number 1

National President Defends Legal Profession

Following a recent series of articles criticizing the legal profession, President Bill Johnson has countered the attacks and brought the perspective of the legal profession to the pages of the National Post. On December 31, he set out his thesis and described the root of the problem as being contradictory expectations.

“When public expectations of the legal profession are informed by factors as random as television programs, bestsellers or the news of the day, it’s perhaps no surprise that public expectations and demands of the legal profession are so contradictory,” he wrote.

He made his points through five key examples on: lawyer-client confidentiality; the rights of the accused; perception of lawyers; lawyers as lawmakers; and the role of judges.

To view the full text of the column, please visit www.cba.org/CBA/News/2004_Releases/2004-01-05_johnsonopedtext.aspx.

CBA Outlines Priorities to Justice Minister

Increased funding for legal aid, the impact of anti-terrorism laws, solicitor/client confidentiality, and appointments to the Supreme Court of Canada have been identified by CBA President Bill Johnson as four key priorities in a letter to new Justice Minister Irwin Cotler.

On legal aid, the CBA has serious concerns about both coverage and provincial/territorial accountability for funding of civil legal aid under the Canada Social Transfer (CST). The CBA has asked the Minister to carve legal aid funding out of the CST and establish a separate Access to Justice Transfer.

In light of the spate of laws and government action aimed at addressing security concerns, the CBA is urging the government to undertake an early, comprehensive review of the impact of the anti-terrorism measures.

While fully supporting the need to fight organized crime and money laundering, the CBA reaffirmed its position that the public interest is best served by protection of solicitor-client confidentiality. In the letter to the Justice Minister, the CBA indicated its willingness to participate in discussions to redesign regulations for the legal profession with the goal of fully protecting solicitor-client privilege.

Expressing disapproval of U.S.-style Congressional hearings for nominees to the Supreme Court of Canada, the CBA would welcome a formalized review process by a system like the advisory committees in the provinces and territories.

To read the full text of the letter, please view: www.cba.org/CBA/submissions/pdf/03-55-eng.pdf.

Nanaimo Lawyer to be CBA 2nd VP

J Parker MacCarthy, QC, of Nanaimo, will be acclaimed National Second Vice-President of the CBA at the Mid-Winter Meeting of Council in February. He will become CBA president in August 2006. Please see Mr. MacCarthy’s biography: at www.cba.org/CBA/news.

WCB Base Rates Remain Unchanged In 2004

Worker’s Compensation Board (WCB) base rates for law offices remain frozen again for 2004, at the reduced rate established following intervention by the CBA last year. The base rate will continue to be $0.15 per $100 of assessable payroll. The maximum wage per worker will be $60,700.

Last year the WCB announced a 20 per cent increase in the 2003 base rate for law firm employers. Following intervention by the CBA on behalf of B.C. lawyers, Sid Fattedad, WCB VP of Finance, initiated a review and found that certain unusual cost awards had skewed our profession’s rate trend. Mr. Fattedad then recommended that there be no WCB premium rate increase for law firms in 2003.

For more information on WCB base rates, visit www.worksafebc.com/for_employers/premiums.

Are You Compliant? Prepared For Disaster?

PracticeLink has guides for law firms
This month on PracticeLink, read the 10 steps that you should take to ensure that your law firm is compliant with new federal and provincial privacy laws that came into force January 1st.

Also, learn to survive in times of crisis through a new Disaster Recovery Guide for Law Firms. Plus, consult the site’s Quick Tips for valuable hints on how to improve your practices and increase your productivity.

Coming soon: Articles on the importance of client feedback (including downloadable model client surveys), and how to recruit and retain top talent in today’s competitive marketplace.

For all this and much more, please visit www.cba.org/practicelink.

Two Recent CBA Submissions

Impaired driving
The CBA has cautioned the Department of Justice that, at this stage, adding detection of drugs to the impaired driving scheme in the Criminal Code is not a good idea. In its December 2003 submission, the CBA warned that technology is still too unreliable for the addition of drugs to be constitutional.

Intermittent sentencing; Electronic access to court records
The CBA is preparing a response to a federal government discussion paper on changes to intermittent sentencing and to a Canadian Judicial Council discussion paper on electronic access to court records.

Canadian Bar Review Online

The August 2003 (Volume 82, number 2) edition of the Canadian Bar Review is now online in both PDF and fully-searchable HTML formats. Topics in this edition include: Electronic Workplace Surveillance; Solicitor-Client Privilege; Medicare in the Courts; Problems with Judicial Dispute Resolution; and Sentencing Soldiers in Canadian Military Law.

To read the CBR, visit: www.cba.org/CBA/canadian_bar_review/CBRAugust2003/August2003.aspx

CBA members are eligible to receive, free of charge, an annual bound edition of the Canadian Bar Review containing articles published in the previous 12-month period. To obtain your copy, e-mail review@cba.org by March 15, 2004.

These articles were published in the February 2004 issue of BarTalk and are subject to the copyright by the British Columbia Branch of the Canadian Bar Association, 2004, all rights reserved.