Keep Current: A review of provincial Section meetings.

Criminal Justice Victoria Meeting: June 6, 2011 Speaker: Orville Nickel Topic: Police Use of Force Part One: a Presentation by Orville Nickel		Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) – Nanaimo and Family Law – Nanaimo Joint Meeting Meeting: June 16, 2011 Speaker: Sally Campbell Topic: Reviewing Our Role in Conflict
Wills and Trusts Victoria Meeting: May 17, 2011 Speaker: Giuseppe (Joe) Scaletta Topic: Hallmarks of Abuse – A Framework to Identify Abusers of Older Adults		Senior Lawyers Speaker: Gerald Lecovin, QC Topic: Senior Lawyers Section: Brief History

Criminal Justice Victoria
Independent advisor and expert witness Orville Nickel discussed police use of force: what the police are taught and what the contentious issues are. Mr. Nickel highlighted the standard “circle” model for how police are taught and how they review the use of escalating force. A criticism of that model is that it may be too subjective, i.e. “if you see a knife, you are justified in ramping up your use of force.” What is needed is the introduction of certain objective factors that should be woven into the analysis. These factors include the officer’s strength, gender, special training and the subject’s own particular characteristics such as mental health, injury or apparent strength.

ADR – Nanaimo and Family Law – Nanaimo Joint Meeting
 Ms. Campbell was inspired by several key ideas in Bernie Mayer’s book, Beyond Neutrality. The field called “conflict resolution” is immersed in a culture characterized by individuality, competition, and oppositional thinking. The problem is either solved or not, the dispute settled or “failed.” This type of thinking can lead mediators to take on the role of the fixer or hero, and become overly involved in “solving” the clients’ dilemmas. Ms. Campbell addressed the idea of “conflict engagement” and examined how conflict specialists might expand their choices about who they are in conflict situations, and thus free themselves from the counterfeit nurturance of the “hero” role. Other highlights included the idea that in complex and protracted matters, it is a myth to expect that mediators “resolve” disputes; it is more helpful to think in terms of conflict engagement, where the mediator analyzes and “names” the struggle and works with the parties to address the struggle in realistic ways. In a society that highly values independence, and retains a strong consciousness of tribe vs. tribe, mediators are always working to promote interdependence.

Wills and Trusts Victoria
Mr. Scaletta drew on his wealth of experience working in the protection of older adults to describe a number of the situations he had encountered and provided examples of his hallmarks of abuse. This included control of finances, isolation, alienation of previous support system, ingratiation to the victim, and threats and intimidation both with the victim and with others attempting to assist or make contact with the victim. He pointed out that many techniques of abusers were common to other types of abuse and other victims. He highlighted that the degrees of capacity required for various actions or decisions in life fell on a scale and some decisions, which required very low capacity, could have substantial consequences. Being familiar with the techniques of abusers is something that would assist lawyers in drafting or documenting Will, Trust or Power of Attorney arrangements so that they can be alert to not being used by an abuser.

Senior Lawyers
This is undoubtedly the most unique of the CBABC Sections. Created in 1996, its purpose was to prepare Senior Lawyers for eventual retirement from the practice of law. It featured a series of lectures on such matters as “How to Sell a Practice” and “What to do with your Files.” These lectures were delivered at dinner meetings held quarterly. However, two things happened. Firstly, we ran out of retirement-type topics; secondly, lawyers continued to attend these meetings even after they had retired. Not only lawyers, but retired judges also started to attend. These meetings were their method of retaining a connection with the profession to which many of them had devoted more than a half a century and which they were not prepared to quit cold turkey. As a result, the talks became broader. While continuing to contain practical information on the retirement process and life thereafter, they now encompassed legal matters of general interest and now included memoirs of lawyers who had practised law in unique situations. The last two talks given were on “Investment Strategies for Seniors,” delivered by Michael M. Ryan and “Myths that From the Cornerstones of Securities Regulations,” by David Baines of the Vancouver Sun. The Section’s emailing list continues to grow.

Section News

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This article was published in the October 2011 issue of BarTalk. © 2011 The Canadian Bar Association. All rights reserved.