As electronic discovery in Canada evolves roughly in parallel with the U.S., if not at a slower pace, many law firms and corporate legal departments here are beginning to bump up against a decision point that more of their U.S. counterparts have already confronted: outsource or “insource.”

 

Janet Stewart

Everyone in London, Ont., knows Janet Stewart. It is here that she is the heart and soul of many community endeavours as well as being one of the most respected lawyers in her field. You can see from her curriculum vitae on the web site of Lerners LLP the extent of her interests and the many expressions of gratitude she has received, because she won’t tell you about them. You would need a degree in dentistry to extract any embellishment of her achievements from Stewart herself.

Barbara Boake well understands how difficult it is to predict what will happen in the complex negotiations or adversarial processes in which lawyers are routinely engaged. But the Toronto-based partner at McCarthy Tétrault LLP also knows that more predictability — a better understanding of potential outcomes and fees — is exactly what clients are looking for, especially in an economy where budgets are constrained and all costs are scrutinized.

Junior lawyer Matthieu Proulx probably works out a little harder than most of his colleagues. After all, Proulx has to be in top shape if he’s going to play a sixth season with the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League.

 

Condominiums are hot again and so are condo laws. In spite of a recession that took most of the air out of real estate bubbles, the frantic pace of condo development is picking up again in major Canadian cities.

 

Rebecca Hiltz LeBlanc has performed for up to 10,000 people at a time, but these days she faces intimidating, single-member audiences — in the courtroom. “It’s much more frightening to be in front of one judge,” says the associate with the Nova Scotia firm Boyne Clarke.

 

Now that several U.S. law firms have run away from the lockstep model for associate compensation, many Canadian firms are looking to move in the same direction, though not at the same pace.

Quebec City lawyer Micheline Montreuil made history in the first case she pleaded as a woman.

Micheline Montreuil

It began in 1997 when Montreuil, an out-of-the-closet transgender who had practised law for 25 years as Pierre Montreuil, launched the first of three highly publicized court challenges against the refusal by Quebec’s registrar of civil status to allow her to legally change her name to Micheline.

So far, only Quebec has introduced legislation to stop lawsuits from big companies that appear to pick on the little guys opposing their plans. Goliath didn’t have the option of suing David for malicious use of a slingshot, but today’s corporate giants can and sometimes do use the law as a blunt instrument to intimidate weaker foes.

 

Five years ago, the legal department at Lufthansa German Airlines started using Legalbill, a software-based audit and compliance service. Legalbill helps companies monitor — and control — legal spending.