Illustration: Anson Liaw

In most provinces, if common law couples want the same estate rights as married couples, they had better, as Beyoncé so succinctly belts out, put a ring on it. Those once-entrenched distinctions, however, are slowly being rewritten as governments amend legislation and courts hand down new decisions granting common law couples greater access to property and other assets. “For the most part, common law spouses do not have the same financial or property rights as legally married spouses and, generally, are not considered ‘spouses’ for the purposes of an intestate division of an estate,” says Tamzin Gillis, an associate with McInnes Cooper in Charlottetown.

Illustration: Jeff Szuc

The art of war has changed for shareholders and the companies they’re looking to bring down or take over. The weapon of choice for many: proxy fights. “Three years ago this practice area really started taking off. People thought it would be the new mergers and acquisitions. Time has shown it’s taken its place with M&A,” says Walied Soliman, a partner with Norton Rose OR LLP in Toronto.

The telecommunications industry in Canada is big business. And for wireless and wireline companies, it is exclusively Canadian.

 

Change is central to the practice of law, and perhaps nowhere has that change been as dramatically felt as in Canada’s youngest province. In the last few years, Newfoundland and Labrador has gone from being one of the country’s poorest provinces to one of its richest.

In an era of increased regulation, economic chaos, and business downsizing, legal departments across Canada are struggling to manage their workflow more efficiently, and still meet expectations. It can be a daunting task but many in-house counsel are successfully juggling demands and still finding time to have a life outside the office.

When Elisa D. Garcia C. goes to her office in Boca Raton, Fla., she knows a full day awaits. It may include a teleconference with in-house counsel in Brazil, an e-mail from outside counsel in the United Kingdom, a review of operations in Canada, and a meeting with the senior management of the company.

When Frank McKenna was premier of New Brunswick he delivered one consistent message to the world, and he delivered it often: New Brunswick is open for business.

Three years ago Andrew Kirk walked through the doors of the Weldon Law Building at Dalhousie University. “It was,” he says, “like a homecoming. Being in the school felt right.”

Nova Scotia's economy is doing well and there are loads of opportunities for lawyers who are willing to trade high salaries for other lifestyle considerations.

 

The traditional internal-external counsel model based on the billable hour just isn’t cutting it anymore. A model employed by Bruce Power and Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP is attracting attention around the country. It’s a notion of doing business that isn’t new, but it’s novel — and it’s netting great results for both sides.