Finance Minister Jim Flaherty debates his budget in the House of Commons on March 29, 2012. Photo: Chris Wattie/Reuters

Corporate tax changes announced by the Conservatives in last week’s federal budget will generate some much needed additional revenue for federal coffers, but will surely be unwelcome by foreign multinationals who will see it as an additional tax cost to doing business here.

This article is a continuation of "Looking to the future" from the April 2012 issue of Canadian Lawyer magazine. Click here to read part one.

I’m going to be brutally honest — I don’t like tax law. Although my professor is charismatic and engaging, I don’t think I would like tax even if Brad Pitt was teaching it to me. In the upper years of law school, there are no mandatory courses, so why enrol in tax law? The answer is pragmatic: I want to be prepared for the Ontario bar exams.

‘I like to think they are circling in on some kind of stable way of thinking about the GAAR,’ says Benjamin Alarie.

Tax law experts are applauding the clarity of a recent unanimous decision from the Supreme Court of Canada in a case involving the general anti-avoidance rule, but say it won’t change how many view the confusing piece of tax legislation.

Pro Bono Students Canada national director Nikki Gershbain says the new tax court project should increase access to justice for middle-income litigants.

Six University of Toronto Faculty of Law students are getting hands-on experience in the Tax Court of Canada.

Photo: Just a Prairie Boy

It’s not easy being a full-service regional firm in Saskatchewan and Manitoba these days. When not turning clients away because you’re just too busy, you’ve got to field calls from national firms looking to link up and establish a presence in some of Canada’s most lively economic zones. And the firms featured in Canadian Lawyer’s list of top 10 Prairie law firms are sure to be on the top of anyone’s list of targets, whether for legal services or a law firm merger. So you can just imagine how swamped they are.

The United States is one of the only major countries in the world to tax its citizens regardless of where in the world they live. And the taxation issues with U.S. citizens who live abroad has never been a more active topic in immigration law than it is right now.

Travelling is at the top of Victoria De La Ronde's retirement to-do list.

At last count the number of countries Victoria De La Ronde has lived in or visited stood at 64. But the total hadn’t been updated since she returned from a month-long South American cruise in the spring. That trip included a memorable stop in Brazil to journey up the Amazon River. Having been unable to get over a lifelong bout with the travel bug, De La Ronde now says she has set her sights on reaching the 100-country mark. “At an early age this pressure began building up in me to travel,” she says. “It was in my 20s. So, I began travelling in the hopes that I would get over this obsession with visiting places and seeing new things. I never have been able to get over it.”

This is the second instalment of Arguably the Best, our year-long series on improving your litigation skills.

Economic growth and development have led to an optimistic outlook among Atlantic Canada’s top 10 full-service law firms. Increased investment and development in the region mean more opportunities for all firms on this year’s list — large and small, say managing partners. The firms made this year’s list through Canadian Lawyer’s annual survey based on the votes of lawyers across Canada. To qualify, these firms needed to offer a wide range of legal services and have offices only in Atlantic Canada — New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island.