We are delighted to extend our congratulations to three legal professionals (who happen to be Skunkworks clients) on being honoured with a QC designation. Each of these lawyers has exhibited professional integrity, exceptional skill and creativity in their chosen fields of practice and have made ongoing selfless contributions to the legal profession and the broader community both in BC and internationally.
For those of you who have not had the pleasure of meeting Greg, Stephen and Joe a little background is in order on this auspicious occasion.
We first met Vancouver criminal lawyer Greg DelBigio in 2006 when we worked with him to establish his online presence (www.gregdelbigio.com). Since then we have followed his continued accomplishments and pestered him (regularly) to put them on his website – he is extremely modest. Greg is widely known and well respected as a leading criminal lawyer whose career includes, intervening in a variety of significant cases before the Supreme Court of Canada for the Canadian Bar and the BC Civil Liberties associations and acting as pro bono counsel for the Canadian Bar Association on the Air India Inquiry. His cases as intervenor counsel have ranged from issues concerning when a court may refuse to allow criminal defence counsel to get off the record for non-payment of fees (R. v. Cunningham), arguing for publicly funded counsel for people targeted under Canada’s anti-terror laws, and appearing for the BC Civil Liberties Association in the landmark security certificates case Charkaoui v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration). And there’s more. In addition to teaching and editing Canada Law Book’s Charter of Rights Newsletter for the past 11 years, Greg is also a past recipient of the CBA President’s Award for his many contributions to the legal profession. Greg is a delight to work with, a credit to the profession and a truly decent human being. N.B. Greg if you are reading this…Please remember to add your QC to your website.
Stephen McPhee is a partner with long time Skunkworks client Ramsay Lampman Rhodes of Nanaimo. Stephen practices in the areas of civil litigation, family law, personal injury, insurance law and commercial litigation. Stephen heads up the firm’s family law group and is a leader in the Nanaimo family law bar. He has consistently included pro bono work in his contributions to the community and maintains a strong interest in alternate dispute resolution having been the chair of the CBA Nanaimo ADR subsection since 2004. Most recently, Stephen was president of the Canadian Bar Association, BC branch, and chaired the Steering Committee for the Public Commission on Legal Aid that was struck in an effort to give momentum to the recommendations articulated in the Public Commission on Legal Aid Final Report. The ongoing efforts of this committee have resulted in the “We need legal aid campaign.” If you missed the message from current CBA, BC Branch President, Sharon Matthews, you need only visit the website to find a number of practical (and easy) ways that you can contribute to helping resolve the current legal aid crisis in BC. We encourage you to take a look and be a part of the solution.
Last, but certainly not least, we are pleased to congratulate a client new to Skunkworks – Joe Fiorante. Joe is a partner with Camp Fiorante Matthews Mogerman in Vancouver (new website to launch in 2012). With a talent for identifying and elucidating the perfect storm of variables that precede aviation disasters, Joe is respected both nationally and internationally for his skilled counsel in complex aviation cases. He is also well known for his counsel work on the product liability side of the ledger. Both practice areas tend to involve cross-border issues and Joe is regularly sought after for his understanding of international law and procedure. Joe is also a regular contributor to the SMU Air Law Symposium and the Pacific Northwest aviation law and insurance seminar. A humanitarian at heart, Joe volunteers for the Compassion Fruit Society and he is the current Board Chair of Project Somos Children’s Village, a project focused on building an ecologically and financially sustainable model village in Tecpan, Guatemala to house and nurture abandoned and orphaned children. The group is hoping to create a template that can be used to develop other sustainable villages throughout Guatemala. You need only visit the Somos website and check out those ear to ear grins to see the hope this project has inspired. At this time of year and given the state of the world we are creating for future generations…inspiration is what it’s all about.
Gentlemen, – Kudos. You are each individuals who are giving back in a way that is unique, valuable and … inspirational. We salute you. Thank you for all your hard work and enjoy your holidays.
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If you are interested in the survey results you can find them in this issue of the CBA National. Just so you know…the panellists were not allowed to vote for sites of their clients or sites they had worked on. My hope is that this year’s results will inspire other Canadian law firms to take a good look at their websites and start thinking about how they present themselves from a client perspective.
Websites generally serve two primary functions. If your business is heavily skewed to the referral side a professional, informative website acts as a credibility check. If you are looking for new clients a user friendly website that clearly states what kind of law you practice and the matters you regularly handle is one way to provide another doorway into your office. Either way the site should be oriented to the user experience not limited to to a resume approach that focuses on the individual achievements of the firm’s lawyers. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t include all the wonderful things about your legal ability and highlight the prowess of your practice teams. Obviously, a prospective client wants to know about you. BUT I bet you they are more interested in how you can help them with the issue they have at hand (and how much it’s going to cost them to have you do so).
People skim sites looking for key words related to a specific issue or problem they are trying to research or resolve. In short, they are looking for reassurance they are not up the creek without a paddle or, if they are in trouble, they are looking for help. The other thing that tends to happen, particularly when people haven’t had any contact with the legal system or lawyers, is that they get overwhelmed by the procedural side of a problem or they develop unrealistic expectations about their position because they are misinformed about how the law is applied. Lawyers know that every legal issue has at least three component, a unique fact pattern, a procedural component and a case law or legislative component that will dictate or influence the outcome. This can be overwhelming for people who don’t have a legal background. When people feel overwhelmed it’s hard to make good decisions. A clear, user friendly legal website can restore calm by providing a frame of reference and perhaps most important it should supply a prospective client with general background on the practice areas covered and include an action plan (checklists are helpful) that includes calling the lawyer or firm for further advice.
One thing I have come across which I will say I think is a mistake (and this is just my opinion) is to hold back basic information on the assumption that the client will decide not to call or may think they don’t need a lawyer to help them. This makes no sense in my view. The better prepared your clients are when they walk through your door for the first time the less time YOU waste bringing them up to speed and educating them on what facts are going to be relevant, the kind of evidence they need to prove or defend a claim, the types of documents you need to review or legislation that may have an impact. Communication is key and part of a lawyer’s job is to explain a situation fully so that a client can make informed decisions and provide instructions accordingly. Ok, enough for one day. Next time I will share a bit of what I’ve learned about what makes a good user friendly legal website (hint: it’s not fancy Flash scripts or dramatic music).
Tags: legal services, websites
Posted in Advertising + Design, Inspiration, Law, Law firm websites, Things we like | Add a Comment »
Vancouverites can now test their eyesight just by gazing at the distant Grouse Mountain. The ski trail and the lights are pretty easy to spot but there is already a feature that will require more than just a fleeting glance.
It might not be easy to spot, at least from the city, but it’s up there to stay. And to stand as a huge, landmark proponent for renewable energy and all things environmental.
Called The Eyes of the Wind, the 65-metres tall wind turbine will start to rotate at 260km/h at the tips, feeding electricity to the facilities perched on the top.
Now, aside from the usual crowd rushing up the Grouse Grind, expect eco-aficionados of all colours and shapes, including our very own Green Leader, who, I am sure, will be thrilled at the sheer size and beauty of it.
On my part, I am personally thrilled that Vancouver has set a prominent example looming high as a daily promise that one day we’ll be done with oil and coal.
I also couldn’t resist my designer itch to add a small touch to the Grouse Mountain logo…
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This year’s Pacific Legal Technology Conference (held this past Friday) was fantastic. I am still suffering from information overload but I will try to share some of the take aways that I found most useful over the coming days. First, up… a shout out to Pete Roberts and Dan Pinnington for their practical session “Time and Task Management for Busy Lawyers.” I just implemented their number one tip…and turned off my email alerts. I feel a bit panicky and anxious but I have been assured that distractions due to incoming email are a huge productivity killer. So, I have decided to see if I notice any appreciable difference in my day if I remove myself from being on “email call”. Instead of responding in Pavlovian fashion to the “ping” of email hitting my inbox I’m going to try checking it only every couple of hours and see what that’s like. Then I should have more time to blog about the rest of the conference!
Tags: email, legal technology
Posted in Agency News, Inspiration, Law, Professional Development, Things we like | Comments Off
I had the good fortune to attend an excellent panel presentation this morning hosted by Fasken Martineau and moderated by Faskens commercial litigation, technology and IP lawyer, David Wotherspoon on: “Socializing” Your Business: Legal and Business Considerations of Social Networking.
The Panel kicked off with an entertaining “Stats Vignette” that made it abundantly clear that social media matters to your brand and your corporate survival. As it happens, I recently finished re-watching the Terminator trilogy and as I listened to panel member after panel member talk about the exponential expansion and largely unregulated power of social media – Arnold Schwarzenegger’s voice and a memorable passage from T2: Judgement Day kept surfacing. That particular passage is:
The Terminator: The Skynet Funding Bill is passed. The system goes on-line August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.
In some regards, the social media phenomenon does seem a bit like an independent, “sentient” being and it’s interesting to contemplate whether it will develop a “mob” mentality (being that its life force is comprised of lots and lots and lots of people) and, if so, what will happen if someone figuratively yells “fire” in a crowded Internet (yeah, yeah I know I’m reaching but my point is that on some level you are dealing with a variant of mob mentality). So…how does one come to grips with this new, potentially unruly mob if you want to survive in the new wilderness? And further, if the attraction to social media is based on accessing an authentic voice as opposed to a sales pitch, how do you navigate the waters without sending the message you are trying to manipulate the masses – which can backfire. This panel had a lot of great suggestions.
Panel member David Vogt, CEO of CrowdTrust Technologies underscored the reach of the existing technology and the shift from passive data collection to the need to participate in an ongoing dialogue if you want to become a trusted thought leader. Those with something relevant to say and the willingness to participate in debate have a definite advantage. He also acknowledged (much to my relief) that no one really has a handle on how Web 2.0 and the current social media milieu is going to evolve or how to successfully monetize it (and here I was just thinking I was dumb).
Next up was Mat Wilcox, crisis management maven and CEO of local PR firm the Wilcox Group. Ms. Wilcox placed the importance of social media squarely in the context of brand and reputation management – at that point I sat up a little taller (and not just because my coffee had kicked in). Her presentation was peppered with recent examples of why businesses (and people) who ignore the social media phenomenon do so at their peril. The potential for brandjacking, damage to reputation and derailment of market strategy was the bit that really hit home for me. Which is both good and bad. Good because it motivated me to commit to taking more time to explore social media and sort out how to help our clients develop a social media strategy. Bad because I’ve been consciously (and successfully) ignoring Twitter up to now (all good things must come to an end I suppose).
Then Faskens litigation and dispute resolution lawyer Mark Fancourt-Smith walked us through some rights enforcement issues (how to stop cyber badmouthing 101) and the problems that can arise when you are trying to get offending material removed from the web. He also mentioned the trend among litigators toward reviewing social media as a means of gathering evidence. Just so you know…lawyers looooove Facebook.
David Ford, a securities and technology lawyer with Faskens, underscored the need for companies to develop and implement thoughtful (balanced) policies regarding employee use of social media. While he praised the exciting potential offered by social media from a business perspective, he also cautioned the crowd that harnessing social media for business purposes it was not without its risks. He stressed the point that if you are going to embrace the technology then balance is key. Social media policy needs to allow for an authentic voice but remain sensitive issues like client confidentiality, protection of corporate IP and the damage that can be caused by thoughtless posting. At the same time, David noted that if you micromanage the process and overregulate the medium you undermine its authenticity and remove the very reason people trust the information they find through social media.
Lorene Novakowski , a partner in the Faskens labour, employment and human rights group, capped off the presentation by reviewing recent activity relating to Social Media and privacy laws with particular reference to the Office of the Federal Privacy Commissioner‘s Review of Facebook which ultimately resulted in Facebook’s agreement to implement changes to its privacy settings. For a quick overview of that investigation and the results see:
“Facebook gets poked by Canada over privacy,” from The Star and “Facebook agrees to better protect privacy,” the National Post.
Ms. Novakowski also offered some useful best practices advice for employers regarding employee screening and monitoring. It made me wonder how many high school kids out there posting “party” photos stop to consider what a prospective employer will make of them down the road.
Over all, it was a thought provoking morning. However, what became abundantly clear was that each of the panelists only had enough time to scratch the surface of a fascinating topic – the perfect set up for a sequel I’m sure. I am hopeful Mr. Wotherspoon will see fit to share these excellent presentations further afield. HINT, HINT.
Posted in Inspiration, Professional Development, Social Media, Technology, Things we like | Add a Comment »
