All Our Tips
Know Nothing, Network Well
When you go to a conference and network with a diverse group of lawyers it isn’t necessarily obvious what you should do to prepare. The typical advice is to get a primer on recent headlines within the industry, or at the very least with local happenings. While this is good advice to start up a conversation, the tip I want to give today is that it’s possible to network well and make a memorable mark by “knowing nothing”.
The trick is to take a deep interest in people you seek to make a connection with. What are their hobbies? What are their greatest loves? Explore them – everybody loves to talk about what they love the most, what makes them tick. Taking a real interest in someone makes them feel important and will make them remember you. This advice was given to me by a mentor who handed me a book I now constantly recommend in turn – Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends & Influence People.
What if you know nothing about the hobbies or the loves? Is your conversation partner an avid fan of golf, but you don’t know the difference between par and a putter? No problem. Ask what it is about golf (or whatever the topic is) that makes it so beloved. Perhaps it’s spending time outside in a luscious green space. Or it’s the opportunity to spend several hours with companions thinking of nothing but hitting the next ball, living in the moment. Or it’s the eternal competition with oneself. The deeper the exploration, the more abstract the reason, the better your chances are of meeting them on the same ground.
Similarly, winning beauty contests is not necessarily a matter of peacocking – showing how great and wonderful you and your firm is. It may instead be a matter of listening to your clients and understanding what their real needs are. In my days as a new lawyer I would meet new clients and assume they wanted to hear about their rights. I’d lecture on about the law and legal rights, preening on about my knowledge of the law. Not surprisingly, I did not win many beauty contests. But when I changed gears and made the meeting a real conversation with questions like “what’s your greatest concern?” and “what do you want me to do for you?” I began to win clients over.
So if you’re not up on the latest in hockey, don’t despair. You can network well without knowing the latest headlines, sports or hobbies. The key is to listen and to take an interest in others.
-Ian Hu, Toronto.
So What Should I Write About?
The law, for starters – but there is a bit more to it than that.
Here are some suggestions, adapted from the Law Society of Upper Canada’s Guide to Business Development for Women Lawyers (January 2013). They are equally applicable to men.
- Choose your topic carefully
- write about something you actually practise, know about or want to develop as an area of specialisation
- you don’t want people to think you’re an expert on the basis of one article
- Recycle old work
- a memo for a file could be the basis of a client piece
- but be careful to remove any information that could identify your client
- strip out technical terms, footnotes, citations
- make sure you bring things up to date
- the same piece can (within reason) be published in more than one place, often with only minor adjustments
- Get your piece in front of the right audience
- a legal journal, magazine or newspaper may be read by other lawyers but not by businesspeople
- think about industry/trade publications or general news outlets – you have a better chance of being read by non-lawyer clients
- A descriptive piece on recent developments in a particular area of law is always good
- also easy to write and can get broad readership
- Other ideas
- what challenges are your clients facing? how do other industries cope with similar challenges? tell a story based on real examples
- what are the current trends in an industry or area of law you know about?
- what kinds of questions have you been getting from clients or readers?
- what have you read lately, and what can you add? (but don’t be catty about other people or present law as a world of insiders commenting on each other)
- what interests you about your practice area? (but remember that not everyone may share your enthusiasm for the law of drainage – you may have to make that interesting for other people, or at least explain why it might actually be important to them)
- what mistakes have you made and what did you learn? (careful with this one, though; don’t alarm a client or your insurer)
- Be timely
- publish as quickly as you can on breaking developments
- but don’t sacrifice care in thinking, writing, fact-checking, vetting by someone more senior, editing, proof-reading
- Include a picture and brief bio
- your piece should be accompanied by a professional headshot wherever possible
- include a short bio (short!); bonus marks if you can be distinctive without being gimmicky
- link to appropriate social media (LinkedIn profile, maybe your Twitter handle; not Instagram or Facebook)
- if you’re writing for an external publication, add a disclaimer that the views expressed are your own and not necessarily your employer’s
Next: lawyerly compounds
Productivity+: Turn Off Notifications and Stop Distractions
When I speak to lawyers about improving productivity, some of the best feedback I receive is how to stop distractions. Research has shown that every time a person is interrupted from a task, it takes some 20 minutes to return to it. Each interruption costs productivity and, if you bill by the hour, you lose the chance to docket “0.3”. Here are some common distractions and what you can do about it.
Turn off cell phone notifications
Every cell phone beep pulls you out of the task you’re working on. If you are in the office, chances are the notification is not work-related. Depending on your phone, you can turn off notifications globally or by adjusting the settings in the app. Facebook and Twitter are common culprits – there are notifications for virtually any activity that occurs on your account – new messages directly to you, messages that are liked or shared, and messages that have a new comment. If your cell phone chimes every time you receive an email, that can be a huge distraction as well. Turn them all off.
We use our phones constantly. A 2015 Deloitte study found that people check their phones 46 times a day. Make a conscious choice to avoid looking at the phone while you are working on tasks. When you’re done, take a break and go ahead and do a few fun things. Depending on your level of focus, a starting point would be to take a break every 45 minutes – about the average time a person can concentrate on a task before losing effectiveness.
And turn off email notifications
The biggest temptation on your work computer is to check email. Email can be highly productive – giving instructions, receiving updates, and communicating with clients and staff are all important tasks. But if you’re immersed in a factum or a letter to counsel, a ping from your email is an unwelcome distraction. Turn off email notifications – while Windows 8 and older you can turn off notifications in Outlook, in the new Windows 10 notifications are system-wide (click on this link at howtogeek.com for a helpful how-to) – and work in peace.
Colleagues dropping by
A friendly workplace is great to have for a number of reasons, but one of the potential pitfalls is colleagues may drop by your office to chat about baseball and interrupt your work process. While you don’t want to close your door all the time and be the office hermit, it’s okay to shut out the world when you’re deep into a memo. If you are in an open space and the constant noise bothers you, consider headphones or earplugs to help you focus and indicate you don’t want to be disturbed.
We are not multitaskers
Very few of us can multitask well. Study after study shows that using a cell phone while driving is the equivalent of drunk driving. Trying to email instructions to staff, type out a factum, and text your friend at the same time is a recipe for disaster. With the mind trying to do everything at once, nothing gets the attention it deserves. Focus on doing one thing at a time.
Prevent distractions so you get the most out of your work day. With the task lists growing by the minute, the urge may be to do a bunch of tasks at once, but the best way to juggle is likely by doing each task one at a time, uninterrupted.
Ian Hu, Toronto.
Where’s That Decision?
My sincere thanks to my fellow law librarian Diane Crossley, and to the judicial staff at the BC Superior Law Courts for collaborating with me on this column.
In a recent tip about what’s on CanLII, we learned that “Most routine matters aren’t written up in decisions, so the information related to them is not generally publicly available online. This means that the information available on CanLII (or any source of caselaw) for subjects like sentencing is mostly for unusual matters and outcomes.”
In today’s tip, you’ll learn more about when and how criminal conviction and sentencing decisions are made public. I’m from BC so these details are specific to my jurisdiction.
The first thing to remember is that jury decisions will never include reasons for the conviction or acquittal; reasons for conviction are only prepared in a trial where an accused is being tried by judge alone. If a trial ends in a conviction, the judge must then sentence the offender so there will be a sentencing decision from a judge. If you are lucky in your legal research, these decisions may be found on the court’s website, or on CanLII, Westlaw, or Quicklaw. However, judges most commonly issue their sentencing decisions orally, and the decision may not get transcribed or published for you to find.
In the BC Provincial Court, oral sentencing decisions are not automatically transcribed and published.
In the BC Supreme Court, although all oral reasons for judgment on sentencing are transcribed, and most are published on the Court’s website, each judge does have the discretion to decide whether they will publish their sentencing reasons. Sometimes the judge will edit their sentencing reasons to remove certain information (i.e. identity of complainants or witnesses) in order to publish their reasons while still complying with publications bans. In cases where the judge has not allowed their reasons to be published, a copy of the reasons is in the court file and is available to the public if it is not subject to a sealing order.
In BC Supreme Court, criminal procedural reasons (i.e. voir dire) are sometimes published, but only at the conclusion of the trial. Whether these reasons have been given orally or in written form, the judge has the discretion to decide if and when these reasons are published.
In order to obtain copies of unpublished sentencing decisions in BC, researchers need to know that the court file exists (i.e. know the file number and court level) and then pay for a transcription of the decision from an authorized third party transcription company.
A common quandary for criminal law researchers is determining whether the courts have ever weighed in on a specific fact pattern and assigned a sentence. While the first step is to consult published decisions and a textbook on the topic, we also recommend looking at news archive databases for stories about court proceedings where decisions may not have been published. Newspapers will write stories on alleged crimes without reference to whether the eventual decision is published. If the news story seems promising for your fact pattern and includes the name of the accused, you can take that name to the likely local court registry and ask them to search for the file using that name. This approach to criminal justice legal research has served us well and regularly turns up helpful decisions that would otherwise be forgotten in the registry archives.
If you are interested in learning more about what the BC Courts say on this topic, I recommend the following pages:
- BC Supreme Court – About Judgments
- BC Court of Appeal – About Judgments
- BC Provincial Court – About Judgments
10 Tips to Get the Most Out of Email
- Slow Down.The point is to use email to increase productivity, not be the fastest to respond. Common courtesy is to respond within 24 hours.
- Be Professional.Yes, that joke your buddy sent you last night was a hoot, but you should never forward such communications to business contacts.
- Protect Your Friends. When sending a message to a group, do not disclose your recipient’s email addresses. Use the “bcc” (blind carbon copy) field for multiple addresses and place your own email address in the “To” field.
- Do Not Use “Forward to All” and “Reply to All” Functions.I have witnessed embarrassing moments of others (and recall my own painful “oops”) when messages intended only for the original sender, are, in fact, sent to everyone who may have been cc’d or even bcc’d on the original message or post. Best not to use either button at all. Ever.
- Do A Final Full Read of Each Email.With each email, always read through your message from start to finish before hitting “Send”. This last reading is crucial in catching any missing information or attachments and allows you to get a full understanding of the “tone” of your message.
- Formatting Counts.Every email message should contain proper formatting, punctuation, grammar and have a signature containing your name, email address and telephone number.
- Don’t Send Large Files.Sending large attachments may cause some inboxes to reach their size limit. If this happens, the recipient must log in and download or delete your message in order to receive any further emails from any source – almost guaranteeing they will not think kindly of you from that point forward. Use a service such as www.SendThisFile.com to transfer large files.
- Be Polite.Do not type in CAPITALS as it is considered shouting.
- Be Clear.Do not use acronyms or cryptic shorthand in your messages. Not only will the recipient not understand your message, it may make the recipient feel “stupid” for not being able to figure it out! Each message should contain enough information for the recipient to understand what you need or what they need to do in response to your communication.
- Leave The Subject Line Alone.When replying to messages, especially to groups and list servs, do not change the subject line. Many email applications allow a sort by subject, giving subscribers the ability to follow a particular discussion “thread”.
-Andrea Cannavina
866-848-2195 x101 [email protected]
Split Infinitives; Or, Star Trek, You Have a Lot to Answer For
The infinitive of a verb is the form with ‘to’ in front of it. As in, to be or not to be.
A split infinitive is a verb in this form, but with something stuck between to and the main bit: to not be, by way of example.
People (OK, grammar nerds) have been getting their knickers in a twist about split infinitives for ages.
Writing back in 1926, H.W. Fowler divided the world into (1) those who neither know nor care about split infinitives, (2) those who don’t really know what they are, but think they’re bad, (3) those who know and condemn them, and (4) those who know and distinguish.
Ever since ‘to boldly go’ flashed across people’s TVs screens in the 1960s, the world has largely fallen into category (1).
Herewith (not a word you should use in a client piece, by the bye), a plea to put yourself in category (4).
To give Gene Roddenberry his due, to boldly go where no man has ever gone before does have a good ring to it. To really understand is also fine, and sounds less stilted (at least today) than the classically correct really to understand. But to function fully is better than either to fully function or fully to function.
Routine splitting of infinitives can have a deadening effect. Compare:
I told you to not do it
I told you not to do it.
She resolved to never do it again
She resolved never to do it again.
In each case, the un-split infinitive is stronger; there is a kind of built-in pause for effect. Hamlet didn’t say to be or to not be, with good reason.
Think as well about what you actually intend to say (Fowler’s examples): our objective is to further cement and our objective is further to cement have slightly different meanings (the first, more cementing; the second, more objectives). A subtle distinction, but we’re lawyers – people pay us to make these.
Next time: so what should I write about?
11 Reasons Why Your Law Firm Should Have an Annual Retreat
A law firm retreat is an opportunity to bring together those most invested in the future of the firm, to discuss just that… the future of the firm.
Yes, it’s true, some firms treat it as a perk, a mini-vacation if you will. But don’t let that cloud your assessment of the true potential of a retreat.
For law firms that take the time to do it right – pre-planning, professional facilitation and action planning – a retreat can be absolutely invaluable. The clarity and insight that comes out of that single meeting can drive the firm’s plan for the rest of the year.
But a single retreat can’t drive the plan for the rest of the life of the firm. That’s why it’s a good idea to make it an annual event.
If you’re convinced, read no further.
For everyone else, here are 11 good reasons for your law firm to commit to an annual retreat:
- Because having an annual retreat creates habits – the good kind – around planning and taking action
- Because a law firm’s challenges – financial, strategic, lifestyle – change over time
- Because an annual commitment builds accountability into the process, by keeping everyone up on the status of last year’s goals and action plan
- Because the pre-planning step gives you a chance to look at the big picture – what has gone right, what needs work…
- Because your goals evolve and so must your plans if they are to support you
- Because the marketplace, including your competition and your clients, changes… sometimes rapidly
- Because the actual makeup of the firm transforms over time, namely its people
- Because there’s never a time when you can’t make things better, whether the firm is in growth mode or just holding fast
- Because inertia around certain key decisions is often more easily overcome with discussion
- Because high level priorities require dialogue and agreement for any organized action planning to follow
- Because, however close you are to your firm’s day-to-day operations, there are always surprises that emerge in the pre-planning process
And beyond all the common sense, good business reasons listed above, there’s also the value of anything that gives your key stakeholders a real bounce in their step.
That’s particularly true if there’s opportunity for a ripple effect on the morale of the rest of the firm.
For more on law firm retreats, see these previous posts on SlawTips:
Also, see Toronto Marketing Blog for how to make the most of your retreat:
Note Up Legislation, Not Just Case Law
My tip follows up on Bronwyn’s recent tip about noting up case law. Noting up legislation allows you to see how courts have interpreted a specific piece of legislation; generally the court refers to a section or sections of an act or regulation rather than the entire thing.
The fact that legislation is constantly changing does add some challenges to the noting up process. When noting up legislation, keep the following things in mind:
- Legislation changes. Legislation is constantly being amended, and a section of an act may be dramatically different after an amendment. Check that the text of the section a case is referring to reads the same as the text of the section you are interested in.
- Section numbers change from consolidation to consolidation. Acts are renumbered when a revised consolidation is produced. Section 27 of the R.S.C. 1985 version of an act may not refer to the same thing as section 27 of the R.S.C. 1970 version of that act. If you are noting up a previous version of an act, you will need to confirm that you are noting up the correct section number.
- As with case law, use more than one database if possible.
- Databases differ in what they cover. All electronic databases have scope and date limitations for noting up. If you are noting up older pieces of legislation, you may have to do a full text search in order to find older cases that the note up doesn’t catch.
Join Team Tile to Secure Your Smartphone
In 2008, I attended a talk by the late (great) Eddie Greenspan, Q.C. at the Law Courts Inn. His topic was digital security, in particular public CCTV, email, and smartphones, especially those with recording devices. He despised all three. Public CCTV, because of the invasion of privacy by the state (I can get behind that to a certain extent). Email, because it meant he received so much more communication that it took ages for his assistant to print and for him to scrawl shorthand replies for her to type. Smartphones were especially problematic in his view. He suggested that a lawyer who lost a Blackberry should, without question, be cited for professional misconduct and suspended. He was totally serious.
Of course, digital data security is a serious matter. Every digital security expert will tell you that it will happen (although it might not be you, it will be someone else). Mr. Greenspan was right about the importance of maintaining digital security. But, he was not particularly well-versed in the possible security measures present.
There is a lot of effort devoted to password protection and data encryption. Both are fundamental measures. Being able to remotely “wipe” a device is also a crucial part of any security plan. But, there is not much said about physically locating lost devices.
For my Apple devices, I use its “Find my iPhone” app, which lets me track, locate, and wipe my devices so long as they are turned on.
One particular security measure I have adopted is the Tile for devices or things that do not have GPS capability built in. I first used it for my keys, but some people even use it for their dog.
The Tile is a tiny little square – a bit smaller than a book of paper matches (1.45”x1.45”x0.24”). It has a little hole for things like keychains. It connects to a smartphone or tablet through the device’s Bluetooth connection and is used through a user-friendly, proprietary app. If I want to find my phone, then I double-tap the button the tile and my phone will play a sound. To find the Tile itself, I use the app to make the Tile play a sound. I can link several Tiles to my phone, each with a description and photo of the item it is attached to. I currently have keys, a barrister’s bag, and a laptop bag with Tiles linked to my phone.
Although range is limited to Bluetooth range (about 30 feet in practice), it is effectively extended by the Tile “community”. If I lose a Tile and it’s beyond Bluetooth range, then I am immediately alerted to its location when another Tile user’s device with the app comes within Bluetooth range of my Tile. I can then use my app to go to the Tile’s location and, when within Bluetooth range, make it play a sound.
I have not tested it, but here’s some anecdotal information. This morning, when I opened my Tile app to write this piece, I was advised that there were 1,124 Tile users in downtown Vancouver. Yesterday, I was sent a congratulatory message because my app had helped another user find his or her Tile. Our paralegal was running an errand and I sent her away with my tile. About 30 minutes later, I received a notification that my Tile had been found.
She returned within Bluetooth range of my phone.
It’s certainly not perfect, but at $69.99 for a 4-pack of tiles, it can’t do any harm. At least you’ll find your keys (or your dog) faster. If you do lose something precious, then it gives you an extraordinarily better chance of finding it.
-Michael McCubben
Said, Same, Such
Said
I think you’ll agree that ‘said’ (as in ‘the said party’ when you’ve previously referred to that party) is a little fusty-sounding, and has no place in your jazzy client-focused blog post or article.
And even in contractual drafting, it sounds more than a little antiquated. Said is an unnecessary archaism: be done with it.
Same
More persistent is ‘same’. To use an example from a few weeks back (emphasis added):
A recent case from the ONSC clarifies the law on whether municipalities can regulate boathouses and whether the Building Code Act applies to same, finding that (i) municipalities have jurisdiction to zone Ontario lakes and apply zoning by-laws to lakes, regulating construction of boathouses and other structures; and (ii) the Building Code Act applies to such structures, where not otherwise prohibited by the by-laws and the Public Lands Act.
Do we actually talk this way? Of course not. You would just say something like ‘whether municipalities can regulate boathouses and whether the Building Code Act applies to them’.
Ross Guberman (legal writing maven) has this to say about ‘same’ in this context: ‘archaic and awkward – a parody of legalese’. The Oxford English Dictionary agrees, suggesting that the word is ‘often merely the equivalent of a personal pronoun; he, she, it, they’.
Such
‘Such’ is another one in this category, also used in the boathouse example, where it’s used in the same way as ‘said’. Wouldn’t a normal (that is, non-lawyer) person simply say ‘these structures’ or ‘structures like this’?
Formulations like ‘we never received such’ are, in Bryan Garner’s words, ‘barbarous-sounding’. Thus to be avoided.
And then there is the dreaded phrase, ‘as such’. Dreaded (by me, anyway) because it’s so often misused as mere filler, rather than as a link to antecedent material. Correctly used, it means ‘in the capacity just specified’.
Here is a nice little explanation from Judith Fischer, Word Aficionado (great job title) at the Louis D. Brandeis School of Law in Louisville, Kentucky:
The phrase as such is sometimes misused as an all-purpose (but grammatically incorrect) transitional phrase. Such is a pronoun that must have an identifiable antecedent. If it doesn’t have one, its use is incorrect.
Example 1 (correct):
She is the board president. As such, she is responsible for scheduling the meetings.
Explanation: Here, the antecedent of such is president. It can replace such: She is the board president. As president, she is responsible for scheduling the meetings.
Example 2 (incorrect):
Congress intended to provide an exhaustive list of examples, and it did not mention websites. As such, the statute does not cover websites.
Explanation: Such has no antecedent here; it cannot be replaced with list or any other word in the first sentence. The writer of example 2 incorrectly used as such as a generic transitional phrase. The word therefore would be a better choice.
The following examples illustrate the above points.
Example 3
A plaintiff must prove damages in order to recover, but Smith has not done so here. As such, she has no claim.
Example 4
This is a question of law. As such, it is subject to de novo review.
Explanation: Example 3 is incorrect, because such has no antecedent. Replace as such with therefore. But in Example 4, question of law can replace such, so the sentence is grammatically correct.
Advice: If you are in doubt about whether as such is correct, you may want to choose other phrasing. The transitional terms therefore, thus, and as a result are often suitable replacements for an incorrect as such.
All three – said, same and such – are useless lawyerisms, even when correctly deployed. Avoid them (even when you can use them properly).
Up next: split infinitives; or, Star Trek, you have a lot to answer for
