The Lawyers Weekly - May 21, 2010

BUSINESS
CAREERS

CLE
Continued From Page 22

gram that provides a 50 per cent discount on registration fees for up to three courses for financially-strapped lawyers, the Trial Lawyers Association and the provincial chapter of the CBA, said Alan Treleaven, director of education and practice at the Law Society of British Columbia.

While in-house offerings by law firms and government and private-sec-tor legal departments are rapidly growing in popularity, Treleaven would be far from surprised if the private sector eventually carves a profitable and successful niche.

“We’re just out of the gate,” said Tre-
leaven. “It’s too early to say that the pri-
vate sector hasn’t taken hold. The mar-
ket will diversify. There is a good-sized
market in B.C., and a huge one in
Ontario. You will see legal departments
and law firms develop even more in-
house programming because not only is
it cost-effective but it also lets the firm
or legal department tailor the legal edu-
cation to their own unique needs. But
you will also see stand-alone organiza-
tions, be it for profit or not, develop
specialty programming.”
While there are some companies act-
ively serving this market in Canada,
B.C. lawyers, however, do not have to

dole out a penny in order to meet their annual professional development obligations. Aside from teaching and writing, credit is also given for attending study groups, which will be accredited only if at least two lawyers are together in person, by telephone or other real-time communication. As of this year, mentoring too is accredited, for both mentor and mentee.

“Even though lawyers don’t have
to take courses, a lot of lawyers like
to because it creates awareness,” said
Treleaven. “But we wanted to appeal
to the different ways that people
learn. We don’t want to force people
to go into a classroom.”
That’s essentially the same philoso-
phy espoused by the Barreau du Qué-
bec. Introduced in April 2009, the Bar-
reau’s mandatory continuing
professional development program
requires all of its 23,000 practising
lawyers to complete no fewer than 30

hours of approved courses every two calendar years, under penalty of disbarment. Its list of accredited activities is so elastic that it pushes the notion of flexibility to the limit of almost disbelief. No fewer than 4,750 activities, which do not have to fall into legal realm, have been accredited over the past year by the Barreau. Unlike other law societies, the Barreau does not accredit providers but rather activities offered by providers. A team of approximately 12 persons working at the Barreau’s professional development department, plus the law society’s 20-member volunteer committee on continuing legal education, pore over the applications before giving it a sign of approval, said Lise Tremblay of the Barreau.

Law firms and legal departments have been keeping the Barreau particularly busy. Of the nearly 525 providers that filed an application to have their activities accredited, more than half

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emanated from legal departments and medium-and-large sized law firms.

“We decided to approve the activity
itself rather than the provider because
we did not want to hand a carte blanche
to providers,” said Tremblay, head of the
Barreau’s professional development
department, which itself developed 156
activities last year, offered at below mar-
ket price. “In order to respond to the
needs of our members, which may be all
over the map, we decided that the activ-
ities do not have to strictly be of a legal
nature. What’s important is that it
responds to their needs.”
The Law Society of Saskatchewan is
taking a different approach, essentially
counting on the marketplace to meet
the needs of its members and filling in
the gaps where necessary. While its new
professional development in-house
department will eventually offer activ-
ities, the law society does not intend to
subsidize its offerings to members.

“We haven’t yet set a target for the
number of activities we intend to
develop,” said Tom Schonhoffer, the
executive director of Saskatchewan’s
law society. “We are watching the mar-
ket and trying to see where we best fit.
Our idea is that the law society should
be involved in education but it should
try to fill the gaps that other providers
aren’t filling well. So we’re in a bit of a
learning period here.”
As of this year, Saskatchewan law-
yers are obliged to complete 36 hours of
accredited professional development
activities over a three year period,
including no fewer than six hours in
either professional responsibility, ethics,
practice standards, code of professional
conduct, conflicts of interest, rules of
the law society, client care and relations
and practice management. ;

More lawyers should be helping clients prevent legal issues

Prevention
Continued From Page 23

duct—that’s what pays the bills. These lawyers and their firms may profit, but no one else does: the human and social costs incurred by repeated collisions between the law and ill-equipped citizens are mind-boggling.

But here’s the rub: the trend-
lines in the legal marketplace
point to competitors outside the
legal profession usurping our
traditional roles as problem
fixers and transaction facilita-
tors. If we’re still engaged in
this work 20 years down the
line, it will mostly be far less
profitable than in the past and
it will not support law firms of
the type and size to which we’re
accustomed. Shutting the barn
door after the horse is gone is
an industry in decline.

Preventive law, however, is
on the rise, for one simple rea-
son: it opens up the largest
latent market the legal profes-
sion has ever seen. For every
client who sees a lawyer about a
legal problem, many more can
be found who would pay a small
monthly amount for ongoing
advice on how to stay out of
legal trouble. Small businesses
especially would jump at this,
but everyone from individuals
to multinationals could also
benefit.

Jordan Furlong is a partner with Edge International who specializes in analyzing the extraordinary changes now underway in the legal profession worldwide. He is also a Senior Consultant with Stem Legal and head of its Media Strategy Service. He authors the award-winning blog Law21: Dis-patches from a Legal Profession on the Brink, http://law21.ca.