Lawyers in Nova Scotia celebrated the new year by adopting a
new code of professional conduct.
Effective January 1, a six-chapter
code officially replaced the former
24 chapters that comprised the
Legal Ethics and Professional Conduct: A Handbook for Lawyers.
The Nova Scotia Barristers’
Society (NSBS) is among the first
law societies in the country to
adopt (with minor revisions) the
Model Code of Professional Conduct developed by the Federation
of Law Societies of Canada
(FLSC). It is also the only society
to test members’ knowledge of
that code.
“There is a mandatory online
assessment that all lawyers will
need to complete,” said NSBS
executive director Darrel Pink in
Halifax. “We consider [the code]
to be one of the key legal docu-
ments of the profession.”
All practising lawyers will be
required to complete an online
test, and successful completion of
The new Code
represents very
little substantive change
to our rules of ethics: If you
practised law ethically in 2011, you
will still be practising law ethically
on January 1, 2012.
1
The old Handbook and the new
Code share the same two goals:
to clearly set out the black letter law
in terms of ethical rules, and to
provide helpful and informative best
practice guidance in the
commentaries to the rules. With the
added guidance found in the new
Code, lawyers should find it easier
to know and adhere to the rules.
2
In a document released last fall by
the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society
discussing the new Code of
Professional Conduct, four key
messages were highlighted. These
underscore the import and the
impact of the new ethics rules for
lawyers. They are:
are about to adopt the Model Code,
with minor provincial variations. The
other jurisdictions plan to follow suit.
The new Code is on its way to
becoming a truly national code
of conduct and a number of
provinces, such as PEI, Manitoba,
Alberta and British Columbia, have or
3
Each province retains the
legislative responsibility for its
own code of conduct. The Federation
of Law Societies will now work with
each province to track jurisdictional
amendments, make recommendations
for change nationally, and support the
process of adoption of the Model Code
across Canada. The NSBS Code has
retained certain ‘colloquial’ ethical
quirks, and has done away with others
in the spirit of having a national Code.
4
the assessment will be required
before a non-practising, retired,
or life member can change his or
her category of membership to
“practising” lawyer.
Lawyers in the province have
until the end of April to test their
knowledge of the Code of Profes-
sional Conduct, and training is
also available as are a host of
informational materials on the
new code.
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