♬ Your a mean one, Mr. Grinch
You really are a heel
Your as cuddly as a cactus
Your as charming as an eel, Mr. Grinch…♬
Lyrics by Theodor “Dr. Seuss” Geisel, music by Albert Hague, performed by Thurl Ravenscroft.
Mr. Grinch by Dr. Seuss
Anyone who runs a business knows that it is profitable only if you have funds left over after paying all the bills. This enforces a common-sense mentality in ensuring that your costs don’t get out of control. However, in some offices the principle of saving money is taken to such an extreme that their frugality is actually costing them money. Here are some examples (drawn from the collective experiences of my fellow Practice Management Advisors and myself): (more…)
♫ Can’t pay tax
Won’t pay tax..♫
Lyrics, music and recorded by Chaos UK.
HST Flowchart
Well the HST on legal services is now a reality in BC and in Ontario.
The CRA’s publication:
Ontario and British Columbia: Transition to the Harmonized Sales Tax – Services has the displayed flowchart in Appendix A – Transitional rules for services.
A PDF version of this diagram can be downloaded here: HST Flowchart PDF
This flowchart helps clarify the issue as to when HST or GST (and PST for those in BC) applies to legal services. The publication is: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pub/gi/gi-056/gi-056-e.html (more…)
♫ Stand by your belief and have faith in this sound
You know that you can always turn it around
Feel the rhythm and its healing remedy
Listen to the sweet melody
Feel the rhythm and its healing remedy
RISE TO THE CHALLENGE! ♫
Bob Denney
Once again it is time for Bob Denny of Robert Denney Associates, Inc. [bob@robertdenney.com] to report on What’s Hot and What’s Not in the Legal Profession. With Bob’s kind permission, we are reproducing his latest report here:
In our 2009 year-end report, we said 2010 “will be a year of continued challenge and change.” It is proving to be so although the challenges may be greater than the changes. We cannot cover all the developments in this Update. These are the ones we believe are the most significant – or interesting.
PRACTICE AREAS
Hot
- Health Care. Of course, involving many areas: regulatory, transactional, employment, et all.
- Bankruptcy. Still. Pre-packaged bankruptcies are raising the temperature even more.
- Trusts & Estates. The temporary lifting of the “death tax” is raising the temperature here too.
- Regulatory. In many industries, not just health care, banking and finance.
- Commercial Litigation. Particularly “bet the company” cases, patents and labor.
- Employment Law. That’s why major L&E firms are opening new offices.
- Emerging Companies. It is surprising but the number of former big company executives starting new businesses hit a four-year high in 2009 and continues to increase. (more…)
♫ I know his journey ends never.
His Star Trek will go on forever…♫
Music by: Alexander Courage, lyrics by: Gene Roddenberry.
Sooner or later, every firm must deal with the issue of succession planning. Given that the ‘boomers’ are all nearing retirement age, this is a looming – and lurking – issue for most firms.
This issue can arise in several ways. One major way this issue comes to the forefront is the lease for the office is coming up for renewal. At that time the partners who really don’t wish to keep practising for another 5 years refuse to sign onto the lease. This throws the partnership into a crises and most likely leads to the firm going ‘supernova’ – the firm explodes and a group of partners leave (usually the ones with the biggest book of business) and the remaining ones are left to try to pick up the pieces (or most often, simply close the doors and turn off the lights on their way out).
More subtle ways of this occurring happens as major keystone partners start to leave – one by one – until what is left is a shell of the former firm. This is death by a thousand cuts as the major income earning assets of the firm depart leaving only the liabilities of the old firm in the hands of those remaining. (more…)
♬You’re my latest, tell you you’re my greatest
My latest, my greatest inspiration
You inspire me, inspire me…♬
Lyrics and music by: Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff, recorded by: Teddy Pendergrass.
2010 Techshow logo
This column was written for the Trial Lawyers Association of British Columbia’s magazine “The Verdict” immediately after ABA TECHSHOW in March. That edition of The Verdict has just hit the streets (print publication lags being what they are…) so here is the column on ABA TECHSHOW 2010:
Well the three days of the 2010 edition of the American Bar Association’s TECHSHOW wrapped up on March 27. This leading legal technology conference had three major themes this year.
Theme One: The Cloud
Ethics, security and privacy concerns aside, the cloud has arrived. Whether it is using SaaS applications (software as a service) or law firms building virtual deal rooms using SharePoint, working on the cloud is now a reality for virtually all law firms. (more…)
♬ Everything is not what it seems
When you can get what you want by the simplest of means
Be careful not to mess with the balance of things
Because everything is not what it seems…♬
Lyrics and music by: John R. Adair, Ryan David Elder, Bradley Jay Hamilton, Stephen R. Hampton, recorded by: Selena Gomez.
CBC News on May 4, 2010 in an on-line article entitled: “Bank of Montreal alleges huge mortgage fraud” reported on a potential $30 million mortage/real estate fraud in Alberta.
The article is disturbing, as the size of the fraud and the number of people involved is not small: there are apparently 14 inter-connected groups involved:
Toronto forensic accountant Al Rosen said he has never seen anything like it.
“This is massive in the sense that it is so broad and so deep,” Rosen said Tuesday. “This is [allegedly] a huge fraud. I can’t think of any situation that has so many people involved and over a period of time like this one.”
The people involved ranged from ‘straw buyers’ who fronted the purchase of the properties for inflated prices based on fake, inflated wage and net income documents, to lawyers, to bank employees and ‘masterminds’.
(more…)
♬ With bits of memories scattered here and there
I look around and don’t know where to start…♬
Lyrics and Music by: Alan Bergman, Marilyn Bergman, Johnny Mandel.
My good friend Robert (Bob) Denney has just issued his April 2010 Legal Communique: Addressing Challenges and Making Changes Requires a Thoughtful Approach.
Aside from the use of the word “thoughtful” (which I always appreciate!) the advice that he has packed into his Communique is top notch and timed for firms coming out of the current economic malaise. With his permission, here is Bob’s latest advice:
“Now that the economy is in the process of recovering, forward-thinking law firms are shifting from survival tactics to strategic planning as they begin to address, not only the challenges they face, but also the changes they may have to make. However, as discussed in our February Communique, the list can be long and there are few, if any, precedents for addressing many of the issues. (more…)
♫ When the walls come crumblin’ crumblin’
When the walls come tumblin’ tumblin’ down…♫
Lyrics and Music by: George Green, J. Cougar Mellencamp
As of March 4, 2010 (the day of originally writing this column for the Canadian Bar Association) the Canadian legal competitive battlefield changed. Dynamic LawyersTM, led by Michael Carabash, B.A., LL.B., J.D., M.B.A., Founder/President, formally launched their website: www.dynamiclawyers.com.
Have a look – Carabash, a Toronto business lawyer, is one of a growing list of new entrants into the area of online legal services. What makes his web services a bit different is the use of online video guides that aid purchasers to complete the legal forms that he has made available. He also has a blog and an “online legal health checkup”.
Dynamic LawyersTM joins other online legal service providers such as LegalZoom that are seeking to tap the “do it yourself” legal consumer market. (more…)
♫ If we put our heads together our hearts will tell us what to do…♫
Lyrics and Music by Lorene Allen, Loretta Lynn, recorded by Loretta Lynn and Ernest Tubb.
Now that the 2010 Olympics and Para-Olympics in Vancouver are over and ABA TECHSHOW in Chicago is concluded for another year, it is back to business!
My overview of Techshow 2010 is being published concurrently by the Trial Lawyers Association of British Columbia in their manazine “The Verdict” as well as here, so there will be a short delay while the print version comes out. That post will cover the themes and tips that I garnered from ABA Techshow this year. It was a fabulous program and kudos to all who had a hand in organizing it. Stay tuned!
In the meantime, I thought I would try to highlight one theme that struck me when talking to the lawyers and others who were at Techshow this year. One factor that became apparent was the openness of some lawyers to bring in consultants to assist in the tweaking of the management of their firms versus the (apparent) reluctance of others to do the same. (more…)
♫ The time is right to do it now
The greatest rock’n'roll swindle
The time is right to do it now…♫
Music and Lyrics by Steve Jones, paul Cook, Julien Temple, recorded by the Sex Pistols.
The ABA Journal reported on Feb. 22, 2010 that an email scam was targeted at 6 law firms in Honolulu and two of them fell for the scam, losing a total of $500,000.00.
In this case the clients, who only contacted the firm via electronic communications, “overpaid” the retainer by way of a cashier’s cheque. When informed about the ‘overpayment’, the clients requested a wire-transfer refund.
By the time the law firm realized the cashier’s cheque was counterfeit, the wire transfers were long gone…
The ABA Journal states:
“Law firms and other professional service providers are cautioned to be on high alert when dealing with clients who come forth via the Internet,” the FBI warns. Also, when dealing with wire transfers, firms should be sure the initial payment has fully cleared before issuing refunds.
Law firms should be instituting policies regarding ‘know your client’ as well as policies regarding ensuring that funds deposited to their trust accounts have fully cleared before forwarding these funds along. The swindlers are counting on the fact that there are lawyers out there who have not yet taken steps to follow these precautions; in which case the swindlers are saying….the time is right to do it now…