Law Times

September 21, 2009

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A. NEUMAN ASSOCIATES INC. McKELLAR STRUCTURED SETTLEMENTS INC. www.mckellar.com 1-800-265-8381 www.mckellar.com ckellar_LT_Jan14_08.indd 1 $3.55 • Vol. 20, No. 29 1/8/08 3:03:02 PM Inside This Issue 3 Funding Promise 6 A Family Law 8 Focus On Intellectual Property/Trademark Law Quote of the week "Striking out the regulations would have been the pot of gold at the end of the rain- bow for the generics because the information would have given them more ammunition to attack the innovators' patents." — Anthony Creber, Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP See Drug, page 9 Covering Ontario's Legal Scene Forensic Accounting & Damages Quantifi cation Specialists Turn Crisis into Opportunity IFAccountant.com (416) 223-5991 Neuman_LawTimes.indd 1 September 21, 2009 Chief justices tout more JPs, new courthouse for Toronto BY ROBERT TODD Law Times shortage of justices of the peace may be reaching a crisis point, a senior Ontario judge is warning. "I have become concerned that the very complexity of the process has slowed the ap- pointments, leaving some of our regions very short of justices of the peace," Chief Justice Annemarie Bonkalo of the Ontario Court of Justice said last week. Bonkalo made the remarks during the an- nual Opening of the Courts ceremony last Monday, an event where Ontario's judges typically take the opportunity to highlight the strengths of the province's justice system while pressing the need for more resources. Besides the shortage identified by Bonka- lo, Ontario Chief Justice Warren Winkler singled out Toronto's clogged criminal courts as an area needing urgent attention. "Priority must be given to infrastructure projects that respond to our substantial criminal caseloads," he told the audience of judges and other leaders of the bar at the 361 University Ave. courthouse last Monday. "To ensure that cases are dealt with in a timely manner, we must have adequate court- house facilities. In particular, Toronto needs more criminal courtrooms to avoid a bottle- neck in concluding criminal trials. Without the necessary bricks and mortar, we risk intractable delays and potential miscarriages of justice." But Attorney General Chris Bentley tells Law Ontario judges look on during the Opening of the Courts ceremony at the 361 University Ave. courthouse. Times that the Liberal government since taking power in 2003 has invested in a pair of new ma- jor case courts in Toronto and has recently an- nounced plans for a new courthouse for Etobi- coke. He offered no promises of Winkler's vision of a new Toronto Superior Court facility. "I'll keep working very actively with mem- bers of the judiciary, the bar, . . . and the public which uses the courthouses in terms of the needs and how best to meet them," says Bentley. For Bonkalo, a particular concern was the fact that the government appointed only four justices of the peace over the past year, leaving 21 vacancies across the province. The problem, she noted, stems from 2007 amendments to the Justices of the Peace Act, which she said brought in a "complicated system of central and regional committees" to vet applicants. See Bonkalo, page 5 dian lawyers in a bid to duplicate a new study suggesting large U.S. firms are missing the mark by recruiting graduates exclusively from top-tier law schools. In a study for the American Is it a mistake to hire lawyers only from the best schools? A BY ROBERT TODD Law Times Toronto sociologist is get- ting set to track a coun- trywide cohort of Cana- They argue that large U.S. law firms are misguided in recruiting only graduates from top-tier law schools who as a whole find big- firm life less satisfying than their peers from lower-tier schools. Dinovitzer and Garth point to Bar Association, the University of Toronto's Ronit Dinovitzer has been working with Bryant Garth from Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles in fol- lowing the careers of 5,000 U.S. lawyers who began practising in 2000. In this month's edition of the American Lawyer, they reflect on findings from an earlier paper they wrote for the study. TitlePlus_LT_Feb9/16_09 2/4/09 2:02 PM Page 1 data showing that among survey respondents working at firms with more than 100 lawyers, just 26 per cent of graduates from one of the country's top 10 schools cited "extreme satisfaction" with being a lawyer. However, 49 per cent of those from fourth-tier schools re- ported that level of job satisfaction. They also reported that 59 per cent of those from elite schools planned to leave their firm with- in two years, while just over a quarter of fourth-tier graduates intended to leave. The researchers suggest a sense of mutual elitism could create higher job expectations among graduates from big-name schools who are familiar with the monetary rewards offered by careers in business consulting or investment banking. "Thus, it may be that the lu- crative salaries offered by the large law firms are no consola- tion for the hours that they have to work," wrote Dinovitzer and Garth. "They know they have other options and they have friends who are getting even richer with those other options." Dinovitzer tells Law Times she hopes to begin a similar study on a nationwide cohort of Canadian law school graduates in about a year. 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TitlePLUS policies issued with respect to properties in Québec and OwnerEXPRESS® policies do not include legal services coverage. 1 12/9/08 11:12:30 AM says the study would benefit Can- ada's legal community. "It's important to know who's going where and why," she says. Her past research has shown that U of T Faculty of Law graduates are more likely to end up in large law firms than those from other law schools in the province. She notes as well that U of T requires a higher LSAT score and grade-point average for admittance. "So you begin to watch the funnelling of talent into particular practice settings," she says. "You begin to recognize that the best and brightest of Ontario is serving corporate interests. You begin to wonder where is all this talent go- ing and what happens to the dem- ocratic ends of our legal profession if this is how it's getting skewed. So See Big, page 5 www.lawtimesnews.com Photo: Robert Todd

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