Law Times

Law Times • SePtember 29, 2014 Page 5 www.lawtimesnews.com have a Chow nation or a John Tory na- tion. Ford's supporters are very com- mitted and more likely to vote." Nunziata hopes to return to politics after a hiatus. He's running for council in his old political stomping ground of York South-Weston and says he can make a difference at city hall. "An adversarial approach is not in the public interest. We need more compromise at city hall. I represented this area for 16 years. People supported me as an individual and I'll be a strong candidate for the people," he says. In the meantime, lawyers are also running for office in other municipal races around the province. Kitchener, Ont., lawyer and mayoral candidate James Rhodes says the focus on Toronto ref lects the "tumultuous" nature of poli- tics there as compared to other cities. "Politics there is heated and energetic. Voters believe in high turnover and are passionate. In Kitchener, we have more of a reserved energy and the voters here are extremely loyal to who they elect." Rhodes, a first-time candidate for political office, says he wants to tackle the financial crunch caused by a dou- bling of the city's debt load as a result of a light-rail transit project there. "My practice is to resolve tax dis- putes," says Rhodes, a tax lawyer who regularly deals with the Canada Rev- enue Agency in his practice. "I fight the CRA over tax assess- ments every day in court. As a tax law- yer, I don't want to see property taxes rise for the people of Kitchener." Rhodes says he plans to "aggressively pursue" partnerships with businesses in order to boost revenues. He's also pro- posing to give tax breaks to manufac- turers as long as they stay in Kitchener and create jobs. Rhodes plans to remain involved in politics regardless of the outcome of the election and feels his work as a lawyer gives him an advantage over the competition. "Politicians are linear thinkers whereas lawyers are always adapting to new situations because of their job. I believe lawyers are trained to be good politicians," he says. Drew Dilkens, a mayoral candidate in Windsor, Ont., agrees with Rhodes about the potential advantages of going into politics after working in law. "Lawyers put themselves in front, they want to be leaders. A legal educa- tion certainly benefits someone looking for a career in politics," he says. Dilkens, who became a lawyer only in 2012, practises employment and la- bour law. Unlike Goldkind and Rhodes, however, he has extensive political expe- rience as a Windsor city councillor since 2006. With his community involvement and support from residents, Dilkens be- lieves it was a "natural progression" for him to run for mayor. "People were anx- ious as to whether I would run or not. I got a lot of support and there is a good feeling in the community," he says. Dilkens is promoting sound fi- nancial management while diversify- ing the economy to bring business to Windsor. He wants to chip away at the infrastructure deficit and says he's running a "grassroots campaign" to win the election. LT NEWS The court calls for clarity We second that notion From one team of professionals to another, we respectfully submit that when you or your clients are talking audit, tax and business advisory solutions, you should call us up to the stand. :LWKRτFHVIURPFRDVWWRFRDVW&ROOLQV%DUURZSURIHVVLRQDOVFDQRσHU\RXWKH insights and opinions you need, combined with objective, actionable advice to help maximize opportunities in virtually every area of business. Close the case with Collins Barrow. collinsbarrow.com Untitled-3 1 2014-09-23 11:28 AM Continued from page 1 Nunziata back in politics Domain name debate consecutive terms embedded in the domain name gives you an exact match and that is a big plus in the search-engine ranking," says Matthews. But among established lawyers, there's some doubt as to whether the new generic top-lev- el domains will offer any advantage. Intellectual property lawyer Mark Hayes says he won't be rushing to get his own dot-lawyer domain name. "I hate to say it but I think a lot of this is a bit of a revenue grab by the [domain] registrars," he says. "One of the things that we've discovered when new [generic top-level domains] are brought out is that especially the big brands will go in and usually try and reserve all the variations of their names and they usually don't use them in any way. So really, it's just an additional revenue source that in my mind is not particularly productive." The new generic top-level domains do offer more space for common combinations of words others have already taken up, says Hayes, who notes he's not sure there will be an immediate ben- efit beyond that. "At least in the short term, I don't think people are going to be searching for lawyers using the [generic top-level domains]. They're still going to use search engines, they're still going to try and find you that way. I'm not sure it's going to make a lot of difference." But Goyal says the fact that only lawyers can have the dot-lawyer domain name will serve as an indication that a professional is behind the web site. "It's supposed to be restricted to lawyers, so you have to show some kind of licence in order to register in that top-level do- main," she says. "So that's going to mean something. That's kind of attractive as well." Internet lawyer Gil Zvulony is more skeptical about exactly who will have access to the dot- lawyer domain. "What happens if a non-lawyer registers for those domain names? Is it something that can be revoked? What if [the person] is a lawyer and then he gets disbarred?" he asks. "I think at some point it might be free to be used by anybody. The lawyer restriction will be taken away," he adds. "The people who are running this are interested in selling as many domain names as they want. They're not the law society. They're not going to police who is a lawyer and who is not a lawyer." Zvulony gives the example of the dot-org domain that was initially available only to orga- nizations but is now open to anyone. The Canadian Internet Registration Authority, which manages the dot-ca domain, also has a word of caution for lawyers who want to rely on the new generic top-level domains. "If I were a business, I wouldn't want to be, quite frankly, signing up my web site to an un- proven domain," says David Fowler, director of marketing and communications at the authority. "I would want to know that my core property is sitting on technical infrastructure that's been around, that's safe and secure, and it's trusted. We can say that about dot-ca." Still, it's a good idea to have multiple domains, says Fowler. Lawyers and law firms could sign up for the new generic top-level domains while still maintaining their existing ones, he says, noting the new site can redirect users to the primary webpage. "What that allows the business to do is it allows them to put out what I would describe as a broader, more comprehensive net which captures that Internet traffic. That, again, opti- mizes your core site." LT Continued from page 1

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