Law Times

Page 6 SePtember 29, 2014 • Law Times www.lawtimesnews.com COMMENT Lawyers filling the void here have been two good examples recently of lawyers finding or advancing solutions to issues governments have failed to act on. As Law Times reports on page 3 this week, a number of lawyers are taking advantage of new court rules that allow for service by electronic document exchanges. They include Michael Tweyman and Arin Klug, both of CourtSide EDX, and Michael Marra, a fam- ily lawyer from Elora, Ont., who started the Support Information Exchange web site. The services come as the provincial government admits it wasted more than $4 million when it scrapped the Court Information Man- agement System aimed at introducing a comprehensive electronic filing system in Ontario's courts. After years of repeated failure on that issue, the government is now moving towards incremental, piecemeal approaches such as a pilot project in the Small Claims Court. While the government's track record on that issue is shame- ful, its new approach is better than nothing. In the meantime, we see lawyers moving to fill the void — on the service issue at least — through the new exchanges. The other area where lawyers have taken the initiative is climate change. Last week, a task force of the International Bar Association co-chaired by Toronto lawyer David Estrin proposed a comprehen- sive legal framework for dealing with climate change. It suggested ideas aimed at both preventing global warming, such as enacting trade rules to account for climate change measures, and dealing with the fallout. Particularly notable was the proposal for an international ASSERTION ABOUT SUPPORT PROGRAM CORRECTED The Speaker's Corner opinion piece piece on Sept. 15 (see "Choir of voices needed to tackle depression in legal profession and beyond") included inac- curate information about the Member Assistance Program for lawyers and paralegals in Ontario, a confidential and comprehensive service offered by Homewood Human Solutions and sponsored by the Law Society of Upper Canada. The Members Assistance Program includes peer-to-peer counselling of- fered by lawyers and paralegals who vol- unteer and are trained and supported by Homewood Human Solutions. This peer counselling is a vital component of the program. The Speaker's Corner article is wrong in suggesting that this peer counselling is no longer supported and available. Roy Thomas, Director of communications, Law Society of Upper Canada PORK-BARREL PRISONS It's interesting that the article on prison reform (see "Canada's prison paradox," Aug. 18) says Canada's corrections sys- tems are expanding as the severity and number of criminal offences fall. To understand the paradox, one only needs to look at who builds or will build prisons in Canada, who is slated to bene- fit from the spending of hundreds of mil- lions of dollars on prison construction, and then figure out whether that group of individuals has contributed to the Con- servative party's re-election campaign or has offered significant media support during election time through one or an- other of their associated media empires. The answer will then become clear. Privatizing prison systems is pork- barrel politics of the highest order; only this time we're talking billions of dol- lars instead of a simple appointment to a government board as the patronage payoff. In an age where information f lows freely, I am surprised we haven't figured that one out yet but I'm sure someone will eventually. Lou Ferro, Ferro & Co., Hamilton, Ont. LSUC SHOULD HEED ITS OWN ADVICE I note the media reports (see "Actions against Cho proliferate," Sept. 1) that clients of lawyer Meerai Cho claim that they have been defrauded of $15 mil- lion. There are believed to be as many as 141 victims. Claims against the Law So- ciety of Upper Canada's compensation fund are anticipated. The source of the compensation fund is, of course, money collected from lawyers. The lawyer for one of the claimants anticipates making a claim against LawPRO, the insurer for Cho. LawPRO is, of course, funded by lawyers. The law society held a hearing on Aug. 26 to determine if Cho's licence should be suspended on an interlocu- tory basis. According to lawyer Mark Ross, the law society had been aware of the issue since at least July 15. "They've certainly been sitting for 2-1/2 months with serious allegations of misappropri- ation of trust funds," he told Law Times. Another recent case of apparent mis- appropriation of trust funds discovered by the law society after the fact involved lawyer Javad Heydary. Recently, my office had a visit by a member of the professional develop- ment and competence department. Among the should/must-do list was a written office manual to deal with opening and closing files and how to deal with mail as well as preparing an emergency plan. It appears to me, given the Cho and Heydary cases, that the law society should be developing its own emergen- cy plan rather than simply cleaning up after the parade. Since it is my fees that pay for the law society's audit and investigation teams, the compensation fund, the LawPRO insurance fund, and the practice review team, I would like to see the law society focus its time and money on avoiding di- sasters like Cho and Heydary rather than telling me, after 35 years of practice, that I should/must have a written office manu- al dealing with mail and file storage. Paul Parlee, Parlee Law Offices PC, Stratford, Ont. ©2014 Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reprinted or stored in a retrieval system without written per- mission. The opinions expressed in articles are not necessarily those of the publisher. Information presented is compiled from sources believed to be accurate, however, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions. 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Here in On- tario, despite the achievements in closing down coal-fired electricity plants, we've seen little prog- ress on the cap-and-trade system promised under the Western Climate Initiative involving several states and provinces. So on these two issues, lawyers have shown they can take the lead. While it's often disheartening to see governments fail on these issues, we can at least take solace that others will advance them re- gardless. Whether we're talking about electronic document exchanges or rapidly declining prices for alternative energy sources such as solar pow- er, things are still progressing in small ways even when it looks like our governments are failing us. — Glenn Kauth u LETTERS TO THE EDITOR T

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