The premier weekly newspaper for the legal profession in Ontario
Issue link: https://digital.lawtimesnews.com/i/50221
PAGE 4 NEWS Statements show poor sales Continued from page 1 all the time, and to be frank, it's probably been healthy for me to understand what my clients go through. We all kind of get divorced from it, but once you're in the middle of it, you get a new perspective." He adds he was struck by the support he felt from fellow members of the bar who encountered him in court. "Lawyers I've barely known walk up to me and ask me how it's going, tell me they thought the case was bullshit and if there was any- thing they could do to help me out, they would. It's quite nice to see the local bar rally round. I quite enjoyed that I was pleasantly surprised at it." A defi ant Howe also notes the experience hasn't changed his approach to commenting on- line. "I wouldn't change a word of what I said originally. If I was in the same position, I would make precisely the same comment." In a discussion started by Kinney, he had criticized anonymous legal advice and called it "a crock." Lawyers involved with AdviceScene aren't anonymous, but Howe claimed his words were in response to a more general comment about the dangers of free legal ad- vice dispensed over the Internet. "I hope the risk of being sued doesn't deter people from speaking out on matters of public interest," says Manson, who denied the allegation that his com- ment had cast doubt on the identity of a judge con- tributing to AdviceScene. "We have a right in this country to comment on matters of public interest." Manson's own Lawbuzz troubles aren't entirely over, however. He's still seeking to unmask an anonymous blogger who off ered commentary on the case at lawbuzzlitigation.blogspot.com. Manson has claimed $1 million in damages for allegedly defamatory comments about him by the blogger and other participants on the web site in three posts following articles in Law Times about the case. All three posts have since been removed. Howe believes his own aggressive tactics, which included identifying himself early and immedi- ately moving for security for costs, helped force AdviceScene into the relatively early settlement. "I wasn't going to sit still through this," he says. "I thought it was an aff ront to me as an individual and an aff ront to the justice system. When you face a nonsense lawsuit like this, you shouldn't just roll over and turtle. I think you've got to fi ght back so that people know this kind of litigation isn't going to bring them anything positive." Howe says he suspects the lawsuit may have been a publicity stunt for AdviceScene, a claim Kinney denies. "I don't think it did a lot for us in the fi rst place," she says. "It probably doesn't have any value anymore even if it did then." Materials fi led with the court for the motions for security for costs prior to the settlement show AdviceScene had been facing fi nancial challenges. Financial statements showed it generated just $400 in sales between its launch in 2009 and the end of the fi nancial year in March 2010. At the same time, it spent more than $100,000 on consulting fees. Loans and other expenses resulted in a loss for the year of nearly $220,000. On top of the $20,000 it lost the previous year, the total loss was $240,000. In the document, Kinney denied AdviceScene was impecunious and provided a February 2010 assessment from a consultant that suggested the business could raise $500,000 by making 25 per cent of its shares available to investors given a value of $2 million. Kinney also off ered to put up two properties owned with her husband that are worth a com- bined $1.1 million to cover potential losses from the lawsuit. She notes it's normal for a technol- ogy startup to face fi nancial diffi culties in its fi rst few years and says the dismissal gives her a chance to focus on building the business. "We're getting rolling with investments now. I've been spread a bit too thin and I was running out of energy." Rutherford, meanwhile, laments the loss of Lawbuzz, a forum she says was a valuable resource despite accommodating some juvenile discussion threads. She notes she assisted and met a number of lawyers with shared professional interests after connecting on the site. Lawbuzz shut down shortly after AdviceScene launched its claim in August 2009 and shows no sign of resurrecting despite greeting visitors to the site with a promise to return: "Please be patient. We haven't forgotten you. We'll be back!" "Th e majority of the regular posters were help- ful and intelligent people who brought insight and criticism to all kinds of legal issues, specifi - cally Canadian legal issues," Rutherford says. July 11, 2011 • law Times Quebec regulators seeking injunction Continued from page 1 have always been and there continue to be concerns with the regulator, LSUC, owning a title insurance company and at the same time setting out the rules of professional practice for lawyers regard- ing the distribution of title insurance." In 2007, First Canadian Title commissioned a re- port from professor Paul Pa- ton, who was then with the Queen's University Faculty of Law. Paton concluded that the LSUC's ownership of TitlePLUS was intertwined with its regulatory decision- making and raised specifi c questions about the appro- priateness of its involvement in title insurance activities. Waters also cites freedom- of-information requests from competitors last year as evidence of the undue focus they've been foisting on Ti- tlePLUS. Th e statistics gener- ated by the information have served to suggest that real estate lawyers are or will be subsidized through infl ated errors-and-omission premi- ums collected by LawPRO from the legal community as a whole. TitlePLUS denies that allegation and suggests the statistics are being pre- sented out of context. But Marco Polsinelli, Stew- art Title's senior vice president and general manager for the Canada division, says that characterizing the renewed tension as a "war" may be somewhat misleading. "It's true that there has always been some tension around the philosophy of the respective insurers and that's never gone away," says Polsinelli, who's also a lawyer. "But that kind of tension is fair game and, in my opinion, just a result of healthy competition. And speaking for Stewart Title, we have never wavered in our business philosophy that gives full support to the in- volvement of the legal com- munity in purchase, fi nance, and refi nance transactions in the real estate market." Still, Waters insists law- yers must be vigilant in pro- tecting their positions. "What's really at issue is that TitlePLUS has maintained a 'The title insurance wars have been replaced by guerilla warfare in what have become the conveyancing wars,' says Kathleen Waters. commitment to the concept that lawyers bring real value to real estate transactions, includ- ing mortgages and refi nanc- ing," she says. A large part of that com- mitment consists of edu- cational and technological eff orts aimed at informing both the public and the profession about the role of lawyers and title insurance in real estate transactions. Th ere are good reasons for having such a commitment. For example, traditional title insurers' intrusion into resi- dential mortgage refi nancing has decimated the fl ow of deals to lawyers, particularly to sole and general practitioners. In Quebec, the conveyanc- ing wars have spilled over into litigation. Earlier this year, the governing bodies of the nota- ry and legal professions in that province launched a lawsuit against several title insurers seeking an injunction to halt what they call the "unauthor- ized practice of law" that they claim is "compromising the protection of the public." Th e regulators allege some title insurers have gone be- yond issuing title insurance policies to "taking over the entire process of drawing up [and registering] mortgages off ered by several fi nancial institutions." Th e allegations haven't been proven in court. But the mere fact that they're out there is an indication that the title insurance wars — or whatever people choose to call them these days — are far from over. See you July 25th Law Times will not publish in print next week. We will return on July 25, 2011. Meanwhile, enjoy fresh content on our web site at: www.lawtimesnews.com Untitled-10 1 www.lawtimesnews.com 6/7/11 1:34:38 PM