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PAGE 12 FOCUS May 16, 2011 • Law TiMes BenNet enhances internal sharing BY ROBERT TODD Law Times ognition for its ground- breaking knowledge database that links law- yers to key information through its intranet. Bennett Jones LLP A YOUR QUICK REFERENCE FOR HANDLING A STAY OF REMOVAL STATUTORY, JUDICIAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE STAYS IN IMMIGRATION MATTERS ALEXANDRE TAVADIAN Your client is at risk of removal from Canada. Quickly find the applicable arguments and principles that are necessary to prepare your motion for a stay of removal with Statutory, Judicial and Administrative Stays in Immigration Matters. This book fills the void in immigration law resources and will be a valuable tool for both judges and practitioners. The guide clearly and concisely explains the law governing stays, and provides an invaluable perspective on the case law, which is often inconsistent and at times contradictory. The author specifically addresses the three types of stays: legislative, administrative, and judicial. He analyzes, in a clear and concise manner, the applicable case law and the manner in which a motion for stay should be prepared, filed and argued. Statutory, Judicial and Administrative Stays in Immigration Matters is an essential reference tool for helping you raise decisive arguments on behalf of your client. received a platinum award from the 2010 Intranet Innovation Awards and was selected by the Nielsen Norman Group as one of the 10 best intranets for 2011 for its BenNet intranet redesign. Th e new sys- tem brings all of the fi rm's knowledge capital together in one convenient loca- tion for its 900 staff , including 450 legal professionals in Canada and abroad. Th e system includes a legal prec- Canadian law fi rm is getting international rec- the document carries. Th at's particularly use- ful for BenNet's core target group of young associates within the fi rm. Th e intranet also in- Trust among colleagues was key to BenNet's success, says Brian Bawden. cludes a unique resource called BenNet Books. It allows users to assemble various resources and organize them all with a table of contents, which facilitates the addition of context and process, something Bawden notes can be diffi cult to do in a precedent col- lection. Th ere are cur- rently 53 books avail- able on the resource with about that many in production. Another useful tool for young law- edents database with more than 2,300 documents organized similarly to e- commerce web sites that let users un- dertake a fi ltered search for the type of information they're looking for. Th e fi rm's national director of knowl- edge management, Brian Bawden, says the innovative project was long overdue for Bennett Jones. "We had fallen be- hind," he says. "We had a 10-year-old intranet, and it just didn't do all of the things that we needed it to do in terms of encouraging lawyers to share their knowledge and having some place to go where they had confi dence that the doc- uments they were going to fi nd were of high quality and consistency." Bawden notes the team kept those considerations in mind when he and others at the fi rm got together to create a system that lawyers would fi nd intui- tive and easy to use. Trust was also a key consideration. As Bawden points out, lawyers are re- luctant to share their best work with in- dividuals they're unsure of. As a result, the challenge comes down to the ability to foster strong relationships. "A lot of what we did had to do with ORDER # 983465-60181 $90 Softcover approx. 210 pages December 2010 978-0-7798-3465-5 Shipping and handling are extra. Price subject to change without notice and subject to applicable taxes. making it easier for people to discover who their colleagues were in other offi ces, learn more about them," Bawden says. "Th e other side of the coin is that people have to have confi dence in the documents that we're giving them. So we provide lots of information about these documents." For example, information is avail- AVAILABLE RISK-FREE FOR 30 DAYS Call Toll-Free: 1-800-387-5164 In Toronto: 416-609-3800 Online at www.carswell.com able on BenNet about who authored each document, who submitted it, who seems to like it by adding it to their per- sonal page, and which practice groups have adopted it as a standard. All of those details allow the law- yer to determine the type of pedigree yers is a program that allows them to take on the role of curator of a docu- ment related to a certain practice group for a six- or 12-month period. "It's basically part of becoming an ex- pert in that particular area, staying abreast of any cases that may come down the pipe, and being responsible to keep that model document up to date," Bawden explains. "So it's a learning experience for them, and from our point of view, we're keeping the precedent collection from becoming knowledge landfi ll." All of this is just a small taste of BenNet's capabilities, and Bawden believes the sys- tem brings Bennett Jones to the forefront of a leading group of fi rms using this type of technology. Th at claim is backed by the pair of awards it has received for BenNet, which took two years to complete through the hard work of a long list of Bennett Jones employees. Th e project involved leadership by a steering group along with the work of three outside development fi rms. Stephen Bowman, managing partner of Bennett Jones' Toronto offi ce, says the new intranet system is in line with the fi rm's goal of operating effi ciently. "Having an up-to-date and compre- hensive intranet gives us access, individ- ually, to the collective contacts and legal knowledge and experience of the fi rm as a whole," he says. While Bowman declines to off er a price tag for the system, he notes the fi rm would have incurred some of the costs whether the major retrofi tting went ahead or not. "It was so comprehensive that it dealt with a lot of things that we probably want- ed to get to anyway," he says. "In addition to that, it brought us forward in ways that allow us to operate more effi ciently. You can't measure the benefi ts of an effi ciency gain, but one has to believe that makes the fi rm function more effi ciently under its existing cost structure once you've in- vested in that kind of system." See you May 30th Due to the upcoming statutory holiday, Law Times will not publish in print next week. We will return on May 30, 2011. Meanwhile, enjoy fresh content on our web site at: www.lawtimesnews.com Untitled-1 1 5/10/11 9:29:53 AM www.lawtimesnews.com