Perhaps because Passover is almost upon us, or perhaps because of being in court yesterday reminded me of it, I will start the series on judicial thinking with what I call the “Rule of Solomon”.

For those of you who might remember your Bible lessons on Sunday mornings, 1 Kings Chapter 3, Verses 16 to 28 tells the story of the two mothers who go before King Solomon.  Each mother claims that the child is hers and wants custody of the child.  Solomon says “OK, cut the baby in half and give each mother half and they’ll both be satisfied.”  One mother says “no, please don’t do that, give the baby to the other woman and let the child live.”  The other mother says “that’s fine, go ahead.”  Solomon gave the child to the first woman since she was clearly the mother and loved it.  This story lead to the (incredibly gruesome if you think about it) saying of “cutting the baby in two” to determine a dispute.   (Of course, all sorts of weird things happen to babies in sayings – they get thrown out with the bathwater, candy gets taken from them, etc.)

I was once told by a judge “I know I’ve made the right decision if both parties walk away and are both ticked off with my decision -but for different reasons.”  And that’s where the judicial thinking comes into play.  Everyone thinks of litigation as having one winner and one loser.  But is that really the case?  I would suggest that it isn’t the case.  It is very rare that there will be a 100% winner and a 100% loser.  A plaintiff, for example, will want 5 types of relief.  The judge may give him/her 2 or 3 types of relief.  Who is the “winner”?  The plaintiff who wins on 2 points or the defendant who wins on 3 points.  The plaintiff went from nothing to, say, $100,000 in damages.  The defendant went from facing a claim of $2,000,000 to only having to pay $100,000.

In many cases, the judge will “cut the lawsuit”.  Perhaps not in two, but into something less than the whole of what was sought.  The result is that if you are suing someone, you should be prepared from the absolute outset to realize that you are unlikely to get everything that you ask for in the lawsuit.  On the flip side, if you are defending you should be prepared from the outset that you are likely to face the plaintiff getting at least SOME relief and you should be prepared to have to pay something at the end of the day.  If you go into your lawsuit realizing that you are likely to win something and lose something, it will make you assess more quickly the strengths and weaknesses of your case and determine how far you want to fight the lawsuit and, in turn, how much money you want to spend for the fight.

Something to think about.

CALC

If you recall, one of the things I said at the beginning of this blog was that I was going to post when I found things that were worthy of writing about.  If I wanted to keep it current, I could write about the latest decision of the courts on what constitutes a valid contract, etc., etc.  But if this decision doesn’t add anything new to the law and just applies the same old rules and if it didn’t have anything special to small businesses, I wasn’t going to write about it just for the sake of saying something.  The problem with that approach, though, is that eventually one hits a bit of a “critical mass” and there isn’t a lot of new items to talk about.  So I have to wait until I can think of something interesting to write about.

Well, I’ve finally figured out a new series of things to write about and it is going to be a series from time to time about judicial thinking.  In other words, our system is based on laws but it is also based on principles of equity – that is, fairness.  This mixture means that there are definite rules, but also enough exceptions that the system remains “human”.  If it was simply making and applying rules without exceptions then we wouldn’t need judges, we could just hand disputes over to a computer and it would run some calculations on the variables and spit out the judgment.

Since we have a “human” system, I have come to learn a series of what one of my kids would call “cheat codes” that sometimes can help to understand the system or to appreciate what you might expect if you have to go through a lawsuit.  So, in this series, I will provide some of these examples of judicial thinking.

CALC

While this post has nothing to do with small business law per se, I thought that I would put up this post because, to be honest, I had a real bugger of a time trying to find any information out regarding hearings before the Trade-Mark Opposition Board and there wasn’t a lot of procedural information out there.  I was surprised that there wasn’t much in either Odutola on Canadian Trade-Mark Practice or Hughes on Trade-Marks in this regard.  I made inquiries of numerous colleagues for whom they all had had the same experience as myself – they have done trade-mark oppositions but the determination was always on the basis of written arguments and nobody had attended an oral hearing.  Then I spoke with my good friend Aaron Schwartz who had done them in the past and his advice to me was “they’re just like arguing an appeal, don’t worry you’ll be fine.”  That made me feel better in the sense that at least I was sure that I wouldn’t be involved in something completely foreign to my sense of understanding.  And so yesterday I caught a plane and attended my first oral hearing on a trade-mark opposition.

I did manage to find one continuing legal education program in which oral hearings were quickly mentioned.  Unfortunately, I only copied the two pages that covered the section – if anyone ever happens upon this program again and wants to let me know who said these passages I’ll happily give credit to the author where it is due.  It was written:

Hearings are held in Hull, Quebec before a one-person board.  Note also that is is possible to participate in hearings by way of telephone conference call. … French language hearings along with simultaneous language translation facilties are available.  …  There is currently a backlog of approximately 190 cass for which hearings have been requested and are scheduled or await scheduling, or for which decisions are pending.  The actual hearing date that is granted is typically anywhere from nine months to one year from teh date the request is made.  Decisions typically issue within one month of a hearing.

…

One can expect a high level of adjudication in oppositions, indeed often better than other venues.  … With this in mind, it is advisable not to waste the Board’s time by restating the obvious, belabouring issues of law which have long been decided, or droning on about basic points which are raised in every hearing in which an Officer participates.  The experienced practitioner quickly and succinctly canvasses issues such as the onus on the parties, and the material dates for considering the various grounds of opposition.  Keep in mind that each Hearing Officer has the pleasure of listening to a trade-mark agent or lawyer remind him or her on an almost weekly basis that the onus on the parties has not changed since the week before.

Nor does it advance a party’s case to reread its written argument.  The better approach is to simply inquire of the Board whether they have had an opportunity to read the party’s written argument and might have any qustions regarding same.  The one should go on to either add points not included in one’s own written argument or to add commentary on the other side’s case.  Do not be afraid to try out new points of law, even if prior Opposition Board decisions are against you.  The Board will at least consider and rule on them in writing, which may provide an opportunity to pursue the argument on appeal, if the case goes that far.

From my experience yesterday, I can add the following updates or my comments.  Firstly, Hull, Quebec is now known as Gatineau, Quebec (which threw me off a little and shows my age I suppose).  Second, as it now stands, the Board is finishing off its new swanky hearing room (we used it but it’s not done) and in a few months it will be ready for use with video conferencing which will be better than hearings by way of conference call.  Third, yes, English-French translation service is available, but one has to be somewhat wary of it.  The translators that they had for my hearing were good but they were not legally trained.  To give an example, the moving party or the applicant in a legal proceeding is a “Requerant”  The literal, non-legal translation would be “the requirer” or “the requiring party”.  In this case, however, the translator should have said “the applicant” but I was given the translation of “the requirer” and it took me a few seconds to figure out that it should have been the applicant – which meant that I lost a few seconds worth of translation.  After about the half-way point, I started to wear my headphones half on my ear and was listening more to the French than to the translation (I really should have more faith in my French abilities).

I’m not sure how many cases are backlogged now, but I can say that between the time the other side requested the oral hearing and yesterday was slightly more than one year.  In this instance, I cannot stress enough how important it was that I had the research updated between the time of the written arguments and yesterday’s hearing.  Why?  Because as it turned out the Supreme Court of Canada had released its decision in Masterpiece Inc. about five months after our written arguments had been submitted and that case changed the way one approaches trade-mark oppositions now.  As the Board member put it yesterday, she viewed Masterpiece Inc. as “Trade-Mark Oppositions 101″ – so that should be your starting point for the next few years at least – and I would have been very sorry if the research wasn’t updated and that case wasn’t found and addressed.

In addition, the Board member indicated that the Board’s internal guideline now is to get decisions released within four months – and that’s just the guideline so it could conceivably be a little longer.

I’m personally not a fan of assuming that the Board has read all of my arguments and I’m not a proponent of the “just ask them if there are any questions” approach.  I decided to hit the highlights at least of each of my arguments and still make the additional points or comments on the other side’s written argument.

In terms of logistics, the Oppositions Board hearing room has now moved to Room C232 of Phase II of Place du Portage.  Place du Portage runs from rue Victoria on one side to rue de l’Hôtel de Ville on the other side.  Phase II is on the Hôtel de Ville side – so if you have lots of materials to haul with you, have the taxi go to the Hotel de Ville side rather than the rue Victoria side.  Once you get into Phase II at the Hôtel de Ville side, go up the escalator and you will see Room C232 at the top of the escalator – so you don’t have to go through the security checkpoint.

I should also mention that it was stated by the Board Member that the Board does also hold hearings in Montreal – but only where both the applicant and the opponent are represented by lawyers or trade-mark agents based in Montreal.

There is a Practice Notice that is in effect for trade-mark opposition proceedings.  Suprisingly, it also says little about the actual procedure at the oral hearing.  The only portion that deals with the requirements for the hearing itself is found at Section X.8 and that simply says that parties are required to send to each other and to the Board at least five working days before the hearing a list of the case law and copies of any unreported decisions that they intend to rely upon at the hearing.  In this instance, I focused on the wording “to be relied upon at the hearing”.  I had cited about 20 cases, but I only planned to address about 6 of them in my oral arguments – the other 14 or so were either additional examples of my main case citations or else they dealt with items like on whom a certain onus rested.  So, I put in my 6 cases on the list and left it at that.  The other side, however, had cited over 30 cases and their lawyer sent in a list that had all of their cases listed.  The Board member said absolutely nothing about this – even though only a handful of cases were cited by the other lawyer.  I’m not complaining about this and it really didn’t matter in the end.  Next time, though, I will simply send in a list of all of my cases cited in the written arguments and any new cases that came up in between the written arguments and the hearing and then I can refer to whatever ones I want.

What was not clear was who speaks and when.  The onus is on the applicant to satisfy the Board that there is no likelihood of confusion.  As such, I presumed that I would go first, then the other lawyer and I would get a chance of reply.  As it turned out, the order of speaking was the Opponent’s lawyer first, then myself for the applicant, and then the Opponent got a chance of reply.  I was fine with either order, but at least now I know who speaks when.

When I was first married I had problems dealing with how to address my mother-in-law.  I was brought up not to call my elders by their first name.  I wasn’t going to call her “Mom” because she isn’t my mother.  I wasn’t going to call her “mother-in-law” because that sounded too formal and inappropriate.  I honestly had no idea what to call her so for over a year I simply spoke with her directly and never called her anything.  The “difficulty” (to the extent that there was one) was alleviated after a year with the birth of our first child and my ability to now call her “Grandma”.  Fortunately, though, that year gave me practice for speaking with the Board Member.  I couldn’t call her Your Honour, because she isn’t a judge.  I just couldn’t bring myself to referring to a woman (or a man for that matter) as a “member” – for reasons which should be obvious.  I did not feel comfortable referring to her by her personal name since I had never met her before and it seemed awfully familiar (although, in fairness, it wasn’t a stuffy or overly formalistic hearing).  So, I just spoke directly with the Board Member and didn’t address her directly but I did make mention from time to time along the lines of “if the Board should find …”  I had asked the registrar before the hearing how to address the Board Member and he had no idea.  I guess you’ll have to figure out what works for you and you are comfortable with.  I would still be calling judges “Mi’Lord” and “Mi’Lady” if we weren’t required to call them “Your Honour” nowadays – I like the old formalities.

In terms of the hearing itself, the Board Member basically said at the outset that she had a few questions she wanted to ask of each side and that some other questions might arise as we made our arguments, but that she was basically willing to let us make our arguments with little interference from her.  The hearing did proceed in that manner.  Compared to other hearings I’ve been in, it was quite painless.

The final issue to mention is that there are no costs provisions under the Trade-Mark Act or the regulations or the practice notice for opposition board hearings.  So, my last minute panic (that I always get before a hearing, motion, etc.) that I have forgotten to prepare a bill of costs or costs outline was quickly relieved when I ran into the office late the night before and saw in Hughes on Trade-Marks that there are no costs provisions so I didn’t have to prepare anything related to costs.  At least one less thing to worry about from a practice standpoint (although if my client wins the hearing I’m sure it would like its costs – but the same could be said for the other side if it wins).

Hopefully some of the above information might be useful to someone else facing their first opposition board hearing and looking for some practical tips on how it works.  Best of luck in your hearing!

CALC

One of the ways that I can tell how good or bad the economy is going is based on the frequency that I get inquiries from clients about collection agencies – either because they want to use a collection agency or because they are getting called by collection agencies.  Not too surprisingly, I am seeing more matters lately between my clients and collection agencies. 

Now, I have to say up front that I have mixed feelings about collection agencies – just like I have mixed feelings about many other trades: lawyers, dentists, doctors, police officers, real estate agents, etc.  Many are very good and professional in their dealings but there are more than a few “bad apples”.  I average about two or three instances per year where I am required to send a letter to a collection agency to have them tone down or reel in one of their agents.  And I also appreciate that sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette, but when I have to send the letters that is because things have gone too far and the collection agent has become too aggressive.

In Ontario there is a Collection Agencies Act and, more importantly, there is a regulation under that Act which sets out what collection agents can and cannot do.  That regulation can be found here and, most importantly, you want to look at Sections 20 to 25 which set out the rules more fully.  By summary, though, here are some of the key rules that collection agents should be following (and that if you are the one hiring the agency, you will want them to follow and, if you are getting the calls from the agent, you will want them to follow as well):

1. The collection agency cannot simply call the debtor out of the blue.  A written notice must be sent first and then the collection agency has to wait six days before they can start calling.  That said, if you are the debtor, check your mail because if the letter comes and you decide not to open it, that’s not going to be sufficient – all they have to do is send the notice.

2. If you are the debtor and you dispute that you owe the money AND you suggest that the matter be dealt with in the Courts AND IF you send a letter to this effect by registered mail THEN the collection agency should stop trying to contact you.  Of course, though, this will then mean that the lawsuit is on and you will have to deal with the issue in the Court.  That said, if a collection agency is involved, then chances are likely that you are dealing with a matter under $25,000 so the claim will go to Small Claims Court and you do not have to have a lawyer representing you.

3. With various exceptions, the collection agency should not be speaking with your relatives or employer about your debt and trying to get them to assist in the payment of the debt in some way (either through payments on your behalf or simply to have you contact them - ie. applying pressure on you through your relations and boss).

4. There are certain times when the collection agency is not allowed to call (for example, after 9:00 p.m.) as well as certain days (such as holidays) and any communications should not be threatening or have improper (ie. profane) language used.  In this regard, I’ll take a moment to mention my favourite story regarding an abusive collection agent.  This guy was really bad and I had to send his bosses a very strongly worded cease and desist letter.  The response I got from him was a voice-mail telling me to “F” myself this way and that way but that he wouldn’t be calling my client anymore.  However, after threatening to report me to the Law Society (a threat that either he never fulfilled or, if he did, the Law Society just ignored it and never bothered telling me it was ever made because it would have been a b.s. complaint), he said that he would also be calling “Mr. Gowling” to report about my behaviour.  At the time, I was working at Gowling Lafleur Henderson.  Not only was I not worried about any such complaint to Mr. Gowling because I knew that I had done absolutely nothing wrong, but more importantly, I had to laugh because Gordon Gowling had died many years before that time.  I figured that if the abusive collection agent was truly able to speak with Mr. Gowling about my conduct, I would have bigger problems to deal with than the collection agent and would have to call Ghostbusters!

5. Collection agencies are not allowed to threaten that if the debtor does not pay then there will be a lawsuit unless there will actually be such a lawsuit – in other words, no veiled threats.

6. The collection agency isn’t allowed to mislead the debtor in order to get the debtor to pay.  So, for example, there is a two year limitation period for most lawsuits in Ontario.  It is not uncommon for creditors to wait for most of the two years and then turn the matter over to collections just before it’s too late.  Suppose this happens and the collection agency says that if the debtor doesn’t pay that he/she/it will be sued.  And suppose further that the limitation period has now expired.  And, to round things out, suppose that the collection agent does actually know that the lawsuit would be brought (even though it would die due to the limitation period having expired).  In that instance, the collection agent has mislead the debtor because the lawsuit could not be brought and be valid.

Those are the main points to consider if you are dealing with a collection agent.  For a more fulsome list of the rules, go to the regulation and see for yourself.  And hopefully you will never have to make reference to these rules but if you have to do so, at least you now know that they are there.

Something to think about.

CALC

I have a client who operates a repair shop for high end cars.  Unfortunately, he hasn’t been able to find someone who wants to sell me their luxury or sports car for an amount I can afford.  Oh well.  In any event, as with any other business, there are disgruntled customers from time to time.  One of those customers a few years ago decided to go onto various blogs or web forums and wrote “reviews” of my client that certainly skirted the edge of defamation but never quite crossed the line.  Needless to say, the reviews were not favourable to my client.  However, my client did not know about these until a few months ago.  Then he did a Google search on his business and started to realize that when people did searches on his business, these darned “reviews” were coming up and they were high enough in the search rankings that people would see these reviews and that it would (and probably has) hurt my client’s business.

Could I help my client?  Not really.  The reviews were written VERY carefully (I wondered whether they had been vetted by a lawyer).  They did not cross the line of defamation, so my client could not sue for that.  They also did not satisfy all of the elements for other claims such as the tort of interference with economic relations.  After looking at numerous options, it was clear that there were no legal obligations or standards that had been broken and, accordingly, there was nothing that I could do for my client.  The other, practical, reality was that if he proceeded to bring a claim about these “reviews” then this could backfire against him and his business since it would thrust these reviews back into the forefront and might increase their ranking on Google searches.

I was watching the France2 news today (France’s equivalent of the national news) and they had a story about a French company that is a combination of lawyers, marketing people, web specialists, etc. that work as a team to “rehabilitate” your online reputation after your name has been dragged through the mud through blogs, social media sites, etc.  In the example given in the news story, a business executive ran into some legal problems that were resolved but his name was smeared with false information, etc. in various articles or blog postings.  Because the statements were false, the lawyers were able to get those articles / posts pulled and then the marketing people worked on building new “friendly” references to the executive to force the other rankings lower.  This was done for a cost of about 2,000 Euros (about $2,800 at recent exchange rates).  (Somewhat ironically, I then went to check out the French company’s web site but Google Chrome immediately warned me that the site was infected with a virus, so it looks like there were hackers or other malcontents watching the French news tonight.  I don’t think that that was the reaction that the company was hoping for from the news story.)

A Google search for other similar companies showed several in Europe and the U.S. and even one in Toronto.  Is this a definite solution?  Probably not.  If my client’s disgruntled customer was truly someone with little better to do but to take shots at my client’s business, then he could probably counteract the positive web spins put on by the online reputation rehabilitation people.  But with the knowledge that there might not be a complete success, even partial success might be worthwhile if it reduces any loss of business due to the damaging comments made on the web.

I always tell my clients that there are two aspects to every dispute: the legal and the practical.  For my client with the car repair shop, the legal aspect of his problems with his former customer isn’t helpful for him.  It may be that the practical aspect of using a reputation rehabilitation company is worthwhile.

If nothing else, however, my client’s story reiterates what lawyers and others tell small businesses – Google your business on a fairly regular basis.  It is easier to minimize reputational damage on the Internet if it is caught quickly.  If damaging statements are made on the Internet and months or years go by, it could very well be too late.  As a personal practice, I Google my name every week or so because I represent the banks and often have to do litigation against self-represented persons who have no love lost for the Bank and thus, in turn, for me.  Thankfully, nobody has taken any significant shots at my reputation, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t or won’t happen at some point in the future.

Hopefully this is not a problem for your small business.  But if it is, then using one of these companies could well be something to think about.

CALC

I have to smile sometimes when decisions come out that most non-lawyers would say “um, you mean it wasn’t that way before, it seems kind of obvious that it should be the case, doesn’t it.”  But in the wonderful world of law, where it’s often difficult to fit the square pegs created by new technology into the round holes of legal categories, it’s not always so obvious.  Such is the result of a decision released by the Ontario Court of Appeal this past Friday in Tucows.com v. Lojas Renner.  Put briefly, Tucows.com purchased another domain name registration company that had among its list of registered domain names the domain name “renner.com”.  Lojas Renner is a Brazilian company that wanted the registration de-listed (so it could, then, register the name on its behalf).  Renner made a complaint to have the issue of who was entitled to the “renner.com” name determined under the ICANN protocol for such disputes.  In response, Tucows.com brought a lawsuit in Ontario to have the same issued decided and the arbitrator ultimately decided to stop the arbitration proceeding that Renner had started and to let the Ontario courts decide the issue.

Renner then brought a motion to strike the lawsuit in Ontario – with the result, then, that the matter would go back before the arbitrator.  Renner was successful before the motions court but Tucows.com appealed and the Ontario Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, with the result that the lawsuit will continue.  In making its decision, the Court had to determine whether Tucows.com was suing with respect to “personal property in Ontario”.  In other words, (1) is a domain name “personal property” and (2) would it be located in Ontario?

There were not a lot of prior court decisions to guide the Court and it had to return to basic principles.  When one considers a domain name, it is really a combination of a word locator description (the URL) and an IP numerical address.  If the domain name is really just a form of an address, how would that fit into the “old school” thinking about addresses?  For example, my office is at Suite 806, 121 Richmond Street West, Toronto.  Do I have any property rights in that address?  Does my landlord?  In and of itself, the answer is “no”.  On that basis, it would follow that domain names, which are really just a form of address, wouldn’t be considered as property.  However, the Court went on to hold that domain names should be seen as a new form of “intangible property” – like a patent or a copyright (you cannot hold a copyright, it is merely a “bundle of rights” that exists and is recognized as a type of personal property).  Similarly, a domain name consists of more than just an address, per se, because it gives exclusivity to the use of that address.  Again, to use the address example, if I move my office from 121 Richmond Street West to 1 First Canadian Place, I don’t have the ability to say that from that time onwards the physical building will be known as 121 Richmond Street West.  However, if I have the domain name ontariolegal.com and I have it registered with Tucows.com and if someone types in that URL it goes to the servers at Tucows.com and then I leave Tucows.com for whatever reason and renew my registration with GoDaddy.com (or whomever else), then I cansay that from that point in time onwards when you type in “ontariolegal.com” it will go to the servers at GoDaddy.com rather than Tucows.com.  In that sense, then, the Court found that domain names are a “bundle of rights” like other forms of intangible property and not just like the address of old and, accordingly, are a form of personal property.

The second issue was whether the domain name was personal property “in Ontario”.  In this regard, the Court looked at where registrant of the domain name was located, where the registrar of the domain name was located and where the servers for the domain name were physically found and concluded that the domain name was “in Ontario”.

Why does this matter for your small business?  A couple of things immediately jump to mind.  In recent years on a sale of a business one of the items to be included in the purchased assets was the domain name.  But how much does one pay for a domain name?  If it is seen as part of the business’ “goodwill”, then it is seen as something less than an “actual” asset.  It sort of went into the “catch all” category and perhaps would not be separated out as copyrights or trade-marks would be.  However, once you have a Court stating that domain names are now to be classified as separate personal property, more money can be charged for the domain name and it may well become more of a negotiating point on sales of businesses.  To give an example, I have a client who was involved in a therapy clinic.  He sold the clinic in one area but wanted to start up a similar business in another province.  Previously, one wouldn’t care too much about this – even if the same name was being used – because the buyer and seller wouldn’t be anywhere near each other.  But if they both want to use the same domain name, what now?  This will be more of an issue in the future.

A second item that immediately comes to mind is the issue of jurisdiction.  Not necessarily for the purposes of litigation like in this case, but for the purposes of taxation.  Where a company is resident is always a hot topic because companies want to be found to be resident in a location that has a lower tax rate.  Traditional indicators were items such as the location of the head office of the business.  These won’t go away, but will Revenue Canada look at this decision now and say that because a company that has its domain name registered through Tucows.com or some other registrar in Ontario and/or that because the servers where the domain name resolves to are located in Ontario that these are additional factors that can show that the company is resident in Ontario?  That could very well be the case. 

Something to think about.

CALC

One of my clients was chatting with me the other day about how his company is downsizing and, after several prior rounds of layoffs, he now fears that it may finally be his turn to be let go.  As such, he was contemplating going out on this own and setting up a consulting business.  He isn’t worried about getting work as he has very good connections both at his current employer and elsewhere.  Instead, his concern was health insurance for his family.  More particularly, one of his children has special needs and he has learned from experience that when insurance companies find this out, for example when he was looking for travel insurance on a trip outside of the country, they are looking for any possible excuse to deny his application because of his child – and some don’t even bother coming up with an excuse, they simply say that they are more than happy to insure the other members of his family but will not insure the child.  Where he is working right now he has the advantage that he is part of his company’s group benefits plan – which means that the insurer takes all employees and all of their dependents.  If and when the axe falls, my client will be on his own.  Or will he?

Did you know that the various boards of trade / chambers of commerce have their own group insurance plan?  You can be a member of the plan so long as you are a member of one of the boards of trade or chambers of commerce.  To find out more, you can go to this web site.

I am not a member of the plan – but it seems that few people know about this benefit of being a member of a board of trade (I will leave it to others to debate whether the other benefits of being a member make it worthwhile) and I certainly did not know about this when I first started out on my own.  Will the plan provide you with all of the coverage you are after?  Probably not – because that’s often the case of any group plan.  However, it might be something worthwhile to know about should you decide to start up your own business.  It could also be a bonus in attracting employees if you can offer them both salaries and participation in the benefit plan.

Something to think about.

CALC

In my last post I said that I am looking forward to what the next five years will bring.

Well, it is starting off with my finally taking the plunge and joining the rest of the world on Twitter. You can find me at:

@ontariolegal.com

Over the past few years I have found that there are several “thoughts” that come into my head that are worthwhile sharing but just don’t have enough substance to make a decent blog posting, so tweeting appears to be the answer.

Let’s see how it goes.

CALC

It’s hard to think that it has been five years now since I left the big Bay Street firm. Over the years I’ve been asked various questions – do I regret the move? Do I miss the lifestyle? Am I happier now than before? The answers are “no”, “no” and “yes”.

I suppose, though, the biggest question is “if you had to do it again the same way, would you?” I think that if anyone gave a completely unconditional “yes” answer, they would be lying. The reality is that opening your own business has two possibilities: (a) something went wrong or (b) it all went perfectly. If something went wrong, then you have to admit that there are at least some things that you would do differently. If it all went perfectly, then there are no glitches but the flip side is that you probably took too long to plan everything down to the final detail so minutely that you probably should have taken the plunge months (years?) earlier. In my situation, I think that both actually applied. While I have had some glitches, they were very minor so I almost had it perfect. That said, if I had to do things over again, I probably would have made the jump earlier than I did. I put almost two years of planning into the move to go out on my own. In hindsight, I probably could have shaved off at least six months of “fine tuning”.

But it’s always a fine balancing act and I doubt that anyone ever gets it perfect. That said, I have no regrets on how the last five years have gone. When I was a young lawyer I practiced personal injury law. I wasn’t on for the plaintiff’s side, but instead for the insurance companies. I learned a fair amount about the human body, about many different ways that we can mangle our bodies in car crashes or otherwise, and how the legal system works and the values that are put on lost limbs, death and other injuries. I am more than pleased to say that I have forgotten much of this information. What did stick with me, though, was a feeling.

In particular, I had one case with one client. My client was an insurance company that is no longer around. The case was a little old lady who came over to Canada from England and bought travel health insurance (like Blue Cross, but not Blue Cross) through my client. The lady was very clearly covered by the policy and the insurer should have paid on the policy. However, the decision was made to fight the claim for reasons that I cannot divulge due to client confidentiality obligations. After not too long on the file I simply could not look at myself in the mirror. I therefore vowed that I would never put myself in a similar position again if I could avoid it. And that is what I am happiest for over the past five years: things may not have gone perfectly over the past five years, but I have never had the feeling that I could not look at myself in the mirror on any client matter. So, that either means that I’ve done a pretty good job and I deserve to feel some self-satisfaction or it means that my moral compass has become deeply skewed and I need to give my head a good shake. Fortunately, with no complaints to the Law Society over the past five years and nobody suing me and nobody assessing my invoices, I will take that as confirmation that I’ve done at least OK over the past five years.

Let’s see what the next five year holds.

CALC

Sometimes I find out about a legal story that is so bizarre that it just has to be shared, but really needs little in terms of commentary. This is one such story.

I certainly feel sorry for anyone who has to work in a neighbouring cubicle or surrounding area. I also wonder how the Ontario Human Rights Commission might have found if the case were decided up here.

CALC