Law Society 2009 Annual Review and Financials Online
The Law Society of BC posted its 2009 Annual Review: Regulating Lawyers in the Public Interest for 125 Years and its audited Financial Statements for 2009 on its website last week. This year, the Annual Review is distributed in electronic form for the stated dual purpose of saving costs and reducing the society’s environmental footprint. The Financial Statements will continue to be mailed to all BC lawyers, as the Law Society Rules stipulate.
In addition to marking the Law Society’s 125th anniversary, 2009 was the first full year of implementation of its three-year Strategic Plan. The Annual Review reports on the Plan’s progress and also outlines results from the second full year of Key Performance Measures for the Society’s core operations.
Court Information Website for Immigrants
The Justice Education Society recently launched CourtInformation.ca, a new online presence for its Court Information Program for Immigrants, which provides free information and referrals to new immigrants and refugees who are appearing in court. The Program’s Court Workers operate at various court locations in the lower mainland and by telephone throughout the province, helping its clients to overcome language barriers to understanding:
- Legal aid
- Court procedures
- Legal documents
- Civil law
- Family law
- Criminal law
The website contains information on Canadian Law, BC Courts, Criminal Law, Family Law, Employment Law, Residential Law, Civil (and Administrative) Law, and Youth Law; the entire site is available in in English, French, Spanish, Punjabi, Chinese, and Vietnamese. The individual legal topic pages also offer links to information on external sites in some of these languages.
“Smart” Forms for New Supreme Court Civil and Family Rules Online Soon
Enhanced online “smart” forms for the new Supreme Court civil and family forms will be available in June from the Ministry of the Attorney General Court Services Branch. The 80 most commonly-used of these will be available as saveable, fillable PDFs. The other, less-used forms will also be PDFs but will be fillable by cutting and pasting from existing precedents. E-filing will be available for all of the forms through Court Services Online. 17 of the most-used forms will have another feature: XML-tagging to enable data to be extracted directly from the form into the courts civil case management system. The new forms will come into effect on July 1 but, in the meantime, samples (subject to change) of three civil forms and two family forms are available for test runs:
Courthouse Libraries BC Introduces Mobile Catalogue
Barely half a year ago, Courthouse Libraries BC officially launched its new online catalogue on the AquaBrowser Library platform after a year in beta and a favourable reception. (The “traditional catalogue” remains available.) Rather than let the spring grass grow under their feet, they’ve now introduced a version that is optimized for viewing on mobile devices:
More information about the mobile catalogue and an opportunity to provide feedback on browser/device functionality are available at Courthouse Libraries BC’s announcement in its blog, The Stream. The post also asks whether the website itself should be optimized for mobile device viewing.
EFS Legislative Amendments – Bill 11 Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act
The EFS legislative amendments contained in Bill 11 Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act passed through the debate in the legislature on May 4, 2010. This enabling legislation authorizes the Director of Land Titles to take future action to specify classes of documents to be submitted electronically. It will also permit the Registrar to make exemptions on a transaction-by-transaction basis. The Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act has 189 sections covering a number of statutes which will require additional time to complete the debate stage prior to being brought into force through Royal Assent.
For the full text of the bill (3rd reading version) see: Bill 11, the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, 2010, and for a summary of the amendments, see this information bulletin from the Ministry of the Attorney General released on April 21st.
Family Law Rule Changes Webinar June 3
Still on the subject of the forthcoming new BC Supreme Court Rules, Dye & Durham will be presenting a webinar on the Family rule changes on June 3 at 11:00 a.m. Contact Dye & Durham at education@dyedurhambc.com or 604.713.7163 for more information or to register.
CBABC Monitors Implementation of New Court Rules
More on the new Rules: Last week the CBABC announced a Monitoring Initiative for the new BC Supreme Court Rules, comprising two subcommittees: one for the civil rules and one for the family rules. Each subcommittee will monitor the implementation of the new rules and distributing information to CBABC members about how courts are interpreting them. Fillable PDF comment forms for each of the Civil Rules and the Family Rules subcommittees have been posted to help them gather feedback on the new rules.
The subcommittees also are soliciting any reasons for judgment involving interpretation of the new rules by emailing them to a representative of the appropriate subcommittee at the addresses given on the Monitoring Initiative website. A library of these reasons then will be established on that site. CBABC members may subscribe to receive periodic updates outlining case summaries, rule amendments, and discussion of trends in interpretation of the rules.
Articling Guidelines for Downtown Vancouver Firms
In 2010, Law firms situated in the downtown core will be required to keep job offers open to articling students until 8:00 a.m. on Friday, August 13th. This timeline, which is set annually by the Law Society’s Credential Committee and defined under Rule 2-31, was published recently on the Law Society’s what’s new page.
This news confirms the dates and times outlined by the Vancouver Bar Association for 2010.
Denham is BC’s New Information and Privacy Commissioner
After being unanimously recommended, former Assistant Privacy Commissioner of Canada Elizabeth Denham (bio linked) has been appointed the new Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) for British Columbia. The Vancouver Sun reported in this past Saturday’s paper that Denham had been appointed following a vote in the legislature.
Denham replaces David Loukidelis who has assumed the role of Deputy Attorney General for BC. According to the Sun story her appointment comes with a six-year term, but that an exact start date has not yet been announced. David Fraser adds that Denham’s departure is another significant change in the federal office, with Jennifer Stoddart ending her term as Canada’s privacy commissioner this fall.
More details are likely to follow on the OPIC website in the coming days.
New Website for Downtown Community Court
The Provincial Court of British Columbia has announced a new website for Vancouver’s Downtown Community Court.
Since opening in September 2008, 1,786 accused have been through the court and 1,076 concluded their cases. The community court hears about 50 cases a day, of which 15 are new. More statistics, press releases and background factsheets are available on the website.
Annual Report Released by BCCA
The British Columbia Court of Appeal has released its Annual Report for 2009. Some of the statistics summarized by Courthouse Libraries BC include:
- 1210 fillings of new appeals
- 784 civil appeals and applications for leave to appeal filed, of which, 173 cases (22%) were by self-represented litigants
- 426 criminal appeals and applications for leave to appeal filed, of which, 56 cases (13%) were by self-represented litigants
And for those that missed the announcement back in late March, the Court of Appeal is also now publishing a running list of available court dates. The intended purpose of this list is “to assist counsel in discussions with others on when to schedule hearings before a Division of the Court. Counsel will still have to confirm dates with the Court Scheduler.”
BCLMA Topics – Spring 2010
BCLMA has published the spring edition of their newsletter Topics. Here’s a sampling of headline articles clipped from the table of contents:
- The ethics of law on the web
- Hawke elected new BCLMA president
- How to stop lawyer mobility or lateral hires from creating conflicts of interest
- 1985: good for more than blonde jokes… just ask the folks who write this missive
- Profile: Miriam Redford becomes FMD’s new Administrator
- The 2010 Games: Was it dramatic, thrilling, crowded – fun – enough for you?
- Thinking anew about your firm’s marketing plan and improving it
- How to raise the impact of training without raising the level of frustration
To read back issues of Topics, visit the newsletters area of the BCLMA website.
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