Report from the Chair

by Bernard Pinsky

The business of law has become a bigger and more time consuming aspect of legal practice than ever before, and the trend will likely continue. Such questions as: Will globalization render lawyers in B.C. the functional equivalent of “hewers of wood and drawers of water”? Will quasi-professionals, accountants, notaries, and paralegals encroach on more and more of traditional legal work? Will there be an outright prohibition against lawyers from being involved financially in their clients, or will the current restrictions be loosened? What will it take to attract young lawyers to our firm? Who will pay out our capital accounts? How long should our firm’s maternity leave be?

These and many other questions involving the business of law are being grappled with by a relatively new CBABC committee, called the “Business of Law Committee” (the “Committee”). Since commencing meetings in September 2002, the Committee has discussed and, in some cases, made recommendations to the CBA on the discriminatory Social Services Tax on professional legal services, alternatives to the billable hour method of billing, demographics in the legal profession in B.C. and limited liability partnerships. In the view of the Committee, many aspects of the business of practising law are worthy of consideration and hopefully, improvement, in the fast changing dynamic of professional legal practice. It is the intention of the Committee to make recommendations to the CBA that are useful, practical and capable of implementation, and to support the recommendations with an analysis of each issue, focusing on why the issue is important to the CBA, to lawyers generally and to the business of the practice of law.

The Committee will meet monthly this coming year by conference call to ensure participation of Committee members from outside of Vancouver. We are open to suggestions on business issues of concern in the way lawyers practise today and in the future.

If you have any such suggestions or comments, please e-mail cba@bccba.org. The Committee is just one way that the CBABC intends to make itself meaningful and useful to its members.

Bernard Pinsky is a partner of Clark, Wilson and the Chair of its Corporate Finance/Securities and U.S. Law Practice Groups. He is the Chair of the CBABC Business of Law Committee.

This article was published in the October 2003 issue of BarTalk. © 2003 The Canadian Bar Association. All rights reserved.