More than you may think.

by Patricia Jordan

If you work in law, the CBA works for you. The CBA promotes the interests of the legal profession, advocates, law reform, monitors provincial legislation, and provides legal service referrals and information to the public. As a member of the legal profession, you are in a unique position to see the practical impact of the law. Through its advocacy work, CBA members contribute an important perspective to law reform in Canada.

In this column, I thought I would take the opportunity to highlight a few of the many benefits of CBA membership. As a member, you are part of a national association of some 37,000 lawyers, judges, notaries, law teachers and law students from across Canada. Thousands of CBA members throughout British Columbia are involved in the Branch, through Committees, Sections and Provincial Council. Membership provides you with opportunities to interact with professional colleagues in a non-adversarial setting and to participate in local and national discussions concerning issues that affect the profession.

Another benefit is instant access to information online through CBA websites, including the B.C. Lawyers’ Directory and the award winning CBA PracticeLink. CBA websites provide a wealth of information that is available 24/7. CBABC members have free access to the B.C. Lawyers’ Directory portion of the online directory at www.bccbadirectory.org where members can search for B.C. lawyers by name, firm, city, preferred area of practice and second language. For a nominal subscription fee, members can also access the Legal Resource Directory; a listing of government, judges, courts, professional services, CBA and law-related groups.

Members receive discounts from preferred suppliers that are carefully selected to ensure personal and business benefits. Read about the many products and services offered to members online in “Member Savings” under “Membership.” CBA members also receive a 50 per cent discount on employment ads online and in the CBABC News & Jobs weekly email that is distributed to more than 6,000 members in British Columbia. Archived Section minutes and papers, practice advisory panels, information kits and standard forms including the Real Estate Contract of Purchase and Sale and Standard Undertakings are available for members on the CBABC website.

Did You Know?

• The number of text messages sent and received daily exceeds the population of the planet.
• NTT Japan tested a fiber optic cable that pushes 14 trillion bits per second down a single strand of fiber. That is 210 million phone calls every second. The capabilities of fiber optic cable is currently tripling every six months and is expected to continue for the next 20 years.
• One in five phone calls is recorded by authorities in the United States.
• The size of the Internet was recently estimated at 500 exabytes (EB). One EB = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 B.
• It is estimated that four EB of unique information will be generated this year, which is more than in the previous 5,000 years.
• The amount of new technical information is doubling every two years.

Site du Jour clicklaw.bc.ca The Clicklaw website is operated by the Courthouse Libraries of B.C. and was developed with a project grant from the Law Foundation of British Columbia. Clicklaw provides equitable online access to quality legal information, education and help for British Columbians. It features legal information and education, but it is not a site of laws.

Patricia Jordan is the CBABC Web Manager. She welcomes your comments, questions and suggestions. Tel: 604-646-7861; Email: pjordan@bccba.org.

This article was published in the August 2009 issue of BarTalk. © 2009 The Canadian Bar Association. All rights reserved.