Dear Members,
It is my honour to re-introduce myself as the 2015-16 Chair of the National Small, Solo and General Practice Forum. Our Forum executive is made up of members from Coast to Coast and I am honoured to have the opportunity to continue to work with them.
These members have been instrumental in providing input into our forum and have spent endless hours on conference calls making sure CBA National has the input from across the country. This year, our in-person meeting was held on May 9th in the lovely City of Ottawa. This meeting provided our Forum with the opportunity to meet face to face and to begin working on our small solo practice tool-kit. This multiyear project will be a resource that would be instrumental in helping solo and small practitioners start and run their own practice. To start, the Forum will begin to work on three sections of the toolkit: Getting Started, Getting Located and Setting Fees, and Researching the Materials, and placing them in a package that will be accessible to our members.
This is no doubt a very ambitious project and the Forum will need all the support that we can get from our members. If you or someone you know has shown an interest in the management of solo practice, please forward their contact information to stacy@wearyco.com so the Forum can benefit. If you would like to get involved in the national executive, there are five executive member positions available and I would encourage you to join in on the fun!
I have been a member of this Forum for more than 10 years and have had the opportunity to meet lawyers from coast to coast. This networking has been fun and educational. It has also provided me, a lawyer in a two-person law firm in St. Albert, Alta., the opportunity to receive referrals from all over the world and to provide services to my clients who require legal work in jurisdictions outside the province. I have established relationships that have allowed me to kiss a cod in Newfoundland with an aviation lawyer; discuss constitutional law with a world-renowned justice in Quebec City; and watch Oktoberfest festivities with an Ontario/German lawyer in Munich. These opportunities have inspired and made me realize that law is so much more than what I may see on a day-to-day basis.
I would encourage each and every one of you to attend the CBA Legal Conference in Calgary on August 14-16, 2015. The theme this year is Building a Better Lawyer – Do Yourself Justice as this will challenge you and encourage you to take risks and become creative in your practice.
I look forward to meeting many of you in person and if you have any questions or concerns about our Forum please feel free to contact me (780)-459-5596.
Yours sincerely,
Stacy L. Maurier
Chair of the National Solo and Small and General Practice Forum