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LAW OFFICE MANAGEMENT I asked myself, 'why me?' Now I realize I was one of the lucky few who was able to benefit from this exercise." — ISHWAR SHARMA practical mentoring and advice over common concerns such as communication, file and time management, quality of service to clients, technology, and professional and personal issues, practice management reviewers try to raise awareness of the available practical resources and tools. "It's a rather convivial process," says Thierry Usclat, a Montreal lawyer specializing in labour and workers' compensation who conducted more than 80 practice management reviews last year for the Barreau du Québec. "We're not there to conduct investigations or conduct an exhaustive analysis of each of their files. We're there to help them out, give suggestions, recommendations, and with the younger lawyers especially, give them some coaching." After the review, appraisers write up a report. Depending on the evaluation, the file can be closed if all is well, lawyers can be subjected to further monitoring and provide proof that deficiencies have been addressed, or a formal investigation can even be launched if the review discloses misconduct or failure to meet standards of professional competence. The latter was the case for 33 Quebec lawyers in fiscal 2007-2008. The Barreau was the first Canadian law society to introduce a practice management program because the Professional Code, which governs Quebec's 45 professional corporations, compels self-governing regulatory bodies to monitor the pro- fessional competence of its members and ensure compliance with the rules of ethics through discipline and professional inspection. Like all other professional orders, the Barreau was required to establish a professional inspection committee. "A professional corporation has a duty to protect the public, and one of the ways to achieve that is through prevention — and that's what professional inspections are all about. It's best to put a stop to poor practices now rather than see a lawyer end up before the syndic (or investigating officer) a couple of years down the road," says Usclat. Every year the Barreau dispatches a nine-page evaluation guide to up to 1,500 lawyers which must be completed, and based on the responses, the Barreau then draws up a list of 800 lawyers it will visit. In other words, Quebec law- yers can expect to be reviewed every five to seven years. Driven, in part, by a healthy dose of self-preservation, other When it comes to legal technology, don't choose the road less travelled. Industry leader in legal software for real estate, corporate and estates for over a decade The choice of 2500 law firms, The Conveyancer generates required documents (including lender forms), tracks undertakings, exchanges data with Teraview® (ON) and SPIN (AB) and integrates with four title insurers. Comprehensive corporate records software tracks changes and generates prescribed forms, registers, ledgers, share certificates, resolutions, minutes, correspondence, etc. Integrated e-filing and extracts. The Estate Administration module automates Rule 74/75 forms plus scores of letters and documents. The Estate Accounting module simplifies recording of financial transactions, and generates reports in "passing of accounts" format. law societies are or will be following in its footsteps. Indeed, Canadian law societies have paid heed to painful lessons drawn from across the Atlantic. Increasing public distrust of the legal profession prompted England to enact the Legal Services Act, 2007, which effectively ended the authority of the legal profes- sion's self-regulatory bodies, after more than a decade of discus- sion and debate. Closer to home, the Supreme Court of Canada's 2004 ruling in Finney v. Barreau du Québec served as another wake-up call. Its finding that the conduct of the Barreau "was not up to the standards imposed by its fundamental mandate, which is to protect the public," was not lost on Canadian law societies. As Diana Miles, the director of professional development and competence at the Law Society of Upper Canada, puts it: "If a regulatory authority in any profession is not appropriately over- seeing the competence of its professionals, there is the potential that the government or others may take a look and say that's not adequate and may request that you make changes." Law societies are not taking that chance, and are now Tel: 416.322.6111 Toll-free: 1.866.367.7648 www.doprocess.com 18 JUNE 2009 www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com more aggressively launching preventative initiatives. Nearly 18 months ago, the LSUC expanded its quality assurance program to include random practice management reviews. After meet- ing its objective of conducting 250 reviews in 2007, and 400 last year, the LSUC slightly altered its selection criteria. Instead of randomly selecting members who are in the first eight years of private practice, the LSUC will target sole practitioners, with solos making up at least half the members chosen to be reviewed. The reason, says Miles, is approximately 50 per cent of sole practitioners in the first few years of their practice face "When I was selected for the practice management review,