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regional wrap-up AtLANtIC ESTABLISHED NEWFOUNDLAND FIRM UP IN FLAMES the 25th anniversary of partners Steve Marshall and Dave McKay with a bar- becue in their building's parking lot. Less than 24 hours later, fire engulfed and demolished their firm's building. Within days of the Saturday fire, O the 50-person firm was open for busi- ness, albeit not business as usual. "We were up and running by Sunday night. We all had Gmail accounts set up," Marshall told Canadian Lawyer only a few days after the three-storey building was destroyed. "If I was going to take a team to deal with this, this is the team I would pick. We're fighters. We're bat- tlers." They're also grateful. No one was injured in the fire, notes Marshall, who points out the day after the fire, two teens died in St. John's in an unrelated incident. "[Those families] have a loss. We have an inconvenience." The inconvenience is not as great as it could have been. A cement wall protected the firm's server and data files from flames. Within a few days, two temporary offices were set up and everyone was connected by one phone system. The firm's web site was used to provide contact information, answer questions, and reassure current and prospective clients that Roebothan McKay Marshall was hard at work. The cause of the fire, which was first reported around 7 a.m. and quickly spread throughout the building, is not known. By the time firefighters began overseeing excavation as a safety pre- caution, a thick layer of smoke had n June 11, lawyers and staff at Roebothan McKay Marshall in downtown St. John's celebrated settled over the city. The well-known firm, which spe- cializes in litigation, labour law, and personal injury, was co-founded by three lawyers including now-premier Danny Williams and Jack Harris, who currently serves as the NDP MP in the House of Commons for St. John's East. While the building can, eventually, be replaced, there are personal items that are forever lost. "I had an auto- graph from Tim Horton," says Marshall sadly. "That's gone." — DONALEE MOULTON donalee@quantumcommunications.ca Hats off to NSBS' online procedure rules T he Canadian Association of Law Libraries has honoured the Nova Scotia Barristers' Society with the Hugh Lawford Award for Excellence in Legal Publishing for its annotated civil procedure rules. "We're the only province that has free, searchable procedure rules that are annotated and online. It's the kind of thing commercial publishers do," says Barbara Campbell, NSBS director of library and information services. "It was a labour of love." Indeed. A law librarian travelled around the province for roughly 10 months over a two-year period to meet with public librarians and law firms to train them on the new program. Indexing alone took four months. Lawyers are not the only ones to benefit. More and more self-represented litigants are appearing before the courts in Nova Scotia, and the online rules are making their access to justice easier and less expensive. The annotated civil procedure rules project, funded by the law society, includes educational notes, forms, and annotated material for each subsection. There's also a clickable index to make searching even faster and more effortless. The work is not over. "The family rules are being worked on now," notes Campbell. "Plus we are improving the back end to allow changes to be made more easily." Atlantic Legal Telephone Directory 2010–2011 INCLUDES E-MAIL ADDRESSES Connect to the east coast legal network Order your copy today at www.canadalawbook.ca • 1-800-565-6967 7" x 1" Cdn. Lawyer banner.indd 1 www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com A UGUST 2010 7 4/27/10 10:57:03 AM — DM REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION FROM THE TELEGRAM