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the players acutely aware of how serious the crisis really is." — PAUL BURSTEIN, CRIMINAL LAWYERS' ASSOCIATION will see their maximum rates rise to about $135 per hour by 2015. And a separate tariff tier for "big cases" will rise by 66 per cent by 2015. "Indeed, it was the strength and solidar- ity of the membership which is responsible for producing an agreement," said Burstein aſt er the deal. "In addition to the monetary gains achieved by our boycott, this associa- tion has achieved formal recognition as the voice of the legal aid defence bar, now and for the forseeable future." Burstein encouraged members to accept legal aid certifi cates on all types of cases and act on behalf of those that went unrep- resented over the prior several months. Turning their backs on those they are dedicated to defending was not easy, says Mark Ertel, president of the Defence Counsel Association of Ottawa. "You're going to have feelings of guilt," he says, cit- ing a man sitting in a Guelph, Ont. jail for months on a fi rst-degree murder charge with a legal aid certifi cate that no lawyer will accept. "Th at's hard for us to stomach. We haven't traditionally done this kind of work because we thought it would make us rich. We thought it was important." But if there is anyone who understands how much goes into defending a mur- der charge, it is the person accused, says Lorne Goldstein, a lawyer with Webber Schroeder Goldstein Abergel in Ottawa. Clients are aware of the true cost in time and resources associated with complex tri- als, says Goldstein, and they know good "It's been effective in making all of lawyers won't act on legal aid trials without fair compensation. "Th ey understand that it's almost better to have no trial than a bad trial." But there has been an upside to the boycott for some lawyers who found them- selves with a little more free time. Anik Morrow, a Toronto lawyer, says she no longer had a "night job," as murder trials frequently kept her up into the wee hours. "It's actually easier to say I'm not going to take that case." While talks carried on, the criminal bar remained prepared to dig in its heels, she says. However, a handful of criminal lawyers cracked the bar's united front and accepted certifi cates on murder trials. Clay Powell, a well-known London, Ont. lawyer, says it was unfair to place the burden of the boycott on the accused. "I don't think withholding services is the way to get more money paid to lawyers," Powell told Law Times late in 2009. "Th ey're sitting in jail charged with murder and you don't have a lawyer? I suppose that's a disservice." Starting from $62.50 per month Cases that you can't find anywhere else can be found in BestCase, a new web-based research service from Canada Law Book, containing: • Comprehensive collection of reported and unreported decisions dating back to 1898 and including: • Canadian Criminal Cases – since 1898 • Dominion Law Reports – since 1912 • Labour Arbitration Cases – since 1948 ... plus others! • Renowned case summaries • Case citator eREPORTS included... continuing legal education delivered to your desktop! BestCase subscribers can now receive our eREPORTS – electronic versions of "paper parts" of our law reports. Emailed to you, the eREPORTS link from the subject index to the full reported judgment (including headnote). No more photocopying required to get copies of decisions exactly as they appear in a law report! Only in BestCase will you find images of reported decisions as they appear in our law reports, in a pdf file, complete with headnotes. Also available are images of original judgments as released by the court, with the official court stamps and signatures. Disburse your costs! BestCase allows you to track research, generate reports and manage your passwords using the new Disbursement Manager. Contact your Account Manager to compare BestCase to your current research services! Contact your Account Manager today! 1.800.263.2037 Canada Law Book is a Division of The Cartwright Group Ltd. 38 FEBRU AR Y 2010 www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com Bestcase (CL 1-2h).indd 1 1/18/10 11:59:33 AM