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ASSOCIATES anyone. When I do, I'm usually discussing the documents, which I can do over the phone." one of their biggest issues when they were choosing a place to go. "We looked at going to Italy, but we just weren't sure we could find consistent and reliable in- ternet access there." As well as great beaches, the South of France offered an agreeable lifestyle. "Living there is different than just trav- elling," she says. "You settle in. You go to the bakery every day and the grocery shop. It was great experience to do what the French do on a daily basis." Schafer's telecommuting career began when she had her first child. She found she needed to scale back her work. "If I went into the office I would get too much," she says. So she made the transi- tion to working at home, which allows her the flexibility she needs to look after her son. "I don't work normal hours. I work a lot more at night. I may go into the office once a week. I stop in, pick up mail, chat with a few people, but I don't have a strict schedule for going into the office. I don't actually have an office, so there's no place to go to." That's one of the advantages of tele- commuting: it's cost-effective for the firm. "They don't need to provide an of- fice for me," she says. Another thing she doesn't need is paper. "I print a docu- ment once a week, if that," she says. "I try to run a paperless office. Even when people mark up a document with hand- written comments, they usually just scan it and e-mail it to me. And the more technology you get, the easier it is. For dictation, I can just speak into my com- puter and e-mail it." When she first suggested the idea of that lies behind things, so I don't really need to be working with "I draft documents and do the research telecommuting, the firm was very sup- portive. "They were all for it," she says. "My firm has done everything they can to make me feel included." It can be hard being away from the office, though. "The most challenging thing about working from home is missing the social aspect," she says. "You sometimes feel discon- nected. You don't get as much time to visit with the people you work with. You don't have as much time to ask how they're doing, and what's going on with their life." She's no longer in France, but back Berger_ELTYIR 2/8/08 9:21 AM Page 1 working at Winnipeg, pregnant with her second child. When the dust settles from that, Schafer and her husband are plotting where to go next. You don't need a work permit when you're tele- commuting, so the sky's the limit. "Next time," she says, "we're thinking of going to California." Discover from experts, how recent developments in environmental legislation, policy and case law will impact your practice today Stanley D. Berger and Dianne Saxe With contributions by: Stanley D. Berger, Dianne Saxe, Paul Crowley, Charles Kazaz, Ramani Nadarajah, Kirk Lambrecht, Jessica Clogg, Meinhard Doelle, Dennis Mahony, Rangi Jeerakathil and Clayton Leonard Articles include: A Shift in the Legal Climate:The Emergence of Climate Change as a Dominant Legal Issue Across Canada by Meinhard Doelle and Dennis Mahony Environmental Law Developments in Nuclear Energy by Stanley D. Berger Inuit Defend Their Human Rights Against Climate Change by Paul Crowley Environmental Deregulation and the Crown's Constitutional Obligations to First Nations by Jessica Clogg Environmental Assessment and Aboriginal Consultation: One Sovereignty or Two Solitudes? by Kirk Lambrecht Watered Down: Issues Surrounding Water Use, Legislation and Policy in Southern Alberta by Rangi Jeerakathil and Clayton Leonard Environmental Penalties:New Enforcement Tool or the Demise of Environmental Prosecutions? by Ramani Nadarajah Class Action Update by Dianne Saxe The Precautionary Principle: Six Years after Spraytech,What Does It Mean? by Charles Kazaz www.canadalawbook.ca www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com M ARCH 2008 17