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REAL ESTATE providing a secure pipeline for data ex- change, and eliminating the unnecessary effort of copying and re-entering data, this not only helps lawyers work more efficiently, but also re- duces the risk of error and fraud, he says. "It saves an enor- mous amount of time for our real es- tate staff," says Barry Poulson, a partner with Arseneau Poul- son in Sudbury, Ont. "We just push a but- ton and the mortgage comes out. It's pre- populated. Every- thing is in there. It's impossible to make a mistake." Maurizio Romanin, the president of ic way that allows the lawyer to do the deal for the bank and provides the bank with a huge amount of efficiency." VIP is so far being used by various "We just push a button and the mortgage comes out. It's pre-populated. Everything is in there. It's impossible to make a mistake." — BARRY POULSON, ARSENEAU POULSON LawyerDoneDeal Corp., says his firm's Virtual Intermediary Program (VIP) plays a similar role in "moving data from the bank to the lawyer in a pure electron- credit unions and has been piloted by TD Canada Trust, while Assyst is be- ing used by the Royal Bank. Assyst has been designated as a preferred supplier by the Canadian Bar Association, whose members get a $10 break on transaction fees, which are currently set at $39 for non-members in Ontario and B.C., but will rise to $51 as more lenders come on board. VIP does not charge transaction fees and derives its revenue by offering par- ticipants other value-added services. What makes this devel- opment so crucial for the real estate bar, according to Silverstein, is the fact it can now make it just as easy for banks to deal with outside lawyers on mortgage trans- actions as it is for them to use in-house lawyers — or to take advantage of out- sourcers who bundle legal services with mortgage- processing technology. Already, Assyst user Robert Adourian, a Toronto-based sole practitioner, says he has worked on several refinance transac- tions for the Royal Bank. He sees this as a www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com M ARCH 2008 21