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LAW OFFICE MANAGEMENT The conflict over conflicts The Federation of Law Societies' new conflict of interest rule is too restrictive for some who suggest individual law societies adopt looser ones. BY KEVIN MARRON very surprised if she were to discover that she had represented almost every- one in Iroquois Falls at some time or other. That's why she's concerned about conflict of interest and a proposed new set of rules now being considered by law societies across Canada. "If the rules were applied too strictly, sole practitioners in small towns would have to move every A s a sole practitioner in a small town in sparse- ly populated north- ern Ontario, Susan McGrath would not be five years, because they'd end up with all kinds of client conflicts," she quips. McGrath has been closely involved with this issue for several years, as a mem- ber of the Canadian Bar Association's task force on conflicts of interest. The CBA established the task force in 2007 with a view to recommending changes to current conflict rules that it saw as "cumbersome, time-consuming, and an impediment to the efficient delivery of legal services." Meanwhile, the Federation of Law Societies of Canada has been engaged in 22 FEBRUA R Y 2012 www. CANADIAN Lawyermag.com updating its Model Code of Professional Conduct, including its recommended rules on conflicts of interest. In November 2011, the federation's standing commit- tee on the Model Code of Professional Conduct issued a report on conflicts of interest that includes a recommended set of rules. "We want to have a standard approach to as many aspects of regula- tion of [the] legal profession as possible. A standard code of conduct is something the federation has been working on since 2005 and finally we have a standard for the law societies to accept," says Gavin Jeremy bruNeel