Inspiring Stories Connecting Future Leaders attracts a diverse group of lawyers, students and others – One hundred lawyers, law students and other interested people attended the Law Society’s Inspiring stories connecting future leaders event on June 16. Aboriginal leaders in the legal profession, including Grand Chief Edward John and Elizabeth Hunt, whose practice focuses on Aboriginal law, shared their own inspirational stories with the audience. Tina Dion, a lawyer and President of the Scow Institute, told the audience about the groundbreaking career of retired Judge Alfred Scow (right), the first Aboriginal person in BC to graduate from law school, to become a member of the Bar and to be appointed to the Bench. [more] June 17, 2010

HST on legal fees – Effective July 1, 2010, PST is eliminated and lawyers are instead required to collect HST. [more] July 15, 2010

Provincial government appoints three new governors to Law Society board – The provincial government has named Satwinder Bains, Benjimen Meisner and Claude H. Richmond as appointed non-lawyer members of the Law Society governing board, known as the Benchers. Appointed Benchers are selected to represent the public and work with the elected lawyer Benchers to ensure the public is well served by a competent and honourable legal profession. [more] June 1, 2010

2009 Annual Review and audited Financial Statements now available online – In our Annual Review: Regulating Lawyers in the Public Interest for 125 Years, we report on our progress in the first full year of implementing the society’s three-year Strategic Plan. We also provide results from the second full year of Key Performance Measures for our core regulatory operations. These measures provide management and the Benchers with a means for assessing the effectiveness of our programs and opportunities for improvement. They are a critical part of our regulatory transparency and are intended to inform the public as well as lawyers, the media and government.
      In consideration of cost-savings and our environmental footprint, the Law Society elected to distribute the 2009 Annual Review (PDF) in electronic form. The audited Financial Statements (PDF) for 2009 will be mailed to all BC lawyers in accordance with the rules. May 19, 2010

Downtown Vancouver firms: articling offers stay open to August 13 – Law firms with an office in the downtown core of Vancouver (west of Carrall Street and north of False Creek) must keep open all offers of articling positions they make this year until 8:00 am, Friday, August 13. This timeline is set by the Credential Committee under Law Society Rule 2-31. It applies to offers firms make to second-year law students or first-year law students, but not offers to third-year law students or offers of summer positions (temporary articles). [more] May 5, 2010

CPD and mentoring – The Law Society has now posted a Frequently Asked Questions page about the new CPD-accredited mentorship program, which came into effect January 1: see Licensing & Membership/CPD/Mentoring. [more] February 4, 2010