Number of Lawyers Serving Albertans Dropping
By Don Thompson, QC, Executive Director, Law Society of Alberta
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 The Law Society of Alberta proposed an amendment to the Alberta government to update the Legal Profession Act.
This amendment will permit the LSA to give notice of an Annual General Meeting or Special General Meeting by other than regular mail. This amendment, once implemented, will save the LSA approximately $10,000 per notice.
The second amendment has been proposed by the Alberta Law Foundation, and will replace the current rules for investing Law Foundation funds with the prudent investor rule.
Exceeding complaints goals
The Law Society of Alberta agreed to a goal that would see 75 per cent of informal complaints closed within 90 days.
By June 30, 2007, we exceeded this by closing 79 per cent of informal complaints within 90 days.
At the beginning of June 2007, a goal was established to close two-thirds of formal complaint files within 10 – 11 months. For the quarter ending June 30, we closed 49 per cent of files within 12 months.
Do we have enough lawyers?
We've recently been looking at whether there are enough lawyers to provide services to ordinary |
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Albertans. Four factors have been eroding the number of lawyers providing these services:
- the number of graduates from Canadian law schools has increased very little over 30 years;
- many more of those graduates are women, who have a higher rate of attrition from private practice;
- the number of lawyers in corporate and government practice has increased dramatically, and those lawyers don't provide personal legal services; and
- there are many more lawyers in large firms, and those firms generally don't provide personal legal services
As a result, the number of lawyers in practices providing personal legal services has probably dropped since 1990. And all of this in an increasingly complex environment in which people need legal advice.
Should we increase the number of graduates from Canadian law schools? Make it easier for foreign trained lawyers to practise in Alberta? Perhaps we should create a new kind of legal services professional, as Ontario has done in regulating legal assistants. Or perhaps paralegals in law firms could have a broader scope of authority, and even appear in some courts or before tribunals.
These and other options are all the subject of discussion, in Alberta and with law societies across Canada. Canadians need access to legal services, and that starts with having enough legal service providers to serve those needs.  | |
By Dale Spackman, QC, Chair, Finance Committee In a new approach, the Law Society of Alberta's 2008 business plan and five-year strategic plan guided the development of the budget. These plans were developed, based on priorities established by the Benchers and the various business units within the Law Society. The proposed budget underwent review by the Finance committee in August, the Benchers as a whole on September 18 before being approved at the Bencher convocation in late September. The 2008 budget reflects combined membership dues, assurance fund levy and insurance fund levy of $3,695.00 per member, being a decrease of $276.00 from last year's combined fees. This reflects a $65.00 increase in membership dues, no increase in the assurance fund levy and a $341.00 decrease in the insurance fund levy due to the surplus in the insurance program. The Finance committee is currently undertaking: 1. potential rule and/or policy changes relating to late filing of forms S and T; and 2. potential rule and/or policy changes relating to signing of trust cheques and authorization of trust transactions by persons who are not active members of the Law Society. Input and comments are welcomed from members on any of the foregoing matters. |
