“I never learned to duck.” The judge said it himself, late into our emergency Zoom hearing before him. My submissions had relaxed into a thinking-caps-on, professional back-and-forth, spit-balling the various legal pathways that could lead to a practical, badly needed outcome to the chaotic situation that had unfolded over the prior week. We had luckily hit the sweet spot between (a) moving fast enough to get a court order in time for a key transaction to close on schedule and (b) leaving enough time for the evidence to settle into facts, rather than an ever-moving target of changes and new complications. This doesn’t always happen: sometimes we are propelled before a judge before cooler heads prevail, and sometimes we come in hot and the court disagrees and would prefer that we all head back outside and find a way through…

We hope you were able to join us for our recent Ask Us Anything panel discussion, held on Wednesday, February 7. During the session, our panelists delved into strategies for client development and retention, addressing questions submitted by you both before and during the event itself. Our panel consisted of key members from our LiL team, including Co-founders Kim Jakeman, KC, and Una Radoja, alongside Alysia Christiaen, Jennifer Hunter, and Rose Keith, KC. If you missed the live discussion, don’t worry – you can access the recorded session below. We appreciate your participation in this event, and extend our gratitude to our panelists for sharing their valuable insights on various topics. We are all looking forward to the next panel and will keep you posted on upcoming events!    

Ever feel like speaking English is like walking on a tightrope? Or perhaps akin to constantly learning to dance in a foreign rhythm? I do, sometimes. For those of us who aren’t native English speakers, each day may feel like being handed a complex dance routine to learn from scratch. More so in a professional setting, where every word, expression, and cultural nuance is a step with a strict rule, and the fear of stumbling is always there beneath the surface. If that isn’t enough, add juggling the art of code-switching to the routine, this isn’t just switching languages but also tweaking accents and behaviors to fit in with the dominant crowd.   Reflections Reflecting on my arrival in Calgary from Zimbabwe 14 years ago, the subtle loss of my ability to navigate conversations in my native tongue beyond the…

We’re no strangers to conversations about mental health. Arguably amplified by the pandemic, mental health has been a topic at virtually every conference or educational that I’ve been to over the past five years. While we can all agree that mental health is important, I recently became acquainted with another concept – the idea of mental fitness. These two concepts, mental health and mental fitness, while related, address different aspects of our psychological well-being. While mental health focuses on the overall well-being of our minds, mental fitness is the concept of actively and intentionally working to improve and maintain your mind’s capabilities. It’s similar to physical fitness, but for your brain. Mental fitness involves working to build mental strength, resilience, and agility, and can include: Cognitive flexibility the ability to adapt to new information and circumstances, Emotional intelligence recognizing, understanding,…

This is our final post on the series reporting on the “The National Study on the Psychological Health Determinants of Legal Professionals in Canada” (the “Study”). The Study was published by the Université de Sherbrooke, the Federation of Law Societies of Canada and the Canadian Bar Association in December 2022. The Study is the first of its kind in Canada. It delves into the intricacies of the Canadian legal profession and the factors that impact the psychological well-being of legal professionals. In our series we reported on several of the main causes of mental health issues and demographics mostly affected, such as minorities, ethnicized groups, women in law, balancing family life, combatting technostress, the effects of the billable hour model, and stigmas surrounding mental health. We have come to recognize that mental health challenges are more widespread within the legal…