All posts filed under: Barreau du Quebec

Young Quebec lawyers face bleak prospects

Quebec law students are having a harder time finding articling positions, getting paid less for them, and receiving fewer job offers after articling, reveals a troubling report by the Young Bar of Montreal that urges the provincial law society to establish “reasonable” and variable quotas to curb the “uncontrolled” rising number of lawyers in the province.

Quebec legal society calls for shift away from hourly billing

For the “survival of the profession,” the Quebec legal society is calling on its members to shift away from hourly billing to alternative pricing arrangements to better respond to client’s needs, foster greater access to justice for citizens, and encourage a healthier and more balanced professional life for lawyers.

But at a time when approximately 70 per cent of Quebec’s private practitioners still charge by the hour, the Barreau du Québec recognizes that its call for a paradigm shift will require a “total cultural change” that will be met with resistance by many lawyers and law firms who have done well by the status quo, said Claudia Prémont, the president of the Quebec Bar, which recently published an 84-page study entitled “Hourly Billing: A Time for Reflection.”

Quebec Ombudsman slams detention conditions in the North

Nearly three years after the president of the Quebec legal society warned the provincial government that prison conditions faced by Inuit inmates in northern Quebec were appalling and deplorable, the Quebec Ombudsman upbraided the government for turning a blind eye to the daily violation of basic human rights, unacceptable detention conditions, and systemic shortcomings in the administration of justice in Nunavik.

Former Quebec law society president settling scores

Barely a couple of weeks after the former president of the Quebec legal society reluctantly resigned after a bitter and protracted fracas with the board of directors of the Barreau du Québec, Lu Chan Khuong is fighting back while raising the possibility that she may yet come back to seek another term if her electoral platform is not fulfilled by the new president.

Reforms proposed by Quebec Bar to regulate medical experts

A “major reform” proposed by the Quebec Bar Association and the physician’s provincial professional corporation to regulate medical expert witnesses intends to curb expert bias, eliminate the professional “career expert,” provide new medico-legal training for doctors while in medical school, and create a new quality assurance program to enforce new guidelines, beginning with the notion of who is an expert.