COVID-19 Legal News Roundup: May 21st Edition

May 21, 2020

By Alan Kilpatrick, Reference Librarian

The COVID-19 pandemic, and its impact on the practice of law, is changing rapidly. We want to help you stay up to date with the latest news.

Each week we aggregate the leading legal news headlines on COVID-19 on topics that matter to you: access to justice, the Courts, legal innovation, legal practice, remote working, students & articling, and wellness.   

Access to Justice

• Building pro bono culture | Brent Dowall, CBA National Magazine (May 20)
• The Legal Profession and Legal Services after Covid 19: an access to justice perspective | Rodger Smith, Law, Tech, A2J (May 20)
• Presenting From Your Home: One SRL’s Experience at a Video Hearing | Hugh Trenchard, Representing Yourself Canada (May 20)

Courts

• ‘Boggles my mind’: Law firm sounds alarm as COVID-19 grinds courts to a halt | CBC (May 19)
• How COVID-19 helped Ontario’s court system | Michael Lesage, The Lawyer’s Daily (May 21)
• Professor Richard Susskind Discusses Online Courts | Sharon Nelson & Jim Calloway, Legal Talk Network (May 18) Podcast

Legal Innovation

• Legal tech education “disjointed and ad hoc” | Nick Hilborne, Legal Futures (May 19)
• Process Trumps Software All Day For Legal Operations | Mike Quartararo, Above the Law (May 19)
• The Upside Of COVID: A License To Risk And Fail | Olga Mack, Above the Law (May 18)

Legal Practice

• Female barristers warn of “disproportionate attrition” during Covid-19 | Nick Hilborne, Legal Futures (May 20)
• How to lay out law firms, post-COVID social distancing | Anna Balakrishnan, Law Times (May 18)
• Survey finds COVID-19 has significantly shrunk demand for legal services | Bernise Carolino, Canadian Lawyer (May 19)

Remote Working

• The 5 Most Common Tech Challenges in the New Remote-Work Normal | Eli Nussbaum, Attorney at Work (May 15)
• Creating a Law Firm that Runs Without You, with Emily Cooper | Sam Glover, Legal Talk Network (May 21) Podcast
• Remote Justice, Young Lawyers and International Lessons | Rodger Smith, Law, Tech, A2J (May 18)

Students & Articling

• Alternative to bar exam, PREP, launches in June for Alberta, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan | Anita Balakrishnan, Law Times (May 18)
• COVID-19 conundrums for incoming lawyers | Natalie Schryer, The Lawyer’s Daily (May 20)
• Pandemic X: To the class of 2020 | Jordan Furlong, Law 21 (May 20)

Wellness

• Anxiety among aspiring solicitors has “skyrocketed” | Nick Hilborne, Legal Futures (May 20)
• Mental health’s toll | Jim Middlemiss, Canadian Lawyer (May 20)
• Why mental health should form part of a law firm’s risk management strategy | Legal Futures (May 21)