ELAWX HYBRID REMOTE

Disruptive innovation in stoic law means developing a brand that tells a story and one whose customers or clients value the narrative. eLawX was slowly developed from a system that wanted to do law remotely, to a hybrid law model where lawyers would work remotely or in-person.

It eventually became apparent that we were missing the mark entirely. What we need was not soemthing that was being done. What we needed to do was think about how we should transform law, how it could be reformed, and not just from the standpoint of slogans that make us feel good. Access to justice without the bite of justice is like saying let’s open the gates but shut out the reason for the whole system in the first place. Access to justice fails if there is no radical transformation. 

The digital transformation invites change. We can now do law differently and far more efficiently. Wasted appearances to adjourn matters, sometimes requiring clients to travel and get billed, was their time and ours and resources. Clients invariably lose in multiple ways: they pay for transport; they take time off work; they are stressed; they need to rework or rearrange their day and daily lives and schedules. Some appearances in court last five to fifteen minutes, yet it takes all day, getting there, waiting, paying for transport, paying for lawyers, paying or otherwise for time missed at work, or with friends and family. 

The system was broken. In criminal court, I often found that clients who simply could not attend faced arrest warrants or further charges. That led lawyers to scramble around trying to get them there. Sometimes they could not get there. That led to charges, resolution meetings on charges, which often were dropped when the client explained why they could not attend. Commitments aside, law is brutal to those who have less money to pay lawyers. You can’t sue even to recover obvious losses when you can’t even get a lawyer.

Companies know this and cheat in small ways, be it on phone bills, hydro, gas utilities, car repairs, credit cards, and make a range of unchallengeable costs, expenses, and hidden fees. They operate on the assumption they can get away with whatever is not worth fighting over.

On a grander scale, we then get clients who suffer consequences because they cannot get to court dates, or meet deadlines, or pay large firm fees. Large firms come with adornments like fancy offices, and some of their lawyers are in the inner club with judges, decision makers, insurers, etc. Fighting large firm lawyers, even if they are sometimes not good lawyers, good in the seense of competent, is always hard. In one case, we heard that no less than 60 lawyers were available to fight a file. That is especially unusual, and it is a very large file. But even combatting the knowlege base, precedents available, resources in people and technology, is difficult.

Litigation is not for the weak hearted. But our concept is that any legal work might ultimately be litigated.

Balancing the field is the hallmark of eLawX where “e” is electronically and “X” is our placeholder for areas of law. We are going to reform law and the practice of law and legal systems and make it not only accessible as a slogan but available to all. 

The question isn’t the life I deserve; it’s the life we deserve. Is there a point to life if it is not to serve others? We grow up in a society of huge affluence and marked inequity and unfairness. Yet, we can each look around and complain about our  lives or do something to make ourselves feel better, and there is no better way to make ourselves feel better than to help others.

The practice of law is in many respects a priesthood in terms of its language, vernacular, rituals and culture. Lawyers who “succeed” the most are often brutally unfair, not only to their own clients but to their colleagues and juniors in firms. Law is a hierrarchy if ever there was one.

The traditional practice of law needs to be dismantled in favour of affordable legal services, and pro bono or discounted work when clients still cannot pay. Defendants who are well heeled can drag out cases for years, denying for all intents and purposes a Plaintiff having a legitimate case heard on its merits.

It’s sad that after centuries of law this is the best system that we have been able to come up with, one that largely preserves the wealth of an “elite” group rather than a balance of justice and equity. Even when law tries to right wrongs, it “rights” them years after those who have suffered the most have endured it for years.

We have a system that protects and favours elitists and rewards greed over virtue. 

But that’s the system we have. If there is hope now, it is that the legal forces at work in preserving the status quo have marginally tilted so that it’s not a one-sided, uphill battle. By courts adopting video conferencing and moving toward online filing and no paper records, hopefully more access to legal services will come to those who were miles behind before and are now still miles behind but with a vision of change in view.

I watched a very heartening webinar of judges discussing changes, and one of the things that is truly remarkable is how often our system just assumed people could make it to their court appearances, come hell or high water. And we still assume too much. I had a client in a noisy room during a video conference who shared with me that he could not afford the prices of fast bandwidth at home. He was sitting in Tim Horton’s during a hearing.

There is much to change.

From start to finish, we’ll get you there. Whether it’s a one-time event, like a real estate closing, or protracted litigation, our team approach will ensure continuity of the project. How do we do this? We utilize technology to stay current on changes in the law, including the most up-to-date research tools and even artificial intelligence. 

Our team is made up of experienced counsel whose instincts are honed and who are seasoned and results-oriented. Law is a business but for our clients, who are also customers of legal services, legal affairs should ideally happen in the background of their lives and not consume their days. Some aspects of law, family law, criminal law, litigation, to name a few, can be all encompassing.

We aim to do three things. We absorb the worry and stress on a file (obviously not to the same extent as the person going through it directly) but as much as we can. But more importantly, and this is the second thing, we minimize that stress. We are punctilious in meeting deadlines. We review work done by any member of our team who reaches out and asks for help. And the third thing we do is that we communicate with you! We do not work in a vaccuum.

We utilize video conferencing and technology that allows us to add to files, review materials, share resources, and then provide opinions that reflect knowledge not guesswork. 

That’s how we ensure continuity on projects from start to finish. We are committed to working our hardest to get good results for you, whether it is in drafting materials, bringing a motion, responding to motions, attending settlement conferences, or drafting agreemetns and ensuring compliance and proper risk management. As a client, you come first. We look to you for instructions, and we try to get the best result we possibly can.

It’s a team approach from start to finish!

We are often asked why we started eLawX and Law Remotely and Hybrid Law. Each serves its own purpose in making law and legal services less abstruse, more accessible, and cheaper. eLawX is our delivery model for customers or clients who want us to do excellent legal work on project by project basis or paid by hour, or on a flat fee, or on an arrangement of days per week or per month. We don’t complicate things. We work with our clients and customers to establish a plan to get your work done in an affordable manner.

Here are some examples.

In-house/technology/start-ups

Suppose a company is seeking a Director, Business and Legal Affairs. It operates in the entertainment industry. It uses cutting-edge technology, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) along with traditional storytelling to create digitally accelerated visual and audio experiences for the web, mobile, tablet, and its new platforms. It has 100-150 employees. It is unsure exactly what its legal needs are or will be. It is a few years from a start-up but is still carving out its niche. Instead of hiring in-house counsel, it begins working with eLawX to figure out precisely what it needs before it pays or commits to any specific hiring. eLawX assesses its business model, its competion, its Intellectual Property, and formulates a plan to protect and enhance its assets. As its founders and employees are technological advanced, we work with them online. We analyze the industry to determine and assess risks, through competition, through developing technology, through potential litigation, employment issues. Our plan not only shores up the team in relation to working together, but also looks ahead to possible breakdowns. We plan ahead. We make contractual arrangements crystal clear and transparent. We talk about transparency but not in some oblique way. We actually draft the materials, policies, procedures, and we engage in risk management. The company decides to use eLawX on an as-need basis, saving thousands of dollars per year.

Law firms/a fresh look:

A law firm contacts us. It is an established large size firm, and it has a problem. Its partners missed a limitation period in filing a claim. The firm is about to report the error to the insurer. The claim relates in part to a Going-Public clause in an 80 page contract and in part to compensation that was supposed to have been paid to the former director. The client, that former director of the company, was terminated based on a termination clause and was supposed to be paid a share of the company profits at set times per year. We determine that the company’s Going Public clause was fluid based on profitability.  The former director had not been paid his share when he was supposed to have been. This affected the fluidity, sustainability and profitability, and the Going-Public clause had not been triggered. Further, the failure to make the payment on the set date meant that the former director could not have discovered his claim based strictly and solely on the Going Public clause. We assessed the facts in the context of the contractual arragement, in particular whether the termination clause was proper, our starting point, and then whether the dates were fluid in regard to the Going-Public clause, how and if those dates affected the missed payment schedule as he had not been paid on the set date, and finally whether we had an argument that he could not have discovered the claim based on the financial circumstancs, the delay in Going-Public. In short, we concluded that the limitation period had not been missed. The firm still reported the error, along with a 20 page memo we provided analyzing the contract. We also drafted and filed the claim within days of receiving the file. This firm has remarkably able lawyers who froze in the context of fixating on the payment date that had been missed, and the suspected error of not filing within two years of that date, rather than looking at the contract more broadly. We started by reading the entire contract several times before we formulated a theory of the case. It just took a fresh look at the facts.

Individual clients:

An individual purchases a house as a detached home, only to learn when its being built that it has a adjoining wall at the rear, and then that the registration is for a semi-detached. She is ultimately sued for over a million dollars plus costs and any additional diminution in the value. The company also keeps her deposit. We obtain the registration, confirming it was registered with the municipality by the builder as a semi-detached, and the company soon offers to discontinue the lawsuit but retain the deposit. We also speak with other home purchasers in the same development who explain that they also were told the same model house was detached.  We also examine the sales representative for the builder who claims that he said the house was detached in the front but attached at the back. We obtain the builder’s written representations on that particular house made to the new purchaser after our client had refused to close the transaction. It was again represented as detached. We have declined any offers to simply walk away from everything as if it never happened.

In short, eLawX combines talents of various lawyers that we work with to get the best results for in-house clients, law firms and individuals. 

Whether entirely remote or hybrid, our efforts are drawn toward one thing: Results.