LEGAL SERVICES

Shop for your lawyer! Legal services, like any consumer product should be investigated. Lawyers have different specialities, levels of experience and hourly rates. Enquire about these and ask for an estimate on work to be done. Talk to more than one lawyer and do not be afraid to express your concerns or ask questions!

If you end up working with me, please note: Lawyers' fees are comprised of time and disbursements. Disbursements maybe out of your control but making the best use of the lawyer's time is not.

Here are a few tips to reduce legal fees:

1. Talk to my legal assistant first: she may be able to deal with the matter.
2. Organize documents for me in date order with just one copy of each document. Give me only what I ask you for.
3. Take notes of our conversations so you have a record of what I spoke to you about. Ask me to slow down and tell me when you do not understand something.
4. Finally, review my bills. Sometimes, I make mistakes in entering my dockets.
5. Please let me know what we are doing wrong!

You pay a significant amount of money for your legal services and it is very important to me that you leave a happy client. Often, I find that by the time a client complains, irreparable damage has been caused to our working relationship.

Please do not hesitate to call me with your complaints: I promise I will not charge you for this time!

WILLS

Have your will prepared now, especially if:

1. you are getting married;
2. you are having an operation , or
3. you are leaving for an extended trip abroad.

A Will and Powers of Attorney for Medical Care and Property Administration can be obtained for the following fees:

• Individual: $250.00
• Spouses: $350.00

BOOM, BUST AND ECHO

The best selling Canadian book makes the following comments on future jobs...

"One of the most important skills is communication, both oral and written. The decline in literacy has enhanced the value of those who can write clearly, concisely and grammatically while also possessing the ability to make effective oral presentations.

Interpersonal skills, including the ability to work effectively as part of a team, are also essential. So are computer skills, which have to be upgraded continually as technology advances. Finally, the successful worker of the future needs the kinds of skills that an old-fashioned liberal arts education still provides very well: computer skills, the ability to assemble information, analyse it, and think about it.

People with these skills are what Robert Reich calls "symbolic analysts", workers who manipulate symbols such as mathematical data and words and who identify and solve problems. A large number of occupations fall into this category, from research scientists to movie directors......

..... there are clues to where the jobs of the future will be found. The chapters on real estate, investing, retaining, leisure and recreation, cities, and health care all point to growth areas of the economy that will need trained people in the future.

For example, the flat real estate market, resulting from the changed demographic structure of Canadian society in the mid-1990's, means that many people will find it difficult to sell their homes for enough money to trade up to the better houses they want. Instead, they are going to renovate, and the renovation business will boom as a result. That means work for the architects, interior designers, carpenters, cabinet makers, painters, electricians, and plumbers who are able to create the kitchens and bathrooms of their customers' dreams. Although the architect might practise his craft on a computer and will always be in demand. But the key word here is skilled. In an ageing population, shoddy work will be neither tolerated not rewarded.....

Provincial governments are closing hospitals and putting a new emphasis on home health care just as the front end of the massive baby-boom generation is about to turn 50 and start needing more health care services. That means home health care will be a growth business in the years and decades to come, bringing with it employment for a wide range of health care and personal service workers."