Interesting post by Julius Melnitzer about Richard Shekter of Shekter Legal, a Toronto mediator and arbitrator who has put an interesting twist on the notion of a “second opinion”.
Melnitzer writes….
In this case, qualifications are not an issue. Shekter’s 2,000 cases embraced civil, criminal, employment, health, medical malpractice, estates, professional discipline and negligence, shareholders’ rights, product liability, and personal injury matters at trial and on appeal. He’s been a prosecutor and a defence counsel, and has a reputation as a legal scholar.
And he’s a real trial lawyer, of the old school.
“When I started practising in 1976, most cases still ended up at trial,” Shekter says.
To be sure, lawyers and their clients have never been as heavily invested in second opinions as doctors and their patients. The fear of losing a client to another firm in an endlessly competitive market for high-quality retainers probably has a lot to do with it. After all, good-paying clients for Canadian lawyers, especially business lawyers, are in much shorter supply than patients for doctors in a publicly funded system.
Read the full article at
