OBA Member Services

Dear Members,

During this difficult time, we are looking to provide special services to lawyers in four key areas.

Number 1Connectivity

Number 2Wellness

Number 3Up-to-date Justice Sector Information

Number 4Outreach for real-time solutions

Connectivity

  1. Connections for practice
    1. Is your virtual meeting capacity stretched? We are pleased to offer OBA Virtual Boardrooms for firm meetings, mediations, arbitrations, closings or client meetings. Email virtualboardrooms@oba.org to book. It is free to members.
    2. Watch for a special edition of the OBA Innovation newsletter coming soon that will outline tools to help you:
      • Operate a remote telephone reception function so that clients can reach you as they always have;
      • Transfer large files to other members of your team, clients, opposing counsel and eventually courts and government bodies (we are working on it);
      • Verifying a client’s identity, sign documents and commission affidavits remotely in accordance with the special LSO guidelines;
    1. Stay connected with your fellow lawyers for advice, best practices and a little levity through:
      1. Your OBA Section Discussion Boards (visit www.oba.org, sign in, and find the discussion board for your practice area under "Sections")
      2. Our Linkedin group
      3. Follow @obalawyers on Twitter and join our more than 13,500 followers as we talk about happenings within the profession. Some of our favourite hashtags to follow are #lawtwitter, #legalinnovation and #womeninlaw. You can find us on Facebook and Instagram too.
      4. Sign up for our Mentorship program and make a new connection. New lawyers can keep growing their network while experienced lawyers can continue to give back to the profession, even during our collective social distancing efforts.
      5. Use our Member-to-Member directory and find a new contact in your practice area, referral pipeline, or community. The OBA is a warm and welcoming community of lawyers - send an email or pick up the phone and call one of your fellow members to chat.

    Wellness

    1. Our complimentary Mindful Lawyer CPD Series has 19 modules of mental health and wellness advice from leading experts and qualifies for professionalism hours.
    2. A special Mindful Lawyer module is forthcoming, focused on how to elevate and maintain morale in remote work environments, flex your resilience muscles by fostering communication and collaboration to engage and better support your team during this uncertain time.
    3. Our daily Mindful Moment emails are providing members with a brief mental health tip, mindfulness exercise or laugh. With just 2 minutes at 2:00pm everyday, we want to help you feel a little better. We understand that there are serious issues to solve, and we're serious about helping you solve them. At the same time, we prioritize lawyers' wellness and we hope that giving you at least two minutes of mindfulness or humour can help.
    4. Additional tips and resources for lawyers' wellness are always available here.

    Up-to-Date Justice Sector Information

    We will provide you with:

    1. A repository of up-to-date information on court operations, special Law Society policies relevant to transactions and client interaction, government directives and initiatives that may provide relief. Visit our resource pages at https://www.oba.org/COVID-19-Action-Plan; and,
    2. Valuable CPD that will help you answer the kinds of client questions that are likely to arise as a result of the direct and indirect effects of this crisis. Our Force Majeure session is the first in this special CPD series.

    Outreach for Real-Time Solutions

    1. If there are rules, laws or justice sector operations that are making practice in the current climate unnecessarily difficult, email the issue to advocacy@oba.org. We check in with our justice sector partners daily and will work to effect fast solutions on behalf of our members.
    2. There are vulnerable litigants who will need extra support from lawyers in these times. We will provide information on opportunities and initiatives for our members who want to help. We are working with our partners now on an initiative to assist self-represented family law litigants in determining whether their matter is urgent and how to get those urgent matters before the court.

    If there is anything else we can do to help, please let us know at covid19support@oba.org.