Other Canadian legal podcasts include Osler Audio Reports offered by Osler, Hoskin, & Harcourt LLP that discuss a variety of business legal issues. The Canadian Bar Association provides PracticeLink Podcasts offering practice management information to its members. Law is Cool is both a blog and podcast produced by and for Canadian law students. (Podcast Episode No. 8 features an interview with Ian Hull).

Law schools are also providing a tremendous amount of information through the podcasting medium. The University of Ottawa’s Law and Technology Program was one of the first educational institutions to utilize podcasting and make classes available via podcasts. Through podcasts, many American law schools are making special lectures available to the public. Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation produces PONcasts offering advice on negotiation skills.

On a slightly different note, BBC Radio 4’s Law in Action is a half hour weekly podcast from the UK that discusses legal issues in the news.  

These are just a few of the legal podcast choices out there. Whether it is for education or entertainment purposes, there is a lot of information out there.  

Have a nice day,

Diane Vieira

This week on Hull on Estate and Succession Planning, Ian talks about an interview he did this week for a new website called Law is Cool and why he podcasts.

Ian and Suzana discuss the importance of preparing for the death of a spouse or for the welfare of your spouse upon your death. This preparation includes having a good idea of the assets you share and the importance of appointing a guardian for your children.

Comments? Send us an email at hullandhull@gmail.com, call us on the comment line at 206-457-1985, or leave us a comment on the Hull on Estate and Succession Planning blog.

Posted on January 22^nd, 2008 by Hull & Hull LLP

Suzana Popovic-Montag:  Hi, and welcome to Hull on Estate and Succession Planning.  You’re listening to Episode #96 of our podcast on Tuesday, January 22^nd, 2008.

Welcome to Hull on Estate and Succession Planning, a series of podcasts hosted by

Ian Hull and Suzana Popovic-Montag, that will provide information and insights into estate planning in Canada, from the offices of Hull Estate Mediation in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  Here are Ian and Suzana.

Ian Hull: Hi Suzana.

Suzana Popovic-Montag: Hi there Ian, how are you?

Ian Hull: I’m just great, thanks.

Suzana Popovic-Montag: That’s good.

Ian Hull: We’re moving along into ’08.  I was listening to our last week’s podcast last night actually while I was walking my favorite animal in the world, Lola, our new dog. And I noticed that your voice isn’t as loud as mine in some of these, so you have to speak up. I should have told you this off-air, but I was just thinking of it now.

Suzana Popovic-Montag: Nothing like improvising, Ian. Thanks very much.

Ian Hull: So get closer to the microphone. Okay.  So, you know, it’s been a fun week this week. I just got interviewed actually and it won’t be launched, I’m told, it’s a podcast and website called lawiscool.com. And I just got interviewed by these guys about an hour ago and it won’t be up into the podcasting world for some months, they tell me, because they are all volunteers and trying to pass their courses at the same time. But it was interesting because the first question that came to mind as we were off-air and talking about it was, you know, why the heck are we doing this, and what are we doing podcasting as a firm. And I told them a story the other day, it happened to me, was I was on a file and we were in a meeting with my client and across the room was the other client with their lawyer. And the client on the other side looks across the table and says, “I’ve listened to your podcasts, you know that, Ian?” I had a good laugh because I thought, that really is what we’ve been trying to do and that is, educate ourselves, educate others and have some fun along the way.  And we certainly are not discriminating in terms of who we want to educate, whether it’s on the side of good or evil.

Suzana Popovic-Montag: Great story, Ian.

Ian Hull: Not that they’re on the side of evil, but the right or wrong. So anyway, listening to last night again, we really, I think, touched on a topic that was near and dear to many people’s hearts and that is, how you deal with funeral arrangements and things like that, some of this pre-probate issues. So I thought another one that can be particularly volatile and one that is worth talking about, what to consider, and that is, and we’ve touched on this briefly, but let’s really drill down on it, and that is, what about the surviving spouse? Now the scenario is whether you’re a surviving spouse or you’re the executor and you’re going to have to deal with the surviving spouse, what sort of pre-probate unique characteristics does that bring into the element? Obviously the first thing that comes to mind is the emotions. You’re a surviving spouse; you have lost your partner. It is, you know, difficult to organize a funeral at the best of times.  Well, it’s also difficult to react to that horrible loss. So we thought we might talk a little bit about some of the things that, as a surviving spouse, you’ll want to keep your eye on the ball on before you get into the fancy seal stage in life in terms of the administration of the Will.

Suzana Popovic-Montag: And I think part and parcel of that is for you, as a surviving spouse, in that kind of situation, is you want to be able to, sort of, step back, notwithstanding the very emotionally charged atmosphere that you find yourself in and determine what kind of financial requirements you’re going to require going forward, see what it is that the will actually provides for you, and have the opportunity to speak with a lawyer to see what your options are in the circumstances.

Ian Hull: So one of the things that we tell a lot of our clients, and most of them don’t listen to us on, but this really comes back home to roost, is keep some meaningful summary, list, control, leads on your financial assets, so that your surviving spouse can determine really what he or she is going to need. You know, within a very short period of time, your surviving spouse is going to need to know what they’re going to be able to live on, what’s left, whether they’ve got to work more, work less, how they’re going to deal with it.  And if you haven’t organized a financial advisor or you don’t know where the life insurance policies are kept, or all of that sort of simple stuff, it’s going to make it that much harder for your surviving spouse in a non-contentious situation to get up on his or her feet.

One of the classic questions that a surviving spouse has to ask is whether or not they got enough under the Will. And that comes back to my earlier comment and that is, make sure that you make it as easy as possible for your surviving spouse to find where the assets are and determine what assets are there. But at the same time, you also want to acknowledge the fact that once you figure out that there is $100.00 there or there is $200,000,000.00 there, your surviving spouse has some core legal rights that they’re going to want to consider quickly.  And you can’t fix that. That’s just the way it works. It’s a community of property division, essentially an equal division on death, if you haven’t provided properly under the Will.  So you’ve got to accept that and so it comes back to the same thing; get the documents organized to make it easier for a surviving spouse to make an educated decision as to whether or not what he or she wants to do after death.

Suzana Popovic-Montag: And what you’re referring to there, Ian, is an equalization under the Family Law Act.  In Ontario, and I think a lot of jurisdictions have similar legislation, that provides for a division of assets on death, in the event that the surviving spouse chooses not to take his or her entitlement under the Will. And one of the key things with these elections and particularly under our Family Law Act is the fact that it is very time sensitive and that a surviving spouse has only 6 months within which time to decide whether or not to take the entitlement under the Will, which means you have to determine what that actually amounts to, or if you’re going to take your election under the Family Law Act.

Ian Hull: So that time sensitivity can get extended by lawyers getting involved and getting judges saying, “Okay, you can have some more time”.  But it’s there for a reason, and that is, is that people have to get on with their lives and they have to deal with the administration relatively quickly. So we don’t want to forget, again, it really does pay to be organized and to make things easy for your spouse.

Suzana Popovic-Montag: And another thing that I often will raise with people is the fact that spouse does not include a common-law or a same sex partner, and so that when it comes to these kinds of particular entitlements under the legislation, you want to make sure that you fit the proper definition of that, so that you can be entitled to it.

Ian Hull: And we, as lawyers, are always careful to make sure that strict deadlines aren’t missed, so we make a note of our 6 month election and I tell my clients to do the same, so that they are mindful of the fact that they’ve got to make some decisions fairly quickly and therefore it keeps the heat on them to track down assets and get organized.

Suzana Popovic-Montag: And another thing that arises in these kinds of situations is that if a spouse actually does elect under our Family Law Act, then he or she can’t act as the estate trustee, even if they’re named as such in the Will.

Ian Hull: One other claim that we’ve talked about before and we won’t go into great detail because we’ve spent a fair amount of time in recent podcasts on, though, is the fact that if there isn’t enough under the Will, you can elect under the Family Law Act as we talked about and we can equalize.  There’s another issue is that even if you got under the Will a certain amount of money and you needed more, you can make a claim as a dependant under most of the common law jurisdictions, where essentially you go to the Court and say, “Yeah, that’s fine, I’ll take my $50,000 a year out of the trust, but that’s not enough, I need a little more”, and the way I can claim that is through the dependant relief provisions of the Succession Law Reform Act.

Suzana Popovic-Montag: And that’s also a time sensitive election, Ian, because that application, if you’re going to bring it, has to be filed within 6 months from the time you do get the certificate of appointment or that probate. So another thing basically for us as lawyers and for clients to diarize and to sort of follow up on.

Ian Hull: So the final sort of surviving spouse issue I would want to talk about is that of the question of custody of child, children, and guardianship of property for the children. And before we get into that, I need to go on my typical rant with clients that I do and that is; just stepping back when you’re drawing a Will, the decision as to who your guardian is going to be can be the roadblock to doing a Will. And there’s nothing more silly than to let that be your roadblock because you need a Will far more important than you need to pick who is going to be your guardian of your children. I know it’s an emotional issue and young parents can never understand this, so they put off doing their Will.  And they just create more problems than it’s worth, because now, when someone’s died and say you’ve died with young children, the way it works is that at law, it really shows you it isn’t that important of a decision to make

Suzana Popovic-Montag: And you say that, I guess Ian, because you’re referring to the fact that when there is an appointment in a Will of someone to have custody of a child, that appointment is going to expire within 90 days from the date of death. And so, at that point, someone else or perhaps even that same person will actually have to bring an application to have permanent custody or guardianship determined.

Ian Hull: That’s right. And so you’ve fretted about this and you find out that it really is only a 90 day appointment and it’s subject to a further Court order.  So you’ve fretted about not doing a Will and you’ve created more of a mess then by not doing a Will because of that. And in Ontario anyway, but most common law jurisdictions, talk about the fact that you need a guardianship of property for the child and that exists where you are trying to pass on assets.  For example, in Ontario, for more than $10,000 to a child, you have to actually get a special guardianship order to administer that money that’s above and beyond $10,000.

So we get into those kinds of issues, and as I say, they can create log jams unnecessarily in almost every respect. So before we sign off, I was struck by a recent story that I saw and in terms of some frailties of the legal system and some of the craziness of it. Some years ago…this is a true story…to help fight crime, the founders and the mayors and the city council in Tacoma, Washington, a place that’s near and dear to me because my sister actually lives right near there, came up with a unique way of thwarting criminals.  And this is a true story in Tacoma, Washington, if you can believe it. They passed an ordinance; the City passed an ordinance which, in part, reads as follows: “It is mandatory for a motorist with criminal intentions to stop at the city limits and telephone the Chief of Police as he is entering town”. Now I made an inquiry with the city hall of the Town of Tacoma, Washington and asked about this ordinance.  And indeed it does exist.  And they admitted on the phone that there is no record of anyone making such a phone call. So you can see how crazy law can be.  And I thought that was a funny story that I ran into.

So we’ll work through this and continue to work through these administration issues in our next podcast. Thanks very much, Suzanna.

Suzana Popovic-Montag: Thanks to you, Ian.

Ian Hull: Bye.

You’ve been listening to Hull on Estate and Succession Planning with Ian Hull and Suzana Popovic-Montag.  The podcast you have been listening to has been provided as an information service.  It is a summary of current legal issues in estates and estate planning.  It is not legal advice and you are reminded to always talk with a legal professional regarding your specific circumstances.

To listen to other Hull On podcasts, or to leave a question or comment, please visit our website at www.hullestatemediation.com.

Our theme music is UpTempo14 by Gary and is courtesy of the Podsafe Music Network.

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Pet Trust Funds - Hull on Estates Podcast #76

Posted on September 11^th, 2007 by Hull & Hull LLP

Suzana Popovic-Montag: Hi, and welcome to Hull on Estates. You’re listening to Episode #76 of our podcast on Tuesday, September 11^th, 2007.

Welcome to Hull on Estates, a series of podcasts for the Canadian legal community dealing with issues and insights surrounding estate planning in Canada.  Hosted by the lawyers of Hull & Hull, the podcast will touch on some key considerations when planning estates and Wills. Now, here are today’s hosts.

Ian Hull: Hello Suzana.

Suzana Popovic-Montag: Hi there, Ian. How are you?

Ian Hull: Just great.

Suzana Popovic-Montag: That’s good.

Ian Hull: Great to be on Hull on Estates. One of the things I tried to do this summer was catch up on the podcasts over the year that I had missed. And enjoyed listening to a bunch of the Hull on Estates earlier ones to catch up a little bit on my continuing legal education. So that was kind of fun.

But today we want to sort of turn our focus on a couple of things which we find in our other podcast, Hull on Estates and Succession Planning, we do much more of. And that is sort of look at some real world and what’s the real world doing in estates. And we are always struck by the fact that the practice of law in the area of estates, whether it’s contentious or non-contentious, touches the different parts of our lives in so many ways. And I had the privilege of being interviewed by the Globe & Mail last week…not last week, I guess it was a couple of weeks ago now. In August 30^th, there was an article about what I thought was sort of a fun topic and that was the gifting of substantial gifts to animals. So why don’t we spend a couple of minutes just talking about that, ‘cause that was kind of a neat twist on estate planning that came out of New York City.

Suzana Popovic-Montag: It is an interesting twist, as you say Ian, and it’s one that we’re seeing more and more of, surprisingly. These pet trust funds and a very interesting concept. And, you know, in today’s day and age, I think we’ll see even more of it.

Ian Hull: Well, the article that we’re talking about is an article about the late Leona Helmsley who was a very wealthy woman and managed to accumulate a lot of money over her days and she left $12,000,000 in a trust for her dog. I was asked by the Globe & Mail what my impression of that was and I bluntly said that’s a lot of dough for a dog. But more importantly…

Suzana Popovic-Montag: You got quoted on that exact comment.

Ian Hull: …I did get quoted on that, that’s right. I did get that quoted. But more importantly, I just think it was an interesting dialogue that we had. There was a couple of other…Michael Sullivan, who’s the President of the…essentially the overriding…it’s not the Humane Society, but I’ll check his exact title here, but it’s…and McCray, a great lawyer from out in Vancouver, was also…Bill MacRae was also interviewed. But, you know, the twist was this. I thought it was interesting is that this brings a unique situation obviously, but it brings the issue of estates alive and in person, so to speak, and brings it to the front of what every day-to-day people see and think about and it goes to the glamorous side of estates. 

But Michael Sullivan is the head of the SPCA in Canada, had a great sort of view on it and admitted…and the article talks about the fact that people are using pet trusts more and more. And so the idea of a pet trust is, this is sort of an extreme example putting $12,000,000 in, but the idea of a pet trust is something that we can add to our arsenal of options we want to put to our clients. Because as was noted in the article, an elderly person who may have got real fond affection for their animal, a dog or a cat, may be one of the main things in their lives because they may be a bit lonely or people aren’t around as much to spend time socially with. The succession of the animal itself can be a really, really important factor in the estate plan.

Suzana Popovic-Montag: No, I think it’s really a product of our day, our generation, and I’m not surprised that it has come to that level. And I think we’ll see, as I said earlier, a lot more of these kinds of trusts and these kinds of plans being put into people’s estates.

Ian Hull: So we want to just add that to our checklist and make sure that we’ve canvassed it with our clients. Not all of them will have $12,000,000 bucks to throw around but nonetheless.

We’ve got a couple of cases we just want to make a comment on as well today, on this podcast. But before we go to that, one of the sort of underlying themes of Hull & Hull in the past year or so has been to develop and work with this whole new social media world. And in so doing, we’ve experimented with podcasting, we’ve experimented with blogging, but we’ve also had the chance to meet really great people in the new social media environment. And one of those great people is Joseph Thornley. And Joe is President of Thornley Fallis, a Public Relations firm that operates out of Toronto and Ottawa. And Suzana and I were privileged enough to be interviewed for an article that was published in the Ottawa Business Journal last…I guess it was published on August 31. It’s available on-line. But it was a fascinating sort of discussion that we had about where social media is going and what our firm has been doing with it and other firms like ours to enhance our market position, but also to spread the message of the importance of social media.

Joe really prodded us and, you know, forced us to consider what is it that, as a boutique estate litigation firm, that made the social media, the blogging and podcasting, something that we would want to sort of step into and pour our time and resources into.

Suzana Popovic-Montag: And one of the neat comments that you made in that article was the fact that we’re…and Joe picked up on this as well…that, you know, suddenly businesses are using social media in a different way, in a social environment, in a non-traditional fashion. And I think it’s been really interesting to see. Certainly our experience has seen us use it in a different fashion than we would have ever expected and yet it seems to be working.

Ian Hull: And we, you know, sort of just to give people an understanding. I mean this is, it is working. We’ve been out doing this for about a year now. Our stats are, what we consider to be, just terrific. We get literally thousands of hits on our blogs in a month, we get hundreds and hundreds of downloads of the podcasts.  And we think that it’s being downloaded and blogs are being read by people who are specifically interested in what we do. And so that’s very rewarding as well.

Suzana Popovic-Montag: And that was a neat comment that Joe himself made in the article, the fact that, you know, it’s a very narrow focused marketing. And it’s a little bit different from the traditional way where you just sort of advertise and hope that it’ll hit or stick on someone. Whereas here we’re just picking a niche and we’re really focusing on that and hopefully it’s doing a general service to everyone.

Ian Hull: So, just to wrap up.  One of the things we, you and I Suzana, get to have the privilege of doing next week or is it the week after, I forget now. But coming up soon, we’ve got a couple of interesting events that we’re going to be participating in. One is we are speaking at the Windsor Estate Planning Council about succession planning issues and estate planning and trying to factor in more than just the conventional thinking inside the box. Think outside the box a little bit, like we talked about a pet trust. Think about, you know, involving the family. Think about other unique twists and turns on making an estate plan work. And so we’re really looking forward to going down to Windsor and speaking to that group. And then Suzana, I know you’re speaking to the Ontario Bar Association a week or so later, to talk about just this point of niche marketing and niche positioning yourself in ways, of using creative ways and creative tools, with the Ontario Bar Association.

Suzana Popovic-Montag: I’m definitely looking forward to that one.

Ian Hull: So just as a sort of added little academic wing to the discussion today, I just wanted to talk about two cases briefly. Both recently decided. One is the Mernick and Mernick decision. And it came out in 2007. It’s actually just been published in the ETRs in the August edition of the Estates and Trusts Reports, at Volume 32. And the Mernick decision itself is at page 288. It’s an interesting case and really what I wanted to comment on was more about the process as opposed to the decision itself. What happened in Mernick and Mernick is, is that there was an interesting dovetailing between the Ontario Superior Court’s jurisdiction and a religious court Order.   And how that religious court Order was to be applied and how it impacted on us, on the parties outside of the religious sphere. It was a Rabbinical Court and they…without getting too much into the details, the family, two brothers, were disputing over an estate. They went outside of the Court system, so to speak, went into the religious court to resolve the problem. They resolved it and then for enforcement purposes, they had to eventually come into the Superior Court. And why I think it’s an important case is….well there’s lots of interesting cases. They talk about how the summary judgment was effected in this case and so on. But what I thought was interesting to me was how again the different worlds in a sense collide and how they work together. And more and more often, we’re seeing the role of a religious court in resolving disputes in estates is happening. I’ve participated in some of these hearings and these types of scenarios myself and I just think this Mernick and Mernick decision is a helpful decision. And take a quick look at it if you’re interested in seeing how this twist of the two jurisdictions work themselves through.

The other decision I just thought I’d point out was, and I don’t want to harp on the whole question of joint accounts endlessly. But the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal, in the Comeau decision, reported again in the same ETRs at page 216, came out with a great summary of a joint account dispute between parent and child. The deceased died intestate, survived by 10 kids and the whole question was, was the joint account for the kids surviving or was it for the 10 kids, ‘cause it was an intestacy? And what I liked about this case was it went to the Court of Appeal. Two things that I thought were helpful, because these cases are popping up so often in our practices. Number one is that it carefully reviewed the whole trial court decision process and how a court will analyze this question of joint accounts. So that if you have to roll your sleeves up and get into a fight over a joint account, you look at this decision and it talks about what were the bullet points, what were the important steps in the game to…that the court thought were important at the trial level. And so that’s good to know because again, we’re always trying to either propound or to dispute the joint ownership issue, and it depends on what side you’re on. But the second part I thought was helpful about this decision was that it then took us to that next analysis. And that was, what is an Appeal Court going to do with a carefully reasoned, properly analyzed joint account case? And in this case, they held that there was no grounds for appeal and the appeal was dismissed. But the way that the Court does it…is again, it’s one of these cases that it’s not a seminal case. It doesn’t say things that we haven’t heard before. But too often we read these cases looking for the newest word on something. But this case shows us how to, from a practical standpoint, work through and build a case on a joint account facts. And then how to deal with it at the appeal level, on both sides. So it didn’t matter whose side you were on in this one. You can learn what the Courts were looking for, the kinds of trends they’re looking for and the kinds of approaches that worked in this case. Because the facts again tie into the simple, you know, who owns on the account on death question. 

But those are just two decisions I thought were kind of fun and worth looking at from an academic standpoint. And also from a practical standpoint.

Suzana Popovic-Montag:  Well, that’s great Ian. Thank you very much for that. And we’ll speak soon.

Ian Hull: Great, thanks a lot Suzana.

This has been Hull on Estates with the lawyers of Hull & Hull. The podcast you have been listening to has been provided as an information service. It is a summary of current legal issues in estates and estate planning. It is not legal advice and you are reminded to always talk with a legal professional regarding your specific circumstances.

To listen to other podcasts, or to leave a question or comment, please visit our website at www.hullandhull.com.

Our theme music is Upper Structure by DJ AKid  and is courtesy of the Podsafe Music Network.

Envoy proclaims that there are essentially four fundamental realities to using the Web to provide information and directing interested traffic your way - Content, Traffic, Pre-Selling and Monetization.

One must not forget that, as a lawyer, your billable time determines your income AND your non-billable time determines your future.

Marketing is a full contact sport. However, the business side of the law should not be forgotten and it can be helpful to, from time to time, create a business plan to serve as a blueprint for your law firm's financial success. Without a business plan, a firm is essentially rudderless, and day-to-day decisions are likely to be haphazard and reactive, in stark contrast to those firms implementing a well thought-out business plan. Designed for lawyers, "The Lawyer's Guide to Creating Your Business Plan" is a complete, easy-to-use customized Windows-based software package, that is the fastest, easiest way to research and write a winning business plan for a law firm. It's perfect for new or existing law firms, of every size.

All the best, Suzana and Ian. --------