The advice lawyers give themselves: the Canadian Bar Association's campaign for timekeeping in the mid-twentieth century

Abstract

This paper is a historical analysis of how the Canadian organized bar urged lawyers to adopt strict timekeeping practices and use time as the basis for their legal fees. The Canadian Bar Association's compilation of data on the legal profession in the late 1940s-the collection of 'facts', the 'scientific' nature of this collection -foreshadowed the way that the organized bar would couch its advocacy for the practice of timekeeping in the 1970s. The pioneering experts on law office management in Canada promised lawyers significant profit increases and gave minimal attention to the relationship between legal fees and client's interests.