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Fourthly are the changes to the nature of work. More workers are in the gig economy and those who are employed tend to jump between employers. With fewer employees, there is less work and, with shorter service, less lucrative cases.

Finally, as a result of these business and economic pressures, I have seen employment law, as practiced by most practitioners, become increasingly commoditized. Too many employment lawyers operate on the basis of a business model rather than on developing their craft and skills.

Most employment lawyers have never conducted a trial in their careers and relatively few have done many. They rely on mediators to settle their cases for them but lack the skill set to manoeuvre that settlement to their client’s best advantage.

They have not developed the skills to prepare proper pleadings, or the skills to conduct effective examinations for discovery or cross-examine at trial. The fact that they don’t even know where the courthouse is makes them appear less than formidable to skilled and practised lawyers.

Most are on their own or in firms with only other relatively young lawyers lacking the ability to effectively mentor them and teach them the skills required to develop. Whereas I have biweekly lunch-and-learns at my firm imparting what my three senior lawyers — each with 35 years or more of experience — have learned, I know of no other employment firm doing this.

All of this may seem somewhat academic since relatively few cases go to trial and virtually all clients want their cases settled. However, when I evaluate how much to offer on behalf of a client, whether employer or employee, a key part of that deliberation is whether opposing counsel will collapse like a bad suit rather than take a case to trial. In other words, the skill of the lawyer has everything to do with how well they are able to settle the case.