RSS FeedHow law students can boost their job prospects with a good online profile
Recently Alexandra Kozlov wrote a great article for Canadian Lawyer 4Students on how law students can boost their job prospects with a good online profile.
You can read the article on the Canadian Lawyer 4Students site or on my blog: Simon Says.
A proposal to resolve the articling crisis
There is an articling crisis in Ontario. Many students enticed to law schools by the prospect of being a lawyer, can’t overcome the final hurdle because they can’t find an articling job. Ten months of working for an experienced lawyer is a prerequisite to joining the legal profession, in addition to a law degree, the bar exams, and a “good character.” But most lawyers don’t want to hire articling students despite cajoling from the Law Society. They probably have a good reason. Supervising an articling student is expensive: it costs a lot in salary (though often still meager), liability, time, and office space. I propose that students pay for their own articling instead of paying for the third year of law school.
First, articling is training, often far more useful than law school. We are used to paying for training, and teachers generally expect compensation. Articling students usually don’t compensate lawyers who supervise them, but lawyers make up for it by working articling students to death. This is not true for all articling principals, but articling has a reputation for long hours. Reverse the flow of money between articling students and principals, and the relationship between them will become healthier.
Second, the third year of law school is nothing special, and many law students don’t need it. Second and third year students take courses from the same pool. Some of these courses are purely academic, and students who want to be lawyers don’t need them. After all, a general undergraduate liberal arts education should be a pre-requisite for law school admission so valuable lawyer training time is not wasted on academic subjects. Students who do not wish to be lawyers (for example, students who want to be law professors) should be able to take a third year of law school.
Third, replacing the third year of law school with an articling year will shorten the path to becoming a lawyer by exactly one year. The cost of training a lawyer to the public will be less because the less time it takes to train a lawyer, the less subsidies, grants, tax breaks, and other forms of government assistance will be required.
Fourth, it will not cost anything extra to law students because they would have paid for that year to law schools anyway. Now they will pay to the Law Society that will compensate selected lawyers. Lawyers will no doubt compete for articling principal gigs since they will make money instead of losing it. The quality of articling principals will also probably increase because their pool will widen and the Law Society will have the money to select better ones.
Fifth, the law firms who wish to snatch the “best” (whatever that means) articling students will have another form of incentive to offer in addition to higher salaries—reimbursement of articling tuition charged by the Law Society.
Sixth, the profession will get more control over lawyer training and more actual lawyers will teach future lawyers how to practice law.
Seventh, articling students will be less vulnerable as they will be paying for articling principals’ services instead of serving articling principals in exchange for wages. The Law Society will also have a greater control of working conditions and the nature of training.
Eighth, articling students will be exposed to a far broader rager of lawyers. Many fascinating lawyers doing amazing work for their clients and for the public never hire students because of the cost. If these lawyers get paid for hiring a student, more of them will probably do.
Ninth, law students who want nothing to do with law practice will have a chance to identify themselves and get better attention from law schools. Law students who do want to be lawyers will work in real lawyers’ offices instead of competing for scarce legal clinic spots in law school.
Tenth, Ontario will finally have more articling jobs, which is at the heart of the articling crisis in this province.
Pulat Yunusov is a Toronto litigation lawyer.
(Post sponsored by AdviceScene)
Should You Go to Law School?
The decision whether you should go to law school is fraught with complicated pros and cons, including opportunities, finances, salaries, and personal goals.
Finally some anonymous law student has created a comprehensive site to help potential law students in evaluating all of these different factors.
Read more about Should you go to law school on their website here.
From 3 Kilometres to 3 Clicks Away
Most law students are not strangers to the limitless potential of the internet. The internet has been tamed for us to apply to write the LSAT(s), apply to law schools, receive our acceptance(s), select our courses, pay our tuition, download slides for some classes (which offer them), networking, blogging, applying for jobs, et cetera.
However, that list is currently missing an important use of the internet that law students should (arguably) have access to: online lectures of law school classes (in audio, video, or both).
If law students had the option of physically attending class or virtually attending class, which do you think they would prefer? Think both. Why should law students be “falsely imprisoned” into choosing how to attend class. The real issue here is that law students should have the CHOICE of attending class either virtually or physically.
The technology to enable this important choice is prevalent throughout our society. Podcasts, YouTube videos, and even online universities have allowed online learning and education to become reality – just three clicks away – instead of three kilometres away.
But who would benefit? Many mature students have revealed to me that law school is like an insatiable hunger that ravishes their time. I would even assert that the same comment applies to traditional students straight out of university. Law school undoubtedly sprints by and the pace can approach the speed of sound; hence, online lectures would allow students (mature or traditional) to choose the pace at which they can run (or walk) through the lectures. How I wish I could pause the professors in some of my classes and press rewind! Moreover, online lectures would offer students the flexibility to “attend” class according to their preferred time. Many nocturnal students would agree. Even the law school administration would potentially benefit from admitting more students, albeit some law students currently looking for jobs would raise an eyebrow to this.
While there is a plethora of advantages and disadvantages to carving out this choice for law students, the discussion should begin to take place and not be left to future law school administrations or students to tackle.
In essence, why not allow law students the freedom to choose how they want to attend lectures (virtually or physically) and learn the curriculum in law school? Just because something has been engraved in the past for centuries, logic (appeal to tradition) dictates that old is not always gold.
A Glimpse into Future Recruitment: Got Game?
You may think that I’m playing with you, but a Dutch law firm – Houthoff Buruma – uses “The Game” to separate the wheat from the chaff in terms of graduating law students in the Netherlands.
Access Copyright: Outrageous and Unnecessary
As a UWO student (and at many other Canadian universities,) you automatically pay an annual fee to an organization called Access Copyright. An item is included in your student activity fee, and it used to be $3.38 per student per year, plus an amount based on the number of photocopies made at library photocopy machines. However, when the licence agreement expired last year, Access Copyright did not seek to renegotiate with UWO. Instead, it applied to the Copyright Board for a massive restructuring of the agreement. If the Board approves the request, Access Copyright would receive $45 per student per year. With 30,000 full-time students, this amounts to $1.35 million annually. But that’s not all. Access Copyright would also have the right to surveillance: Section 14 (4) of the proposed licence agreement states that:
The Educational Institution shall give Access Copyright, on reasonable notice, right of access through-out the Educational Institution’s premises in order to organize and carry out an audit, including full access to the Secure Network and all Course Collections.
This would include access to university email accounts.
There are a number of problems with the Access Copyright regime. First of all, every university student is presumed to be infringing copyright and this seems very unlikely given the Fair Dealing rights in the Canadian Copyright Act that expressly permit the copying of non-substantial portions of a work for the purpose of private study. As well, the university is presumed to be responsible for the presumed copyright infringement by students. This is contrary to the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in CCH Canadian Limited v. Law Society of Upper Canada, [2004] 1 S.C.R. 339.CCD, which held that a library is NOT responsible for copyright infringement merely by providing access to photocopiers.
What is more troubling, though, is that by paying Access Copyright, our fair dealing rights become meaningless.
Case Comment – Gomboc Decision, 2010 SCC 55
Here is a link to my website for a case comment on the Gomboc that will be published in an upcoming issue of RegQuest.
Enjoy the reading.
Response to Law School, A Losing Game
Susan Cartier Liebel of Solo Practice University has responded to the New York Times pieces, ‘Is Law School A Losing Game?‘ with a podcast interview of Rachel Rodgers and Jack Whittington.
You can listen to the podcast here.
Clinical Legal Education
In the Conference on Canadian Clinical Legal Education conducted by Western Law Professor and Director of Community Legal Services, Douglas Ferguson, that took place on 22nd and 23rd of October 2010, the emphasis was on ways to prepare the law students for the professional world through establishing a more extensive and perhaps mandatory clinical program. In a private discussion that I had with Professor Ferguson, he expressed concern over the fact that compared with many other professional students such as medical and dental, who rigorously undergo a pattern of practical education, law students are graduating rather unprepared for the real world.
Recently, the Law School Survey of Students Engagement (LSSSE) released the reports of its 2010 survey that gathered information from students of 77 Canadian and American law schools on how they felt about the quality of education they were getting. The results of this survey reflect Professor Ferguson’s concern. About half of the students felt that they were not inadequately prepared for the practice. “Predictably perhaps, the study found that students with practical experience in clinics or pro bono work were more likely than other students to report that their law schools provided adequate professional preparation…” Other factors that were found to have a positive impact on the overall development of students included interaction with the faculty. More specifically the report outlines that engaging in discussions with professors regarding the assignments, talking about job search activities or even talking to them through email, result into a more positive impact on the professional development of law students.
How to Stay Healthy (and Sane) as a Law Student
Much has been written about succeeding in law school, but not as much has been said about remaining healthy and sane while succeeding. Having just finished my first law school exams this past December, I thought it beneficial to engage in much needed reflection on study habits and things that worked and did not work for me in my last semester. In recalling and pondering my previous exam and study strategies and the effectiveness thereof, what stuck me most was the considerable physiological and physical toll that the stress of exams had on my body. Coincidentally, I recently stumbled upon an old blog post from Adam Letourneau, which reminded me and should remind all of us that it makes no sense to sacrifice health for wealth now in order to spend my wealth to regain my health in future. Health is wealth and whatever stress-reducing routine we practice now as students will be much more easily carried forward when we are lawyers. Although he writes from the perspective of an established lawyer, his tips are attributable to the life of a law student and many of them have worked for me personally in times past:
Lately, I have been pushing hard, trying to make everything work at the firm, trying to become accredited as a mediator and arbitrator, trying to keep my publishing house on track (we just signed 3 new authors), and coping with having four children. At work , we are trying to focus our practice towards 2 or 3 areas, rather than being a general practice. It’s really paying off, especially as we forge strong relationships with business partners. We are also opening up a mediation/arbitration/coaching centre in our law office, and that is really exciting. The world is my oyster, so to speak.
However, all of this takes its toll. I went out for supper a couple weeks ago with some classmates. They seemed genuinely tired of the lawyer life. Long hours, high demands, boredom, difficulty with senior lawyers, etc. My demands are not quite the same. I do have stress, the requirement of a steep learning curve, high customer service expectations, and the challenge of keeping a full staff.
I thought I would comment on how I cope with the stress.
I work as little as possible. For me, that means a 40-50 hour work week, usually closer to the former. I learned early on in my practice that anything more for me, personally, brings with it too high a cost, to health, to mind and to my relationships. When I am at work, I try to work really hard, really fast, and really smart.
I manage my time like a freak! Every morning, I review my week’s goals (which I set out on Monday morning). I review my daily affirmations (I have 7 goals that I repeat to myself 3 times each day). I then do up my daily task list, reviewing the previous day’s list and accomplishments. I then prioritize that list. Then, I set aside some time to check and respond to emails, to return phone messages, and to get updates or update my staff. Once I am satisfied that the day is set out properly, I start to attack my list. I try to avoid interruptions, using my staff to screen calls, mail, faxes, etc. I try not to move down the list until the top priority items are completed. If I think that an item is just not going to happen, I make a note on my list, and then move on. I review the list at the end of each day (giving myself a grade out of 5), and then try to leave work at work.
I treat staff like gold, or at least the best that I can. Only my wife is more important to my success when compared to my legal assistants/paralegals. They make my world go round. I offer bonusses, flexibility, encouragement, and I share my thoughts, feelings and expectations with them as much as possible.
I do yoga. My wife is a yoga instructor, so that is a huge bonus. I attend her class once as week, and try to incorporate stretching, and some meditation throughout the week.
I sleep! Hardly ever less than 7 hours per night. More often closer to 8. I should try to get to bed earlier, but it’s hard with kids.
I exercise. At least 3 times a week, I hit the gym, strap on the running shoes, or do some other form of rigorous activity.
I practice my faith. I go to church regularly. I volunteer regularly. I read uplifting articles, books, and scriptures regularly. I read scriptures and pray with my family every day. I meditate on the larger picture often, praying at least three times each day.
I eat really well. My wife is a fantastic cook. Different members of our family have different food sensitivites or allergies, so we don’t eat much wheat, milk or sugar. My kids can’t eat sugar, so I eat less as a result. We eat a lot of whole grains, fruits, vegetables, etc. We eat few saturated fats or “other” foods. We all take our vitamins each day.
I am a very motivated person, not unlike most in the legal profession. Please don’t think that my comments above are meant to make me look like like a perfected being. I am by no means near perfection. These things have developed over time. I have failed at each of them on many occassions. However, my intention is to master these things so that I can maintain my health, my career, my sanity, and my family over the next 2-3 decades. My friends do often ask me how I accomplish so much with so many challenges and so little time. It is through this formation of habits, through an attempt towards self-mastery, that I find the energy, the drive, and the love for my life.
The above habits may be beneficial to you as you prepare for law school, as you push your way through law school, or as you establish yourself as a lawyer. I wish you the best of luck.
If there is something that you do to help you cope, please let all of us know. We can all stand to learn something new, positive and helpful.
2011 Annual Diversity Moot – Toronto
The annual Koskie Minsky Diversity Moot will be held in Toronto on Feb. 25-26, 2011.
Most law students have at least some interest in human rights and diversity, but rarely get to participate in a competition focusing specifically on these issues before a panel specializing in the area.
The moot is held every year at the Black Law Students Association of Canada (BLSAC) conference, and draws on competitors from across the country. This year the conference will be held in Toronto. The winner of the moot is awarded the Patricia DeGuire Diversity Moot Cup.
The registration forms, which can be found here, need to be in by December 20, 2010.
National Listserv for Social Justice Law Students
Are you a progressive law student in Canada? Join the Justice League!
Justice League-Canada is a nationwide listserv for progressive law students, articling students, and new calls. Its purpose is to create a national grassroots network, in which we can foster a supportive community of like-minded peers. One anticipated outcome of this is that by sharing resources and energy, we can do sustained cross-national work in our capacities as law students, advocates, and lawyers. Additionally, this space can be used to highlight job opportunities outside the usual big firm market, as well as to hone academic interests and assist local community organisations and campaigns.
If you’d like to join, please email justiceleaguecanada@gmail.com with your name and affiliation.
We’re also looking for help with French translation, so apologies for how heavily Anglo this callout currently is, but do email us/join the group if you can assist with addressing that bias.
