Recently Omar Ha-Redeye and Simon Borys (that’s me) (both contributors to this blog) were interviewed by Michael McKiernan for Articling How To, an article in the Canadian Lawyer4Students magazine.  In it, Michael discusses how students can set themselves up for an articling position in the midst of this present articling crisis.

He talks about doing something to set yourself apart from the crowd by “thinking small” (Omar’s topic), “taking the initiative”, “knowing your options”, “embracing old technology”, and “embracing new technology” (my topic).

In terms of “thinking small”, Michael wrote:

Bay Street firms run their articling programs like a well-oiled machine and provide a large chunk of the available spots, so it’s no surprise that they’re front of mind for law school career counsellors, says Toronto lawyer Omar Ha-Redeye. But the 2011 Ontario call advises more students to think small. “I think for people who are going into litigation, smaller firms are better options. I was in court more than anybody I know. I was really thrown into the mix and was on my feet the whole time,” he says.

In terms of embracing new technology, Michael wrote:

In a competitive articling environment, you have to make yourself stand out. And the earlier, the better, according to Simon Borys, a second-year law student at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., who has put a great deal of effort into building his online profile. “Everyone comes to the table with law degrees, so you have to demonstrate to future employers what you bring in addition. Online activities are a great way to showcase that,” he says.

Borys highlights his own history as a police officer on his blog, which he uses as a platform to link up with fellow students, senior practitioners, and potential future employers. He’s also active on Twitter and participates in online legal discussion groups. And it’s paid dividends, because he’s already secured a summer position at a criminal law firm, with a strong chance to return to complete his articles. “It’s been very well received and I’ve made lots of connections,” says Borys.

All of the things Michael discusses in this article are highly relevant to students currently seeking articling, especially considering the present scarcity of articling jobs.  It’s not enough in this day and age to come to the job market with just a law degree and your hand out and expect that someone will give you a job.  You don’t have to use new technology, like I do, but you have to do something!  Read Michael’s article and think about what might work for you.

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Simon Borys is a law student at Queen’s University in Kingston.  He is also a former police officer and an an aspiring criminal lawyer.  His Blog, Simon Says, focuses on dispelling policing myths and demystifying the law.

You can read the article on the Canadian Lawyer 4Students site or on my blog: Simon Says.

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)

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.

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.

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.

We are paying even though there is probably not much substantial copying taking place, and if this becomes the norm, fair dealing rights could be removed from the Copyright Act for the simple reason that no one behaves as if there is such a thing. Access Copyright denies flatly that they want to charge for non-substantial copying, but this does not square with the section 3 of the proposed licence agreement:

3. Subject to compliance with each of the conditions in Sections 4 and 5, this tariff entitles an Authorized Person for Authorized Purposes only, to
(a) make a Copy of up to ten per cent (10%) of a Repertoire Work;
(b) make a Copy of up to twenty per cent (20%) of a Repertoire Work only as part of a Course Collection; or
(c) make a Copy of a Repertoire Work that is

(i) an entire newspaper or periodical article or page,
(ii) a single short story, play, poem, essay or article,
(iii) an entire entry from an encyclopaedia, annotated bibliography, dictionary or similar reference work,
(iv) an entire reproduction of an artistic work (including a drawing, painting, print, photograph and    reproduction of a work of sculpture, an architectural work of art and a work of artistic craftsmanship), and
(v) one chapter, provided it is no more than twenty per cent (20%) of a book.

How else can this provision be interpreted? The university would be paying for permission to make non-substantial copies which are permitted without payment under the Copyright Act. We would be paying for our Fair Dealing rights.

Another problem is the bully-factor. This organization is not negotiating in good faith with the University, but threatening law suits instead and negotiating via an application to the Copyright Board – a rather passive-aggressive manoeuvre. By paying this organization, we are enabling it with massive financial resources and providing an enormous financial incentive to ‘discover’ new ways to ‘extort’ funds from university students … and the justifications can be based upon the results of spying on our email accounts.

The Access Copyright regimes treats scholarly works as if they were pop-songs broadcasted on the radio for a big fat profit when in fact University libraries are expensive, profitless resources for private study. The vast majority of scholarly works in these libraries are written by university professors and graduate students who aren’t looking for royalties. The main policy reason behind Fair Dealing rights is to prevent copyright law from inhibiting the intellectual development and sharing of knowledge within our society. The entire Access Copyright regime is an effort to push back against this reasoning. It is a kind of intellectual enclosure movement.

The University of Western is committed to this regime going forward. It proactively collected $15 per student last September on the assumption that the Copyright Board would ordain a fee of something less than $45 per student but substantially more than the $3.38 under the expired agreement. By doing so, UWO demonstrated its willingness to accept the surveillance, and the presumption of copyright infringement and the presumption of legal responsibility for the infringement.

The university has a choice. The licence agreement is optional and UWO can walk away from it. It would make much more sense to charge students a modest fee which would go to the libraries to implement procedures and negotiate licence agreements with publishers to ensure that students have the resources they need without exposing the University to the risk of law suits. If CCH has any force, Access Copyright is on very shaky legal ground. Quite simply, we don’t need Access Copyright.

NOTE: Access Copyright is trying to force all universities to sign on. Get informed & get involved. Join the FaceBook group ‘Fair Copyright Western’

For more information:

• The Access Copyright home page
• Access Copyright proposed licence agreement/tariff
• U of Manitoba  chooses not to renew their agreement with Access Copyright
• Canadian Library Association’s position
• UBC is saying “no” to Access Copyright

What legal scholars are saying:

• Michael Geist
• Samuel Trosow (of Western Law)
• Howard Knoff

Enjoy the reading.

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