RSS FeedA 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)
The Donkey and the Carrot: Why Law May Not Be So “Cool” After All
For the class of 2013 (or 2014 in my case), the end of summer signals the beginning of law school. Buoyed by hopes of success and spurred by the prospect of good paying jobs at the end of it all (or the metaphorical carrot on a stick), many of us are getting ready to settle in and start what will no doubt be a challenging but personally fulfilling year. In the same spirit, I eagerly packed my bags and headed to Montreal propelled by the well wishes of friends and family members. “You’ll do great,” they said. “There’s a B curve at McGill.” I replied. “Don’t worry about it,” they said. For months I had been complaining about paying tuition (side note: I know McGill’s Faculty of Law has one of the lowest tuitions in Canada. Don’t stone me…), and I was saddled with my own fears and apprehensions. But my friends and family reassured me: “It’ll all be worth it in the end.” “Go out and make those big bucks,” they said. So I pranced off to law school.
Shortly upon my arrival, I was in the McGill bookstore looking for my law textbooks when I randomly ran into and finally met fellow Law is Cool contributor Siena Anstis. We lamented over the dollars that we would inevitably have to shell out in the next few weeks, but Sienna reminded me that, “It will all pay off in the end. That’s what I keep telling myself anyway…”
A few days later, I went back to the bookstore to purchase my first set of law textbooks (yes, they are so heavy that I will have to buy them in instalments). There, I bumped into another fellow 1L. Although we exchanged no words, our countenances did the talking as we exchanged depressed glances, and I made my way to the cashier to pay for my textbooks. At the cash, I let out a heavy sigh, still decrying the amount of money that these textbooks were going to cost me. The cashier replied, “Don’t worry. You’ll make it all back by the end of [law school].”
If I had a dollar for the number of times I was told that…
Most of us are going to law school with the ulterior motive of making some “good money” (admit it…) at the end of it all. No one pays upwards of $60 000 for the heck of it. After all, many of us go to law school desperately hoping that the stereotype rings true: “lawyers are stinking rich, or at least can live comfortably” and “job prospects abound for those with a law degree.” However, as if to add insult to injury, the following excerpt from a blog post puts the stereotype into question:
The Real Value of a Legal Education
By John Farmer Jr.
America’s law schools begin the 2010-2011 academic year facing one of the greatest challenges to legal education since the rise of the modern law school at the end of the 19th century.
On one hand, the job market for law school graduates has rarely been worse than the past two years, and the class of 2011 is facing an equally daunting paucity of opportunities. As The Star-Ledger reported last week, some recent law school alumni who have had a difficult time navigating the job market have become embittered, claiming that the legal academy induced them to borrow large amounts of money by dangling a career prospect that has proven illusory.
On the other hand, interest in legal education has never been higher. Record numbers of qualified college graduates are applying to law schools, which are not hesitating to enroll them. This, in turn, led some members of the bar, meeting recently at the American Bar Association convention in San Francisco, to question the motivation of the law schools. How, they wonder, can they continue to admit thousands of students when their career prospects are so uncertain?
The struggles of recent law school alumni, coupled with the apprehensions of the bar, should give pause to those of us who are involved in educating the next generation of lawyers. …
In the short term, students should embark upon a legal education with their eyes open; the job market is difficult, and likely to remain so. Legal education is not, as the comments of some would suggest, an entitlement program.
…In retrospect, we were spoiled by the prosperity of the large law firms, and the easy career pipeline and high salaries they offered. Tuitions could be raised without fear of compromising the students’ futures; the debt students were forced to incur would be easy to manage with the high salaries recent graduates were commanding. As a consequence, many law schools became “cash cows” supporting programs in their larger university communities. The focus shifted to revenue; economic issues came to dominate.
But the real value of legal education is not, and never has been, primarily economic. It’s not about money; it’s about freedom.
Legal education gives students what 99.9 percent of humanity yearns for but is denied: control over one’s own life….”
I can’t help but wonder, however, how much control one can exert over one’s life when one is broke and thus at the mercy of loans, the leviathan that is the state and the monster that is capitalism. We all know that job prospects for new law grads are not as great as they used to be (to say the least) – after all, there’ve been numerous posts and articles about this subject on numerous law blogs and sites. But what am I to expect as a law graduate in 2014? This year alone was one of the worst for articling students… Can we – should we – expect better in a few years? If so, there are no worries. If not, however, it would behove the class of 2013 to start law school with, not only the end, but reality in mind.
Society? It lied to me. My friends and family? Maybe they were wrong. It is quite possible that law school will not pay off in the end, or at least not without some elbow grease and elapsed time. The reality is that, in some ways, many of us law students will be like donkeys with that illusive (or, depending on how you think of it, elusive) carrot dangling in front of us – motivated to work because of and for the carrot but forever running after something we may never realistically obtain.
Is Law School Worth It?
Following up on a New York Times article about the rapidly depreciating value of a law degree, Concurring Opinions has some advice on whether going to law school is a good career choice.
The gist of Sarah Waldek’s opinion is:
I’ve been thinking hard about what advice I would give prospective students and this is where I’ve landed: Only go to law school next year if (1) you have always dreamed of being a lawyer; or (2) you are accepted by a very prestigious institution; or (3) you are offered a full scholarship.
…
Of course, this year law school applications will be partly driven by the lack of opportunity costs. Graduating college students face generally dismal employment prospects regardless of what field they want to enter. But I suspect that optimism bias plays just as large a role in student decision-making. No matter what the economy, some lawyers will be wildly successful. Many prospective students are inclined to think that they will be part of this group, no matter how daunting the odds against it. On the more rational side of the analysis, it’s also true that law school historically has proven itself a relatively good place to weather out bad economic times.
What is different this time around, however, is that no one is yet sure whether the changes in legal markets and in law firms are permanent, or whether things will eventually return to what we had come to think of as normal. If you haven’t always wanted to practice law, or if you’re considering a law school that is not one of the best in the nation, or if the law school isn’t offering to pay for you to attend, my advice is to wait to see how this plays out.
Some of the comments on the article are also deeply troubling. Here’s a sampling:
Native JD: Don’t bother. There are no jobs for you. It’s a racist profession dominated by white men (I’m Native and Biglaw wouldn’t even interview me (Top 50 school, 3.0+, 5 years of Capitol Hill experience and heavily involved in ABA diversity efforts).
This profession is doomed.
Unemployed OVER A YEAR NOW: MEMO TO PROSPECTIVE LAW STUDENTS: THERE ARE NO JOBS! I have been out of law school three years now. I spent 2 years at Big Law (Cravath) and the past 14 months looking for work and doing lousy temp jobs. I had a 4.0 in college and law school (that is how I landed the Big Law job) and all the volunteer, pro bono, language skills, etc you could dream of. None of that matters. THERE ARE NO JOBS FOR LAWYERS. Go to Med School if your brain works.
LAC: I have been giving people who wanted to go to law school this advice since my 1L year. Except I say that you shouldn’t go to law school unless you are already rich (meaning you have about $200k just lying around), you can go to a Top 10 school, AND you can go for free or for less than $30k.
I was one of those poor kids who decided to be a lawyer when I was young so that I could grow up and support myself and my family. I went to law school with no debt—my college education was paid for with federal grants. I am now-$100k, and that only accounts for 70% of my tuition, which means NONE of my living expenses. The last $40k is one year of tuition in my LL.M program. One year. Frankly, I was in a better financial position when I was on Welfare. And at this rate, I will be again soon enough.
There are no entry-level jobs anymore for anyone. Not for finished fed clerks, not for LL.Ms (like me), and not even for Harvard grads. I have a degree in tax from one of the best programs in the country and about 10 people in my graduating class of more than 100 are employed 6 months later—more than half of those people are foreign nationals who have jobs in their native lands. Now, my friends who were lucky enough to get government jobs to take advantage of the public service loan repayment program are being told they make too much money to qualify (less than $70k/yr) and are left with $100k+ of student debt and a low-paying job. Frankly, many of us are taking paralegal jobs (and some firms now only hire JDs for such positions), thus effectively nullifying our credentials and Bar status just to put food on the table. At this point, my education is a curse. It automatically disqualifies me for lesser work elsewhere, and the loan load is oppressive to say the least.
There is no upside any longer. There needs to be a moratorium on law school admissions for at least 5 years to stop the excess flood of lawyers into an economy that cannot remotely support the supply it currently has.
I’m not sure how applicable Waldek’s concerns (or those of the commentators) are to the Canadian context.
First, Canadians pay far less for a quality legal education than Americans do. Tuition at the most expensive law school in Canada (U of T) is roughly $22,000. It’s considerably less at other law schools. You can get a top notch education at McGill, for example, for under $7000/yr (it’s even cheaper for Quebeckers). Out west, you can hit up UBC for under $10,000. Or try Dalhousie out east for under $13,000. American tuitions are 3-5x higher!
Second, the job market here appears to be better. To be sure, Bay Street recruitment has definitely dropped, salaries have dropped, and hire-back is no longer guaranteed for summer and articling students. But even so, the impression I get from my colleagues on the Street is that we are far from the nightmare scenario being described above.
Most importantly, it appears that although this past year was one of the worst in recent history, the storm is passing. The economy is now improving. Legal recruitment and salaries should begin to rise. Of course, it will be a long while before firms are throwing around money and perks like candy, as they were before.
I’d say the Canadian situation calls for cautious optimism.
Breaking into the Field of Criminal Law
While I really should be studying for the bar exam right now, I couldn’t pass up on the opportunity to share a great article appearing in the current issue of Canadian Lawyer 4Students Magazine.
The article, entitled “So You Wanna Be a Criminal Lawyer, Eh?” is about the challenges facing current law students who plan to practice in criminal law. There is a particular focus on the lack of articling opportunities in the field, and the ever-decreasing emphasis on criminal law education at law schools. I can tell you first hand that these issues are very real and very troubling.
The author quotes my former Career Services Director, Robyn Martilla, on the difficulties in finding employment opportunities in criminal law:
It is also possible students are not so much turned off the practice area’s dark side, but instead diverted from it by large firms’ powerful recruitment strategies. Robyn Martilla, director of Western Faculty of Law’s career and professional development office, says it’s difficult for students to find information on criminal law articling positions. “The schools tend to get a lot of information from private firms, like the large Bay Street group,” says Martilla. “So that information is easily available to students. But it’s much more difficult to find information about positions in either family or criminal law.”
There is a choice quotation from Montreal criminal lawyer Isabel Schurman on what we stand to lose as our criminal defence bar shrinks and ages:
She suggests this much-maligned area of practice has been given a bad rap over the years, and more students should open their eyes to a career in criminal defence. “It’s a shame that the field is so misunderstood,” says Schurman. “I think it’s a shame that people never realize the important role that defence counsel play until they, or someone in their family, needs representation, and then realize that it’s not simply this television or movie image of defence counsel. We are in fact the watchdogs for the fairness in our system of criminal justice, and without a strong defence bar, the whole system suffers, and so does the citizen’s right to be left alone by the state.”
The article concludes with some practical tips on breaking into the field, many of which I can endorse from personal experience. If you’re considering criminal law, I recommend checking the article out here.
The criminal lawyers I know tell me that although the challenges are many, they are more than offset by the rewards of practicing in this exciting field. This was summarized in one of my favorite admonitions from a criminal defence lawyer: “trust me, you don’t want to practice criminal law. That being said, I absolutely love my job, and can’t imagine myself doing anything else.”
Articling Positions are Cool Too
It’s no secret that the economic crisis has affected the legal industry by reducing the number of entry-level positions in the field. And although Canada is still positioned better than the U.S., there are many people here being affected by this as well.
The graduating class of 2010 is particularly affected given the less number of articling positions available. Unlike some jurisdictions outside of Canada, where students can be licensed and practice as a lawyer straight out of law school, an articling position remains a prerequisite for admission to the bar.
We’re setting up a page on this site to list some articling positions available, to help students and potential employers find themselves. We’re going to try to offer this project free of charge, as a service to our primary readership, law students and members of the legal community.
We encourage law firms, sole practitioners, and career service officers to contact us to help us populate this page and keep it current. Because it’s all fine and dandy to go to law school for three years and pay enormous amounts of tuition, but it would be pretty cool to get called to the bar as well.
Announcing the Launch of ObiterTweet by Steven Pulver
It’s a law student’s dream – or maybe a nightmare. Law firm recruiters scouring social media networks to find an appropriate candidate for their firm.
The current recruitment process does little to reveal the personality, collegiality, drive and habits of applicants. It does nothing to demonstrate their business connections, an important quality for “finders,” or political involvement, for firms that engage in lobbying and government relations.
The majority of law students do spend hours on social media platforms, usually behind walled gardens that they think are impermeable, so why wouldn’t law firms go where they are? We’ve already seen Edward Prutschi discuss how his firm used Twitter during articling recruitment, which helped them find Joel Welch.
Earlier today Michael Fitzgibbons of Borden, Ladner, Gervais LLP in Toronto pointed to this Globe article, showing an increasing trend by employers to use social media for recruitment. But is this just commentary about management-side employment practices, or could law firms be using it too? What about BLG, the largest law firm in Canada? (Hi Halla!)
The firm does have a Facebook group for employees, and another one for law students and lawyers to connect.
But the telling sign is a tweet from last Friday by the firm,
The Toronto office of BLG is looking for a Financial Services Associate with 3 to 4 years experience http://bit.ly/2RJO9I #law #job #career
It appears as if Bay St. firms are not only using Twitter for recruiting, but they’re using shortened urls and hash tags properly too! Kudos.
For our part, law students are trying to meet the law firms half way.
Enter the brainchild of Steven Pulver – a 1L at UWO – the first-ever Chief Technology Officer for our Student Legal Society. Pulver is working on ObiterTweet, an upcoming platform to help law students and law firms interact.
Or as he says,
Twitter, Meet Law School.
Law firms, meet Twitter at Law School too. Send him an email if you’re interested in participating.
No Articles? The Extreme Option.
In January 2008, the Law Society of Upper Canada (“LSUC”) Licensing and Accreditation Task Force issued a Consultation Report in which it predicted that for the licensing period 2009-10, there would be a gap of 400 candidates who would be unable to secure articling positions in Ontario. This prediction assumed the economy remained strong.
Fast-forward to August 2009. The economy is showing some limited signs of recovery but remains mired in recession. The formalized articling recruitment period regulated by LSUC for all intensive purposes has finished. The Ontario criminal defence bar is in the midst of a legal aid boycott with its membership suffering. And there are even more candidates looking for articles because of increased enrollment at international law schools and the legacy of the double cohort.
Although still early in the process, the increase number of students looking for articles in combination with fewer articling positions available due to the poor economy means that if you are still looking for articles, you may be in trouble.
Take comfort in the fact that the summer of 2010 when most articles begin is a year away. The economy may improve and many smaller firms hire on a needs basis. In fact, it is not uncommon for a firm to immediately hire an articling student when a big case comes along. But what happens next year when the heat of summer is bearing down and you have not secure articles?
Have you ever consider articling for free? Simply convince a member of LSUC to become your articling principal. The lawyer needs to be in good standing with the law society and has practice law for at least three out of the past five years and who is not currently the subject of a professional complaint.
After seven years of attending university, do you really need a paycheque? Think of it this way – you do not have to pay tuition – only living costs, dress clothing, loan payments, and a car. From your principal perspective, he or she is giving their valuable time to mentor you in the ways of the legal profession and the quid pro quo is for you to work for them without financial compensation. It is only for ten months after all and the banks will surely extend you more credit.
Undoubtedly some people will criticise the option of articling for free as the 21st century professional world equivalent of slavery. That such a barrier to licensing as the lack of paid articling positions only props up an existing oligarchy of privilege dominant in the legal profession. But these criticisms would likely only be voiced by those not desperately seeking their articles.
To be fair, LSUC has recognized the issue and has taken some action such as the creation of an articling registry, the streamlining the filing process, and the hiring of additional staff. However, it needs to do more. The registry is underused by employers and there are no alternatives to the articling requirement such as additional course work.
A failure by LSUC to adequately address the needs of the hundreds of law students who will be unable to secure their articles this coming year will certainly be noted by the Ontario Fairness Commissioner acting under her authority found in the Fair Access to the Regulated Professions Act.
Articling is Good for Your Mental Health
Articling is also good for relieving stress. At least that’s what Brian Bell would claim.
Bell is CEO of the Windsor Public Library. He accumulated enough sick days to take time off from work. He even provided notes from his doctor saying he was stressed and overworked. But then they found out he was articling during his time off.
We’ve talked about other lawyers who double dip at jobs. But they weren’t CEOs of a publicly funded system, nor did they claim mental health to do so.
Bell had his legal education paid for by the generous library system’s education program. He has not indicated that running a major institution while taking law classes may have added to his stress.
The kicker is that Bell is still receiving his CEO salary, at a whopping $133,000 a year. He wisely declined to be compensated for his articling.
h/t Simon Chester of sLaw
