RSS FeedWhy You Should Apply to Law School
What I love best about the law is the ability to challenge and break down stereotypes.
For example, Canadians generally overestimate the number of minorities that have committed a crime, which is usually lower than the general population.
However, the 1995 Report of the Commission on Systemic Racism in the Ontario Criminal Justice System stated, it is no secret that “black accused, for example, are more often held without bail”.
The need for advocates to fight this subtle yet pervasive form of discrimination is pressing indeed.
Maybe Criminal law isn’t your thing.
A recent survey indicated that the average salary in Canada was just over $36,000.
The jobs that required a high school education a generation ago now require a bachelor’s degree. The opportunities simply are just not there for recent university graduates without professional and advanced degrees.
Lawyers and legal professionals ranked the highest out of all careers in Canada, with an average of $123,000 for lawyers and $178,053 for judges. Only specialist physicians made slightly more.
But medical schools in Canada are swarmed with applications. There are only 2,400 positions a year across Canada, but there has been a 20% increase in applications recently. Only 0.5% of applicants to McMaster University and 6% at UWO are accepted.
If you have a science background and thought that your only alternative to med school was graduate research, you’re wrong. One of the booming areas of law is intellectual property, and lawyers in this field almost always have a science or engineering background before law school.
That doesn’t mean getting into law school is easy though. You do need a strong undergraduate GPA, and have to worry about this pesky test called the LSAT.
But it’s worth it. A legal career allows you to pursue professional goals while maintaining an advocacy role within society.
And because the law affects nearly everything we do, there are areas of law that are of interest to everyone.
Fred Rodell, a former professor at Yale, wrote back in 1939, in a book entitled “Woe unto you lawyers,”
It is the lawyers who run our civilization for us - our governments, our business, our private lives. Most legislators are lawyers; they make our laws. Most presidents, governors, commissioners, along with their advisers and brain-trusters are lawyers; they administer our laws. All the judges are lawyers; they interpret and enforce our laws. There is no separation of powers where the lawyers are concerned. There is only a concentration of all government power - in the lawyers. As the schoolboy put it, ours is “a government of lawyers, not of men.”
It is not the businessmen, no matter how big, who run our economic world. Again it is the lawyers, the lawyers who “advise” and direct every time a company is formed, every time a bond or a share of stock is issued, almost every time material is to be bought or goods to be sold, every time a deal is made. The whole elaborate structure of industry and finance is a lawyer-made house. We all live in it, but the lawyers run it.
And in our private lives, we cannot buy a home or rent an apartment, we cannot get married or try to get divorced, we cannot die and leave our property to our children without calling on the lawyers to guide us. To guide us, incidentally, through a maze of confusing gestures and formalities that lawyers have created.
A legal career is not only the smart move in tomorrow’s volatile markets, it’s the right one.
The deadline for law school applications in Ontario is Nov. 3, just over a month from now. You still have time to prepare your application and get it in.
Based on a speech given at the University of Western Ontario. Acknowledgment is provided to Craig Cameron of the Black Law Students Association, Ugbad Farah of the African Students Association, and Carly McLarty of the Caribbean Students Organization for hosting the talks.
LSAT Thumbprinting a Privacy Violation
I always felt like I was a criminal when LSAC, the organization that offers the LSAT exam, required mandatory thumbprints on entry.
Weren’t we the ones defending the criminals (or prosecuting them)? Why are we being treated like them?
This commenter says,
When I was a psychology student I used to administer the LSAT. One thing I always found amusing is that you have to leave your thumbprint to take the test. What does that mean? Other professional or graduate tests do not require this.
Then there is the fact that it’s an American company, meaning the American government would have access to my prints if they so chose.
Should Canadian law students be forced to provide prints to a foreign country as a requirement to entry into a Canadian law school?
And I’m not the only one with these concerns.
Canadians Aren’t so Patriotic about the U.S.
In 2006, Daniel Gervais, acting dean of the common-law section at the University of Ottawa expressed to the CBC his apprehension over the U.S. Patriot Act,
The act gives the power to agencies such as the FBI to get access to information that is sent to the U.S.
Michael Geist, also of UofO, elaborates further,
Test takers in B.C. and Alberta have raised objections to the mandatory thumb-printing, expressing concern sensitive personal information could find its way into the hands of U.S. law enforcement. Empowered by provisions in the U.S. Patriot Act, authorities could compel the LSAC to surrender the data.
Patriot Act fears stem from the secretive nature of the law since authorities can compel disclosures with minimal oversight and without opportunity for the affected person to challenge the disclosure.
Critics also point to the statute’s potential misuse. Those fears were exacerbated last week with reports U.S. counter-terrorism databases contain an astonishing 325,000 names.
There has been swift reaction to the thumb-printing story, with the federal, B.C., and Alberta privacy commissioners joining forces in a combined privacy investigation. The Canadian Council of Law Deans, which represents law schools across the country, has expressed concern over the practice, acknowledging that the data could be subject to a Patriot Act request. The Council raised questions about whether the practice might violate federal and provincial privacy statutes.
Phillipa Lawson, Executive Director – Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic at UofO added,
In the LSAT case, the stated purpose of collecting thumbprints (to deter fraud) is clearly reasonable. But is the collection of thumbprints necessary to achieve this purpose? Do other, less intrusive but equally effective methods of deterring fraud exist? And is the fraud-deterrent value of thumbprinting proportional to its privacy invasiveness? The privacy commissioners now investigating this matter will have to answer these questions.
And Mark Lewis weighed in, quipped,
Personally, I think it is time for a cage match pitting the Patriot Act vs. PIPEDA.
Recent developments indicate that round 1 may have just begun.
Non-Profit Status of LSUC Will not Provide Immunity
David Canton of eLegal wrote in the London Free Press recently that the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has found the thumbprinting to be a violation of privacy.
The recommendation came following a complaint by University of Victoria philosophy Professor Eike-Henner Kluge.
The Commissioner used a 4-part test:
- Is the measure demonstrably necessary to meet a specific need?
- Is it likely to be effective in meeting that need?
- Is the loss of privacy proportional to the benefit gained?
- Is there a less privacy-invasive way of achieving the same end?
Their conclusion is that thumbprinting were never intended for their expressed purpose, let alone meeting their purpose.
Canton said,
LSAC took the position that since it was a Delaware corporation headquartered in the United States, the privacy commissioner had no jurisdiction over its activities.
The privacy commissioner found, however, that there were sufficient Canadian connections to make LSAC subject to the provisions of PIPEDA, at least to the extent it operates in Canada.
The Commissioner also stated,
LSAC’s status as a non-profit, non-stock, membership-based organization is not determinative. The Act applies to organizations, defined in section 2 as including “an association, a partnership, a person and a trade union.” There is no exemption for non-profit or member-oriented organizations. To the contrary, the definition of “commercial activity,” namely, “any particular transaction, act or conduct or any regular course of conduct that is of a commercial character, including the selling, bartering or leasing of donor, membership or other fundraising lists,” makes clear Parliament’s intention that the Act apply to commercial transactions that non-profit, membership-based organizations might engage in.
Ding, Ding, Ding
So it seems law students, who are in training to defend the rights of others, might finally realize these privacy rights that many have been complaining about for years.
Let the fight begin.
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