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Channel: Comments on: The Inconvenient Truth About Articling
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By: Anonymous law student

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In response to the article, grades, vowels, and the like I know that many of the students who got positions in Bay street firms had B averages. In fact, I talked to one rep at a career fair from one of these firms, and she stated that they specifically look at people with B's and B plus averages. I doubt it's really about having vowels on your transcript.
As far as I am concerned the whole legal system, at least in ON is rotten to the core. Let me explain why. The law school I attend in the GTA has poor career services. They say they are available, but they don't really help. Students don't need to have their resumes and cover letters checked. Come on people, everyone by the time they are in law school knows how to prepare a job application. What the law schools NEED to desperately do is get more proactive. Contact law firms, see if they have anything available, match student profiles, etc. If law schools want to truly do right by their students they should look at the job hiring/training system U of T has for its faculty of science, specifically engineering or computer science. They have a very developed job placement system.
Now we get to the Law Society. The Law Society has released a report (I read it). It was an exercise into how not to change things. Their 95% placement statistic is very flawed. Why you ask? Because it only takes into account the law students who have not given up yet, and actually register with LSUC. Again, this is from one of their own representatives. Interestingly, though, the report skids around this issue. I suspect there is a sizable amount, who out of shame say nothing, do not find articling, lose hope, and never pay the $2200 registration fee for law students.
Lastly, we get to the practitioners–a group to which the Benchers belong. When they evaluated the issue of articling in early 2009 there were many students at that meeting that disagreed with keeping articling. Yet they persisted. And why shouldn't they? Articling serves several functions for the practicing body.It allows lawyers to act as if they are helping students. In reality very few take up articling students. Second, it allows law students to be paid low rates for what is effectively skilled work. Third, and perhaps most disturbing, it limits the amount that enter the profession to a far lower number than the ones that actually graduate from law schools each year. This helps keep rates up, but at the same time, it contributes to the lack of counsel for so many Canadians that can not afford such exorbitant prices. More and more Canadians go to Court solo. Ironically, as the law profession in general (I am sure there are exceptions) is squeezing more and more, its relevance will decrease for the average Canadian. They will simply be out of reach. Historically, when there is such a gap in a needed service, something else develops to replace it. The Law Society would do well to heed the signs.
Bottom line: If you keep articling (it has its value) make sure that all the students who want to practice law have a FAIR chance of getting a position. Otherwise the whole thing is an exercise in hypocrisy. The Law Society, along with practicing lawyers, and law schools are not doing enough by the lowest measure. I give them all a failing mark.

In case anyone is wondering why I kept my name anonymous–that's to exercise my right to free speech. Law, by any measure, is not a free profession.


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