Posts Categorized: New Lawyers

The evolving costs of young lawyers

Posted by & filed under Big Firms, New Lawyers, Talent.

In conversation the other day with a longtime friend of mine, a mother of three on hiatus from the practice of law, the subject of articling students came up (for those outside Canada, articling year is a required apprenticeship period after graduation but before the call to the bar, and no, it doesn’t work as… Read more »

The seven-year law degree

Posted by & filed under Big Firms, Law School, New Lawyers.

There are a couple of well-known phenomena about legal careers that, when juxtaposed, might give us better insight into how lawyers enter the profession. The first is the common assumption that a law degree is far easier postgraduate degree to obtain than, say, a medical degree or Ph.D. Would-be doctors spend four years in medical… Read more »

Give up on anything but yourself

Posted by & filed under Ethics, New Lawyers, Satisfaction.

A thought-provoking post by Seth Godin today that isn’t really about politics, even though it asks whether Hillary Clinton should quit the Democratic race. What it’s really about is quitting, which Seth endorses in a book (that I endorse) called The Dip, and the danger of changing who you are in order to achieve your… Read more »

Ontario bar admission overhaul, part 2

Posted by & filed under CLE, Law School, New Lawyers.

Continuing from yesterday’s post, here’s the conclusion of a two-part running commentary on the Interim Report To Convocation from the Law Society of Upper Canada’s Licensing and Accreditation Task Force. Again, this won’t be a blow-by-blow account of the report, but I do recommend you read the whole thing. This article (which is also appearing… Read more »

Ontario bar admission overhaul, part 1

Posted by & filed under CLE, Law School, New Lawyers.

Yesterday, I posted a brief note about the Law Society of Upper Canada’s Licensing and Accreditation Task Force Interim Report To Convocation. Today, as promised, is the start of a two-part running commentary on what struck me as the most relevant or noteworthy aspects of the report. The first half, which I’ll address below, deals… Read more »

Articling abolition? A groundbreaking LSUC report

Posted by & filed under Careers, CLE, Governance, Law School, New Lawyers.

It arrived quietly and without fanfare. I’ve seen no reports of it in the mainstream media or the legal press. In fact, the young-lawyer-focused law blogs Precedent and Law Is Cool are the only places I’ve seen talk about it so far. But the Law Society of Upper Canada’s Licensing and Accreditation Task Force Interim… Read more »

Out of law school, into a recession

Posted by & filed under Careers, Law School, New Lawyers.

Everyone’s talking about it, so we might as well tackle it, too. It seems immaterial at this point whether the US economy is approaching, entering or currently experiencing a recession — it’s clear that the economy is slowing down and, more importantly, that people are getting worried and even scared about it. Some of this… Read more »

Eyes wide open

Posted by & filed under Careers, Law School, New Lawyers.

Over at the Wall Street Journal‘s Law Blog, they’ve published a Q-and-A with a young New York law grad named Kirsten Wolf. She graduated from Boston University Law School in 2002 right into the dot-com collapse and couldn’t find work, even though she was a B+ student. She has the courage and grace to admit… Read more »

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