Canadian Lawyer 4Students

Spring 2010

Life skills and career tips for Canada's lawyers in training

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BY MAT T POWELL study attributed the numbers to the slower economy, which led to some job losses but has allowed those lawyers the A 2009 study by the Finan- cial Times showed a gen- eral increase in the num- ber of students interested in pursuing an LLM. Th e An LLM is a one-year, full-time pro- fessional degree that is internationally recognized according to the LLM Guide — Master of Laws Programs Worldwide. Some schools off er part-time programs that take longer than a year to complete. Graduate schools design law pro- grams that will attract students who have I wanted to focus on pensions and ben- efi ts law in my practice, so making the jump into a master's program was fairly easy because of that," he says. "Put it this way, if you don't like school, you prob- ably shouldn't do an LLM." Doing an LLM can open up new career possibilities within the legal profession. If LLMs: WHAT ARE THEY GOOD FOR? LAW STUDENTS MAY WONDER IF THERE'S VALUE IN TAKING YOUR LEGAL EDUCATION TO THE NEXT STEP. 4Students canvasses academics, recruiters, and LLMs themselves to give you the skinny on whether or not to go forward. time necessary to complete the pro- gram. Schools south of the border like New York University and Northwestern University saw a 20- to 25-per-cent in- crease in LLM applications last year. As with any other master's program in the academic world, an LLM is not a bad thing to have and may help you further your career. Th e post-graduate degree can help lawyers further special- ize in an area of law in which they have practised. It can open doors to teaching, professional research, and policy work. Th e overall consensus of those inter- viewed for this article is that you have to enjoy being in school to do well in an LLM program. If this is not you, you probably should not read any further. For those still with us, Canadian Lawyer 4Students has some perspec- tives from LLM grads, professors, and practising lawyers for prospective and current LLM students. Be warned — it is nothing like your LLB, but it can open doors to career choices you may not have considered yet. 16 SPRING 2 0 1 0 completed an LLB or a JD, and want to specialize in a specifi c area of the law in a research-based, academic program. A number of schools, like the University of British Columbia and the University of Toronto, off er both research-intensive and coursework-intensive programs. Research, or thesis-based, studies will be geared more toward advancing research in a specialized area of the law, while coursework-oriented students want to specialize in specifi c areas of the law and expand their understanding of legal processes, according to Hester Lessard, a professor at the University of Victoria Faculty of Law. Ari Kaplan, who holds an LLM from Osgoode Hall Law School and is a part- ner at Koskie Minsky LLP in Toronto, emphasizes that students who choose to do their LLM can truly benefi t from the collection of experiences within the classroom. He chose to do his master's immediately aſt er being called to the bar in 2000, but went part time and com- pleted his studies in two years. "I knew C ANADIAN Lawy er 4STUDENTS you are like Kaplan, doing an LLM will require a focus on a specialized area of the law, and then practising it, and hav- ing the option to teach. He continues to practise and also teaches law at the Uni- versity of Western Ontario and U of T. But, if you are like UBC professor Doug Harris, doing an LLM is a step in a new direction towards the academic world. Harris currently teaches property law and researches the role of property law in the transformations of urban cen- tres. He was called to the bar in 1994, but returned to school and received his LLM from UBC in 1998. He joined the faculty at UBC in 2001. "I practised private law for a while, but decided it wasn't a path I wanted to take, and do- ing my LLM pushed me in the direction of teaching, which is something that fi t me a lot better," he says. Like Lessard, Harris believes LLM pro- grams are the fi rst step to teaching law, the next being a PhD. He says master's programs open up new opportunities for students to do something else with

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