Canadian Lawyer 4Students

Spring 2010

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

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BY KELLY HARRIS Paying the piper T There are many different ways of funding your law school years, but for most students, it's likely there'll be debt at the end of it. In an effort to minimize it, 4Students has some useful advice. here are those who say the cost of going to law school in Can- ada is all-relative, meaning it's best to fi nd a rich relative and get him or her to pay your way. But not ev- eryone has a spinster great aunt or wealthy uncle to pony up for their legal education. Instead students are leſt to beg for morsels from mommy and daddy's defl ated invest- ment portfolios, or negotiate the some- times overwhelming and complex world of student loans, lines of credit, bursaries, and RRSPs to pay their way. Th e tactics employed to negotiate the fi nancial maze diff er depending on school, student, province, and bank. "Th e school is really good at encourag- ing you to go to [the] Ontario student aid program, as far as the private bank stuff goes they don't really tell you much, it is kind of up to you to fi gure it out," says Arun Krishnamurti, a third-year law stu- dent and president of the Students' Law Society at the University of Windsor. "Th e students are very, very helpful with each other. If there [are] fi nancial issues, we have an offi ce in law school, a broad stu- dent services offi ce, that is the place you go to whenever you have any kind of issue." 6 SPRING 2 0 1 0 Other students are helpful in explain- ing bursaries and the availability of grants. Krishnamurti says the alumni offi ces at UWindsor have been working hard to add scholarships, and are in- tent on "spreading [scholarship money] around so the same people don't get 35 diff erent scholarships . . . because every little bit of money helps." Government student loans are an ob- vious option, but may not cover the full cost of law school. As tuition, books, and living expenses have risen through the years, so has the need for other av- enues of student fi nancing. Krishna- murti, a student transplant from Cal- gary to Windsor, says there are fi nancial demands on students they may not an- ticipate, especially if they go to school far from home and want to travel during breaks. In these cases, private funding can provide an extra cushion. During the past few years, banks in Canada have expanded professional stu- dent lines of credit programs with some allowing $80,000 or more to pay for law school and as a bridge through articling. Th ese types of gateway loans help cre- ate credit customers for life, beyond the C ANADIAN Lawy er 4STUDENTS books and moots, all the way to mort- gaging that fi rst house or paying for a share of partnership. With the collapse of the credit markets, the obvious ques- tions are whether or not these programs are still available, and harder to get. Lawrence Engel, vice president of per- sonal lending at TD Canada Trust, calls professional student loans an almost "re- cession-proof" product. He says the bank took action early aſt er the credit crunch hit to inform those hoping to use TD's servic- es that they were still available. "Something we realized early on through 2009 is there is going to be a much bigger need to help students in a number of diff erent spaces as a result of this," he says. "We have been very conscious of that and to get out there and promote our student lending pro- grams across the country, to make people aware of the fact that we were still out there supporting Canada's future." TD has also started a Facebook site dedicated to student fi nance (facebook. com/tdmoneylounge) where students can discuss bank products and strategies to pay for their education. Th e bank, like most in Canada, also off ers a wide range of services for students including

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