Canadian Lawyer

" the system, as It eXIsts now, does work For bIg FIrms lIke ours. davId kruse, blake cassels & graydon llp take, articling positions? Should these programs be self-supporting or receive funds from the profession or even the public? Should law schools' curriculums be remodelled so graduates receive practical professional training as well as theory? Or should an entirely new, market-driven model of legal education be created, a scheme that would abolish articling altogether? These are just some of the questions disturbing the waters of Canada's legal world and they are questions that, understandably, are top-of-mind for those currently making the perilous passage into the profession. The divisive and often emotioncharged debate is being played out against a backdrop of a legal system so short of affordable lawyers that Canadian courts are becoming clogged with selfrepresented litigants. Figures compiled by University of Windsor law professor Julie Macfarlane suggest as many as 80 per cent of people in family court and 60 per cent involved in civil cases are representing themselves. There is also a severe shortage of lawyers in many areas away from the big centres, and a growing number of lawyers trained overseas (both Canadian and foreign-born) looking for their piece of Canada's legal action. University law schools are increasing their student populations and a new law school will open at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ont., this September. Fees at some institutions (though certainly not all) are heading sky high. The once famously inflexible profession is greying and is under mounting pressure to innovate and adapt to new ways of doing business. Jordan Furlong is a partner at Edge International, a consultancy for law firms and legal enterprises, and is somewhat of a disturber of the status quo who contends it is time articling through law firms be re-thought. He thinks the law prac24 F e b r uary 2013 www.CANADIAN tice program approved late last year, after fierce debate, by the Law Society of Upper Canada could be "monumentally important" and a model for the rest of the country. The LPP effectively replaces articles and opens another avenue to those seeking to be called to the bar. The model, described by University of Ottawa law professor Adam Dodek as the most significant reform in Ontario's legal profession in 70 years, was not easily arrived at. It grew out of recommendations formulated over a year and a half by an LSUC task force. It was the subject of an intense and often bitter debate, stretched over two days, among members of the law society. The LSUC's treasurer Thomas Conway called it, with a touch of lawyerly understatement given the choleric and apocalyptic tenor of the internal debate, "a highly controversial step." The Ontario LPP as envisioned will train lawyers in the practical side of doing business. It is anticipated that graduates from the pilot program will achieve a level of competency that will allow them to enter the profession and assist the public. "Those providing the LPP training need to turn around the idea only the dregs will take their course," suggests Furlong. Far from just being a repository for the second rate, Furlong argues the trainers providing the LPP "should emphasize the idea they are in the business of training lawyers. Law firms are not in that business." In his view, a smartly run LPP could become a very attractive alternative for those who want rigorous practical training rather than the sometimes casual, unfocused, and wasteful articling process in place at many firms. He says a meaningful, challenging, and successful LPP could create a market for legal training and law firms will have to improve "or get out of the game altogether." L a w ye r m a g . c o m Getting out of the game is something that, in Furlong's view, makes a lot of sense. He says law firms, by providing articles, are paying graduates to undergo training. "The idea of paid post-graduate training will fade away." He also believes there is a public interest element in articling. "Law firms will bill out their students hours, though those hours may not be very efficiently spent and the students may not be doing any work relevant to becoming competent lawyers." He says you can hardly blame the firms. "They are not disinterested providers of educational services, they are not charities." Ian Holloway has an especially broad view on legal training. He is the dean of the University of Calgary Law School, was a two-term dean of law at Western University in London, Ont., and associate dean at Australian National University in Canberra. He has an LLM from the University of California, Berkley and was a practising lawyer in Nova Scotia. He also has a PhD and a QC. Given all that, who does he think should be training Canada's lawyers? Holloway calls that "the great question" and in the end says he believes the professional training of young lawyers should be a shared responsibility. "The essence of being a profession implies the transmission of knowledge from generation to generation. There is a lack of recognition on the part of the profession that we are on the same team. The failure to acknowledge that is at the core of the [present] problem." But Holloway is quick to say the profession does not carry all the blame — he thinks the problem is a two-way street between the academy and law firms. Sounding a bit like a marriage counsellor he says, "We don't talk about our shared responsibility and [as a result] we don't have the relationship we should have."

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