Canadian Lawyer 4Students

C A N A D I A N L a w y e r 4 s t u d e n t s s p r i n g 2 0 1 4 27 partnerships with the legal community across the province to support the work placement opportunities in all areas of prac- tice, size of firm, and type of organization, including those where articling positions are not as common, such as in-house coun- sel, NGOs, legal clinics, small firms, rural firms, and criminal and family practices. "e key for a work placement is that the student gets some exposure to how legal principles are applied in practice," says Bentley. "It doesn't necessarily mean the student will end up doing that type of work, but it is important to get some ex- posure to how you apply your legal knowl- edge in practice. at's one of the exciting things about this approach to the transi- tion year between the end of law school and the beginning of licensing." Ryerson says it plans to secure paid placements for all of its LPP students. UniveRsity of ottawa One of the first things the University of Ottawa did to prepare its proposal for the LSUC was consult the francophone com- munity to identify its legal needs. is in- cluded legal clinics and the Association of French Speaking Jurists of Ontario. "ey told us, for example, that a mentorship program was really important to help stu- dents transition from the role of students to the role of lawyers," says Anne Levesque, director of the University of Ottawa's LPP. "ey also said that for francophone law- yers, it was really important to be aware of community groups and the services avail- able in French to allow clients to be served in French from A to Z — from the time they enter the lawyer's office to the time they walk into the courtroom." rough its consultations, U of O real- ized it was important to build relation- ships with northern communities lacking French-speaking lawyers. e school is considering holding some of its modules at Laurentian University in Sudbury to build ties with the Northern Ontario franco- phone community. e University of Otta- wa and Laurentian have already developed a relationship, according to Levesque, who notes running a module there could be fit- ting because the AJEFO is holding its annu- al conference in Sudbury in October 2014. e University of Ottawa will encourage its students to take placements in Northern Ontario to respond to the needs identified in consultations. e university has a moral responsibility to provide assistance to the francophone community and has always felt it to be integral to its mission, says com- mon law dean Nathalie Des Rosiers. "We are committed to creating an excellent pro- gram that will respond well to the needs of the community and provide lawyers that are ready, willing, and able to deliver right away services that are needed." e University of Ottawa is still sourc- ing placement locations. "We're still in the process of contacting firms to identify where we're going to place our students," says Levesque. "But we've been told that there are quite a few communities that are underserved in French, so we're looking at creating those ties." Like Ryerson, Ottawa U says its priority is to find paid place- ments for its LPP students. e University of Ottawa has also begun hiring its staff, including administration and supervisors, for its virtual law firm. "ey're not only the experts in their ar- eas, but they're also lawyers who are par- ticularly known for being engaged in the community," says Levesque. "It will help the students understand how to network and how to build a clientele." e University of Ottawa's program will also be primarily online-based. Students will "meet with clients" and then have an assign- ment to complete. "It's going to be to recreate the law firm experience," Levesque says. As they work through the case, they will be able to refer to online tools to help them through the process. "In the same way that you're a junior associate or an articling stu- dent, you sometimes go off and you have to write a factum and while you write, you don't really know what you're doing and you knock on someone's door and you ask a few questions," Levesque says. "We're go- ing to recreate that experience by creating podcasts that students can access while they're working to provide them with guidance on their assignments." Lakehead UniveRsity When the LSUC approved the programs at Ryerson and the University of Ottawa, it also approved another option for fulfilling the experiential training component of its licensing requirements — the integrated practice curriculum at Lakehead Univer- sity in under Bay, Ont. e law program at Lakehead is in its first year and inaugural students qualify for the program. Graduates of its JD program will only need to pass the licensing examina- tions and satisfy the LSUC's good character requirement to be eligible to be called to the Ontario bar. ey will not be required to ar- ticle or complete the LPP, allowing them to be fully licensed in three years. To make up for the difference, students will be putting in more hours. It should be equivalent to one extra semester — which works out to three additional hours per week, according to Steusser. Law professors and practitioners will teach skills-based tutorials and classes in each year. "We integrate skills into all of our courses," says Lee Stuesser, Lake- head Faculty of Law dean. "We've looked at what the law society requires for their lawyering skills. We map them and we can show the law society that, for example, negotiation is covered in this particular course at this particular time." In the third year, students will complete a four-month work placement in North- ern Ontario. While placements may not take place at traditional law firms, stu- dents will need to be properly supervised, says Steusser. "at would mean that their supervision would have to come from a lawyer and not, for example, from a para- legal," he says. Lakehead's placements will not be paid. "e reason for that is that university placements cannot be paid. It's as simple as that," says Stuesser. "ese placements are like medical residencies or medical placements, teaching placements, nursing placements — none of those are paid." Lakehead students will be permitted to article if they choose to do so. "If they have done a placement, for example, and they're now doing articles, wow, they're going to be way ahead of students from other laws schools," says Steusser. Lakehead's program does not have ad- ditional costs beyond annual tuition. ■

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