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 17 audio fi les, video fi les, and web sites. In the modern world, practically everything is somehow stored or tracked electronically. A relatively new breed of e-discovery lawyer has emerged as the sheer volume of electronic evidence began to multiply in cases, resulting in a need for better man- agement, according to Dera Nevin, man- aging counsel, e-discovery at TD Bank Group. " e most common understand- ing of e-discovery is that we're parties to a dispute, usually in civil litigation, but this is applicable in any litigation context where parties have an obligation to turn over re- cords to the other side," she says. "It's un- derstood to be a 'more modern component to litigation' resulting from the widespread adoption of computing technology." It's an area that could be of great interest to budding lawyers because they've grown up understanding the complexity of tech- nology, says Nevin, adding she would like to see it integrated into law school curricu- lum. "A lot of people perhaps mistakenly misunderstand e-discovery as an adminis- trative [area] and not a legal area," she says. Nevin argues there is now enough ju- risprudence, practice, and commentary to ground academic treatment of the subject. "I know that because some law schools have off ered a course or off ered e-discov- ery as part of the curriculum, but it doesn't appear to become a standalone subject area for legal instruction." E-discovery can also lead to cost savings, which can benefi t new lawyers in their fi rst job — be it at a large fi rm or if they're ven- turing out on their own. "A lot of people might say, 'We have to go to the computer, we have to get a mil- lion documents.' But an e-discovery lawyer might say, 'No, there are legal reasons why we don't need to do that, we just need to review these 4,000 documents,'" she says. " at has a huge impact on the strategy of the case, the cost of the case, and the ability of the lawyers to understand the legal is- sues and the facts of the case." Nevin encourages law students inter- ested in e-discovery to reach out to lawyers practising in the fi eld. " ere are a number of practitioners in the area and we've been talking about what is the best way to de- velop interest among law students in this area," she says. "We all very much want jun- iors, we want younger lawyers to explore this fi eld and decide if it's right for them." Legal community and the future Last year, the CBA entered the consultation phase of its Legal Futures Initiative, which was created to identify ways to help the le- gal profession tackle challenges ahead. One of the project's fi rst areas of exploration is legal education. "How do we properly edu- cate and train lawyers to meet the changing client expectations?" says Ferguson, who serves on the CBA's legal education com- mittee and says a survey distributed by the organization asks some "very provocative questions" it hopes will provide direction for legal educators. "One of them is, 'Why should law school be three years? Should it be two? Should it be four?'" he says, adding the CBA also asked whether law schools should stream into focused specialty areas. " ere [could be] streams for those that want to go into private practice and those that intend to go into government or in- house counsel." Sossin admits change in legal education can take time. He notes he was an Osgoode student himself 20 years ago and recogniz- es at that point problem-solving skills were deliberately not fostered. "You can say this about any law school," he says. "You largely had a doctrinal curriculum that was there to ensure that you had access to this ex- clusive reservoir and analysis so that you could become an analytically rigorous le- gal thinker. We used to talk about that in terms of thinking like a lawyer or in terms of the analytical skills that you needed to be able to advise clients. So it's not that problem-solving was absent, but I think the goal was much more about conveying a body of knowledge." Technology is a recurring infl uence on the legal profession. " e problem is when you fast forward to 2014, you can convey a body of knowledge with a good search en- gine," he says. "While I think critical analy- sis and critical thinking is still the heart and soul of what happens in law school, it's now deployed much more for what you then do with it, as opposed to for its own sake." e catalyst for change at Osgoode was when the school recognized the benefi ts of its mandatory community legal work component. " e push was how do we take it to the next level? And if we think this is essential for legal education, what's stopping us from saying every student should be exposed to it?" says Sossin. "Once we made that a prior- ity, it became a matter of just investing the necessary resources and getting widespread buy-in to that view." While adding experiential education to a law school's roster has its advantages, there are disadvantages, Sossin warns. "I think it's a journey that takes months and years as opposed to days and weeks," he says, adding it is also more costly. "If you put 80 people in an evidence class and have one instructor working with them, that's far less expensive than setting up two, or three, or four clinics of 12 or 15 students each." Skepticism remains among some. Ar- thurs believes lawyers will be negatively aff ected as law societies begin to broaden the breadth of legal work that can be per- formed by other professions. "Solo prac- titioners (and) smaller law fi rms will be increasingly competing to provide routine services with paralegals who don't know quite as much but are very effi cient and in- variably cheap." And unless the control of law societ- ies is limited, new lawyers may be the hardest hit, says Arthurs. " e key point is to understand there's no such thing as the legal profession — there are multiple professions that perform diff erent jobs for diff erent people," he says. " at's what the law society doesn't want to know and doesn't know." ■ stopping us from saying every student should be exposed to it?" says Sossin.

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