Life skills and career tips for Canada's lawyers in training
Issue link: https://digital.canadianlawyermag.com/i/50903
challenge for people in the public sector. "There's always the question of the public view," says Sprague. "That's something you need to be aware of." As a result, governments ideally look for lawyers with a belief in public service. Of course, skeptics would point out how easily a bureaucracy can sometimes stifle that spirit, but people like Alcorn say as lawyers working on the policy side, they've been able to stay motivated. "My experience has been very positive," he says, noting his job has involved oppor- tunities such as travelling to Panama and Uruguay to represent the New Brunswick Securities Commission. Michael Sullivan, too, says he has been able to parlay his passion for pub- lic affairs into a meaningful job in gov- ernment. Now a policy adviser with the Accessibility Directorate of Ontario, he gets to help shape new standards for re- moving barriers to people with disabili- ties in the transportation sector. "We're working on a standard that can, as much as possible, have equal access to transit services for people with disabilities," he says. Authorized to do so under the Ac- cessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, the directorate has been working on the transportation standard for three years, and Sullivan's job has been to help facilitate the process to develop it. Now that a proposed standard is ready, the goal is to fine-tune it, he notes. "The benefit of this working at the Accessibil- ity Directorate of Ontario is we're man- dated to develop the standard. We're in proactive mode as opposed to reactive," he says. "For me, that is more exciting." Sullivan has long had an interest in dis- ability issues, particularly those related to mental health. He credits his upbringing as the son of a United Church minister in part for sparking his interests, something that prior to becoming a lawyer in 2000 led him to get a degree in social work. Since then, he has been involved in poli- tics, including an unsuccessful run for a seat as a Toronto school trustee in 2006. In starting law school, Sullivan didn't plan on the path he has taken, but it's one that has worked out. "I didn't know exactly where it would take me," he says. "It probably didn't turn out the way I ex- pected. But in some ways, it turned out better than I expected." At the same time, he says working on policy has let him to do at least some as- pects of what he hoped to do as a politi- cian and still aims to accomplish through a future run at public office. Becoming a lawyer, he notes, was a way of boosting his influence in the meantime. "Generally, if you're a lawyer, people tend to listen to you and take you seriously." As well, working in the public sector gives him more free- dom to follow those political goals, some- thing he doesn't believe that working at a private firm — with the pressures to gen- erate billable hours — would let him do as easily. "The benefit of my job is it gives me the time to do those other things. If I was in private practice . . . it would be difficult to manage both of them." For Alcorn, although he might have different goals for his free time, the ben- efits of having more standardized work- ing conditions are the same. "In my case, if I have so many weeks of vacation every year, I can actually take them," he says. Of course, the benefit of not living by Talk Transfer Let your voice work with mobile dictation and speech recognition Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 automatically transcribes your dictations Create documents three times faster than most people type, with up to 99% accuracy Up to 140 hours recording time Extra large front speaker for crystal-clear voice playback Product Code: 72650026 Philips Digital Voice Tracer with Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 *Stereo lapel microphone and earphones included C For more information contact Murray Cheng at 1-888-393-3874 ext. 7287 or murray_cheng@dyedurham.ca www.dyedurhambasics.ca 18 SE PT E MB E R 2009 C ANADIAN Lawy er 4STUDENTS ntitled-3 1 7/15/09 12:20:33 PM U Transcribe the billable hour can become a negative for public sector lawyers who quickly come to notice the salary differences with their private sector counterparts. One Bay Street law firm tells 4Students its first-year associates start at $100,000 and by their fiſth year, average salaries are up around $170,000. At the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General, first- year lawyers start at $74,520, and five- year lawyers at $109,972. Federal Justice Department numbers range widely with lawyers in the first salary levels earning between $54,580 to $77,865; and those in the next salary range (generally over five years of service) at $75,630 to $108,525 or $124,940 for those in Toronto. At the federal level, the Association PREFERRED SUPPLIER E of Justice Counsel, a union represent- ing Justice Canada lawyers, has been bargaining for an initial collective agreement since 2006. Efforts to do so broke down earlier this year when the government passed Bill C-10, the Ex- penditure Restraint Act, which lim- its wage increases to between 1.5 and 2.5 per cent between 2006 and 2010. But while the recession has led to such wage caps across many sectors, federal a D Y I n E 9 p N d & 9 C n D m R a 1 H a n A M S a 8 W e ' r e y C i o a