Life skills and career tips for Canada's lawyers in training
Issue link: https://digital.canadianlawyermag.com/i/50904
the program. They must take care to ensure standards are being met while still taking into account that they rely on volunteers. Given the somewhat subjective nature of the marking scheme, con- sistency in grading policies becomes key. How does CPLED ensure each student is being subjected to the same marking standards? "We have a very structured marking sheet of specific things that they are looking for, very detailed," says Redel in Manitoba. Administrators have weekly confer- ence calls with facilitators to be sure that everything is in line. "I hope to reduce that, the amount of inconsistency, by stepping up the training of the LGFs, and, again, us- ing the Blackboard site in a different way will enable me to do that in a way that hasn't been done before," says Clarke. This would include allow- ing administrators to use the online portal for timely and efficient com- munications with the learning-group facilitators — an easier and faster al- ternative to balancing schedules for weekly conference calls and distribu- tion of circulars. Another issue of contention among students is the integrity policy. It pro- hibits any form of collaboration or discussion of the assignments and evaluations with peers, providing a penalty for "revealing or providing the content of an assignment, com- petency evaluation, or examination to any other person." Many students feel the policy is too harsh. "I would have appreciated a better opportunity to discuss with my peers and other lawyers the issues and topics raised in our assignments," says Bruce, who completed the CPLED program in March 2008. "Law does not operate in a vacuum, and to force students to not communicate questions or discuss ideas with peers is entirely an artificial construction on the part of CPLED." Clarke recognizes those concerns but says the policy exists because with at-home assignments it's more difficult to monitor cheating and plagiarism. The program needs to ensure students meet the licensing requirements as set out by each law society. "We've got no way of verify- ing that it's the actual person doing the assignment," says Clarke. "And so all of the safeguards have been built up with that in mind." Cheating does happen, albeit rare- ly. "There's a subcommittee who's actually looking into this issue, and "I have to change a lot of things here. But I like this challenge." — Trevor Clarke the preliminary findings are that the cheating is not widespread," says Clarke. "Generally speaking, there will be a few cheaters in every class at every level, and, no matter what you do, they're going to somehow try to beat the system." But those few indi- viduals result in the need for a strict policy for everyone. Redel agrees the integrity policy has been a source of great concern for many students, and suggests they're looking for ways to address the issue in Manitoba. "We've actu- ally retained some consultants to make some recommendations on that, who have actually been speak- ing to the students. It's something that we're addressing, trying to clar- ify that issue, because we know it is a source of anxiety for them." An obvious element of stress with a program that overlaps the articling term is finding the time to stay on top of the work with your firm while also completing the assignments. "The CPLED program can be quite taxing at times. Time management is es- sential to completing the course on time," says Bruce. He managed to stay on top of things by sticking to a strict schedule. "I used a rule of thumb when allocating time to my CPLED assignments. For every required page in an assignment, two hours of actual time was required." Bowers agrees time is an issue, but he says it's still possible to get everything done. "The overlapping nature didn't cause any problems per se; however, it did seriously limit my time, which sometimes affect- ed the quality and quantity of the work, on both firm and CPLED as- signments." Not everyone has been so lucky in managing their time effectively. Clarke reports that, in Alberta, there have been cases of students failing evaluations due to time constraints. "And so our observation has been, with fresh eyes coming in, that [for] most of the students who have failed these assignments or competency evaluations . . . it's usually a factor of time management. It's not a factor of them being incompetent." Of course, learning effective time management skills is a critical part of becoming a good lawyer. With multiple client files, tight deadlines, social obligations, and family lives to balance, figuring out how to bud- get your schedule at an early point in your career may come in handy. "There is a teaching point in there," reminds Redel. Clarke says bringing the focus back onto helping students become the best lawyers they can be, rather than sim- ply passing the evaluations, will im- prove the situation. He does admit the workload can be strenuous, given the C ANADIAN Lawyer 4STUDENTS S EPTEMBER 2008 21