Life skills and career tips for Canada's lawyers in training
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Ward says when she gets down to the last few months of placing third years, they often end up getting placed in the small- and mid-sized firms outside of the major urban centres. This has her left with a bit of concern, since such firms may not have the additional resources to weather the economic storm. "One thing I am worried about is that more and more of those firms are going to opt to not take on an articling student this year, just because of the uncer- tainty in the economy," says Ward. Generally speaking, she doesn't have much hard evidence of this happening yet. During her conversations with firms in New Brunswick and the Atlantic re- gion, she says they have told her they're doing quite well and there's still plenty of work to go around. But as with Lepofsky, she says it's what's in the pipeline that might be the cause for concern. "I think that everybody's worried that maybe in six months it may start to affect them, so they're a little worried about commit- ting to taking on a student if there's not enough work to do throughout the year." Ward can offer one exception to the lack of evidence of an impact. She points to the articling program offered by the Attorney General's office with the New Brunswick Department of Justice. It typically takes on three articling students — one franco- phone, one anglophone, and one bilingual student. This year, it has cancelled the pro- gram completely. "Our [University of New Brunswick] students wouldn't ever fall into the one francophone category because they'd either be bilingual or anglophone, but that's potentially two articling posi- tions for our students that were lost. And that happened in the fall, so I think that has kind of set the tone, and likely made our third-year students a little bit anxious." It is the third years that appear to be experiencing the most anxiety, she says. "We've got a few more than usual this year looking, and I think that there's a sense that it's a bad year to be approach- ing those small and mid-size firms, and that there are not opportunities that there normally would be." "What firms are telling me is they're not changing their numbers with respect to first- and second-year hiring — I think everybody is really optimistic that this will work its way out in a year two — but the people who are caught up the worst in it, in the crux of it, are people who are articling right now, and third years who are still looking for articling positions," says Ward. While most hire-back decisions haven't been made yet, Ward says as we approach that season she's been hearing some rum- blings from the legal profession about how things will turn out. "I think what every- body's saying is that the students who are going to be hit the worst with all of this are people who are articling right now, because when firms are looking to see whether or not they're going to take on an extra asso- ciate, I think the hire-back rates are going to be pretty low this year," says Ward. Robyn Marttila, director of the career and professional development office at the University of Western Ontario's law school, agrees that students are anxious to see what's going to happen. "Many of the firms haven't announced [hire backs] A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION At Miller Thomson, we want students who challenge themselves and are committed to professional excellence. We look for candidates who have the qualities that will enable them to become associates and eventually partners in the firm. We give you the opportunity to get noticed. It is up to you to take the next step. For more information on our Student Programmes, please contact studentprogrammes@millerthomson.com or visit our website at www.millerthomson.com 16 SPRING 2009 Untitled-4 1 4STUDENTS 2/25/09 8:49:46 AM