Canadian Lawyer 4Students

14 F A L L 2 0 1 5 C A N A D I A N L a w y e r 4 S T U D E N T S F A L L 2 0 1 5 C A N A D I A N L a w y e r 4 S T U D E N T S Despite the criticism from traditional- ists in the legal community who feel the program might be a "second-tier" option to traditional articling, D'Cunha says he doesn't care what the detractors say, it was right for him, and taking a chance on the program paid off . "It worked out well for me," says D'Cunha. "No one cared where I got my undergrad or how I came to In- frastructure Ontario or where I went to law school; they just wanted to make sure I could deliver. Can this guy actually do it?" According to Infrastructure Ontario's ex- ecutive vice president, general counsel, and corporate secretary, D'Cunha did indeed deliver. Marni Dicker hired him over the articling student the legal department had working for it at the same time D'Cunha was doing his placement. "I had a vacancy and I was going to go to the marketplace to recruit a second- or third-year lawyer. en when I sat back and thought about it, I felt Josh was armed with the tools that made him excellent for this role," says Dicker. " e other articling student was not well suited for the vacancy I had. She will be an excellent lawyer somewhere else." e diff erence in skill set, says Dicker, is that D'Cunha came out of the LPP armed with the ability to manage fi les, with some supervision, but to a greater degree than an articling student right out of law school. "Josh was able to come in here in January and do exactly what I hoped he would be able to do and that was carry fi les," says Dicker. "At our place, I don't need research memos galore, I don't have frequent appear- ances before masters or judges, and so if I'm going to hire a student or a junior lawyer it's because they're going to be able to do the work that I need done. Josh very quickly proved to us it was a skill set he had." By comparison, Dicker says an articling student in his or her fi rst month would still need to be taught how to interview a client and how to write a proper legal opinion. " ose are not skills taught in law school, but they are acquired during articling," she says. "At Ryerson those are skills that were acquired in the fi rst four months." During the LLP's fi rst half, Dicker says candidates "learn how to actually be a law- yer." She says it prepares candidates to hang up a shingle when they get called to the bar, whereas an articling program may not pre- pare students to do that if they aren't hired back. "With articling they may be doing tons of cool things on interesting fi les but just components of the fi le and then arti- cling ends and if you're not asked back you think 'oh no, now what?'" Dicker served on the advisory steering committee setting up the LPP and was a senior partner in the mock fi rms the can- didates are part of during the September to December period of the program. Dur- ing that training component, candidates received assignments from their "senior partners" through a virtual blackboard and covered administrative law, business law, civil litigation, criminal/family, and real es- tate. Sometimes, they would get video mes- sages from the partners to help guide them. e LSUC says it will be assessing the LPP over the three-year pilot with a report evaluating years one and two to be provided to the LSUC's profes- sional development and competence committee in September 2016. " e fi rst year of the program has now been completed and the fi rst of the LPP candidates who ful- fi lled all of the requirements were called to the bar in June. e LPP is now moving into its second year of the three- year pilot, and we'll know the fi nal number of candidates registered with Ryerson and the University of Ottawa at the end of August/early Septem- ber," said Diana Miles, execu- tive director, organizational strategy and professional competence with the LSUC in June. "We've received some very positive feedback from candidates about the LPP and will continue to evaluate and gather feedback as the program continues." e 2014-15 Ryerson LPP start- ed with 260 candidates and 221 successfully completed it; all had work placements. At press time, Ry- erson was still working to track how many were hired back. ey expect the hire-back rate will be similar to that of traditional articling, which is about 50 per cent. In the French LPP, based at the University of Ottawa, 19 students started and 17 completed the requirements. Anne Levesque, director of the French LPP says the program drew many social justice placements including legal aid and some in-house positions with unions. e LPP off ered the broad experience Anne Nguyen of Brampton, Ont., says she was looking for. Nguyen graduated from the University of Manitoba law school and started the LPP last August. She said the biggest draw for her was the means it pro- vided to be called to the bar. "I wasn't hav- Anne Nguyen

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