Canadian Lawyer 4Students

overwhelming. So even if we thought everybody should be in a clinic — and there's an argument that every student should at least have one clinical experi- ence in law school — we couldn't aff ord it. Unless the bar is prepared to put the money that they're now putting into articling into supporting clinical educa- tion in law schools, I just don't think it's feasible." Feldthusen doesn't really see the need for more experiential learning at law schools anyway. "In Ontario, it's still the case that law students upon graduation are going to get a year of experiential learning called articling. I think that if you look at legal education as a combination of the bar's role and the law schools' role, there's already a huge amount of experiential learning," he argues. Nancy Stitt, director of student pro- grams at Goodmans LLP, says law fi rms aren't necessarily interested in having more experiential learning at law schools either. "Th e main purpose of the law schools is not to teach the practical skills. Th e skills that lawyers will need will vary so much depending on what they end up doing and where they end up going," she says. "I think the practical options that they give at the law schools should be that; they should be options." In hiring articling students, Stitt says an applicant who has hands-on learning experience is not considered to have an advantage over an applicant who doesn't. "In terms of students com- ing in here, we will give them what they need. Th ey will get the hands-on train- ing and the hands-on feedback and the hands-on learning when they do it. I think that's very diffi cult to replicate in a classroom setting. I don't think that ever was supposed to be the purpose of law school," she says. Sossin begs to diff er. "I think expe- riential learning at law school and arti- cling are designed with diff erent goals in mind. Th e former is meant to provide a deeper understanding of law while the latter is meant to train lawyers. Th at said, there are certainly kinds of experiential learning — spending a semester at a legal clinic, for example — which may provide students with similar exposure to legal practice," he says. Queen's University has such a program: the Technology, Engineer- ing and Management course (TEAM), a unique experiential program that goes beyond just law. TEAM is off ered to arts, science, engineering, law, com- merce, and business students. Th ey are divided into multidisciplinary groups and matched with an industry client to complete an eight-month consult- ing project. Queen's law student Joy SOME EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING PROGRAMS AT CANADIAN LAW SCHOOLS Osgoode Hall • mediation intensive program • innocence Project • community & legal aid services program • Osgoode Business Clinic • anti-discrimination intensive program • collaborative research teams University of Victoria • Business Law Clinic • environmental Law Centre • the Law Centre • law co-op Queen's University • correctional law project • Queen's Business Law Clinic • elder Law Clinic • technology, engineering and Management (teaM) course • clinical family law University of Ottawa (common law) • uOttawa-ecojustice environmental Law Clinic • Community Legal Clinic • Centre for Law, technology and Society • Canadian internet Policy and Public interest Clinic • student-proposed internships University of Western Ontario • Community Legal Services • Business Law Clinic • Sport Solution • international Law internship program University of Windsor • community legal aid • legal assistance of Windsor • University of Windsor mediation services • northwest territories clerkship program • intellectual Property Law information network (iPLin) • Law enforcement accountability Project (LeaP) Wakefi eld was part of an in-house team that produced a report on the feasibil- ity of converting Perpetual Energy Inc.'s fl eet to compressed natural gas vehicles. She told 4Students last fall that students who participate in the course get a sense of the in-house experience and discover the importance of not just producing top-notch legal advice, but also of en- suring it makes business sense. "It gives students a broader perspective, a chance to see how law interacts with business and technical operations." Doug Ferguson, director of West- ern's Community Legal Services clin- ic, says there are several ways for law schools to integrate more practical training into their curricula. He says students should have the choice to take a certain number of credits in clinical and ethical courses to reduce or elimi- nate their articling term — much like the option suggested by the LSUC's articling task force. Universities could integrate articling into the three years of law school, or off er a capstone course or a simulated summer program where students work at a virtual law fi rm, similar to the program at the Universi- ty of Glasgow in Scotland, he suggests. Th ese alternatives would also help ad- dress the current articling crisis in On- tario, he adds. Ferguson claims the lack of discus- sion between the law society and law schools was a contributing factor to the articling crisis. "I feel that the law schools and the profession have lost touch with each other. One of the issues right now — the reason why we have the articling crisis — is that law schools have increased their admissions; the classes are bigger, but they did that with- out looking into how it's going to aff ect the profession and how it might aff ect the articling situation. And I think there has to be a closer co-operation in the fu- ture between the profession and the law schools," he says. "I don't see articling disappearing. I think it's still a very valuable way of educating students on legal practice," Ferguson admits. "But the numbers just don't support it. It's not sustainable in its present form so I think we need a supplementary way of doing it and [ex- periential learning] is one way." ■ C ANADIAN Lawyer 4STUDENTS SPRING 2012 9

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