Ryerson law school plan would let students skip articling

I saw the above headline in the news recently.  I also received a survey from the Law Society of Alberta today aimed at principals of articling students to get some feedback.  This got me to thinking about whether our traditional approach to the training of lawyers needs some serious re-thinking.  I have been the principal for 8 students in the past 8 years, and I have enjoyed this opportunity to mentor very much.  However, there are aspects of the articling experience that need some work, or perhaps should be thrown out altogether.  Students-at-law spend far too much time during the year of articles worrying about their constant module demands and the constant competency evaluation pressures, while trying to learn the law, learn the practice of law, and learning to work in a very new environment. 

Supporters of the proposal at the potential new law school at Ryerson said that "the proposal, if successful, could move Ontario away from long-standing problems posed by the traditional articling model."

This is a complex issue, and I will leave it to to the powers that be, but my thoughts today are that they might want to consider getting rid of articling altogether, start promoting more meaningful summer internship or school year internships (such as they have in nursing at many universities) and then go the way that they do
in the US, where you write your bar exam and then start practicing right away (with mentorship).  There is no perfect system, of course, but I also think that instead of focussing on a system to test the Students-at-law, law societies might want to consider training current lawyers to mentor law students properly and appropriately.  Currently, in Alberta, the only requirement is that you are at least 4 years at the bar before becoming a principal.  No training, no vetting of the principal.  So, we have no consistency, no accountability, and lawyers having potentially terrible experiences, at low pay, with little support or recourse for such potentially poor levels of training.

What are your thoughts?

Before and during law school at the University of Alberta I read a lot of legal thrillers and watched any legal type movie that I could find.  Some of my favourite movies were Runaway Jury, The Firm, A Civil Action, The Paper Chase and A Few Good Men.  For books, I liked King of Torts, Kafka’s The Trial, L’etranger by Albert Camus, and To Kill a Mockingbird.  Each book and movie has had some influence on me as a law student and as a lawyer.  Even more recently, I designed the interior of our office building after the set of Suits.

Most legal books and movies and television shows are not very realistic.  How can they be?  The law can be exciting but often it’s a bit boring from a dramatic or literary point of view.  For example, I always laugh when the lawyers come into the office of a partner on Suits with a file that has a few pages of paper in it and say they have found the solution.  My files tend to be many hundreds of pages and sometimes take up boxes, even though we try to be as paperless as possible.

What media has influenced you towards choosing a legal career?  In your practice of law?