There's a crisis affecting recent law graduates in Ontario. In a nutshell the labour market for articling students (and for young lawyers) is depressed with hundreds of students being unable to transition from law school into the legal profession each year. Little is being done to address this situation by the Law Society of Upper Canada, the Ontario Bar Association ("OBA"), the Provincial Government, or the law schools themselves. Students are incurring massive debts, losing out on some of their prime income generating years while being jobless or underemployed, and are having to jump through hoops to enter the legal profession. This post is designed to identify the problems, cover off some of the literature on this complex topic, and offer a few modest ideas.
As an aside this renewed debate in Canada comes at a time when U.S. law schools are under increasing scrutiny for the admitting record numbers of students during an recessionary economy where employment prospects are bleak. There's action being taken as well, with a bipartisan push from the U.S. Senate to hold the American Bar Association to account for the explosion in law students unable to find jobs. Here are some key articles from the U.S. debate: "The Broken Law School Model: What Is To Be Done?"; "The Case Against Law Schools"; "Law School Economics: Ka-Ching!"; and, this excellent critique of the preceding article.
The legal trade magazine Canadian Lawyer published a feature length article this week outlining the dimensions and some of the underlying causes for the crisis. My take on the situation is that the lack of sufficient articling positions can be partially explained by: graduates increasingly wanting to live in the major urban centres of Ottawa and Toronto; a depressed legal market in the wake of the 2008 recession; the increased utilization of cost-efficient case management strategies and outsourcing by Bay Street firms that decreases the need for high numbers of articling students; the increased sophistication of clients and a reluctance to foot the bill for training new lawyers; the belief that Ontario is headed for a skills shortage in the near to medium term; the push in recent year by Ontario law schools to dramatically increase class size with little oversight from the Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities ("MTCU"); students returning to Ontario after going to other provinces and jurisdictions, such as Australia, to obtain their law degrees; the increasing reliance on medium and large firms for the creation of articling positions; the greying of the profession; and, a general reluctance by many members of the profession and firms to take a financial hit by providing the practical training to teach the hard skills that aren't taught in law schools.
In June 2011 the Law Society created an Articling Task Force to study the problem. This is the second time in five years that the Law Society has examined the articling process and given that nothing changed in the wake of the findings of a 2008 study it remains to be seen what will be accomplished this time. Other key stakeholders such as the MTCU, OBA, and the Deans of Ontario's law schools have remained virtually silent on the crisis facing law graduates. Given the deepening impact this problem is having it's problematic that's these key groups are not advancing concrete solutions and fostering dialogue amongst policy makers, the profession, and law students themselves. Below I've come up with a number of ideas that could be enacted as part of a package of reforms to remedy the current articling crisis.
What can the Provincial Government do?
(1) Allocate increased funding to Legal Aid Ontario, ministries, and tribunals to create one hundred permanent articling positions for Ontario trained law students with the goal of alleviating the current articling crunch. The reasoning here is that the MTCU bears some responsibility for poor labour market planning, the cost is relatively low, and there's a desperate need for increased access to justice for marginalized citizens in Ontario; (2) cut the number of law students in Ontario in the short-term and institute hard caps to the number of law students each law school can admit each year; (3) provide tax incentives and loan forgiveness for young lawyers who choose to practice outside of large urban centres; (4) create a pool of money to subsidize the cost to firms in small centre and rural locales to hire articling students; and, (5) explore increased regulation and oversight of the Law Society if it fails to address the articling crisis.
What can the Law Society do?
(1) Engage with law students, articling students, and young lawyers to properly assess the dimensions of the current crisis; (2) develop alternative entry routes into the legal profession for people unable to find articling positions; (3) create a standing committee with student membership that actively monitors the labour market for articling students and young lawyers; (4) proactively communicate with prospective law students at the time they apply to law school about the situation that exists in the labour market to address information asymmerties that currently exist; and (5) create more initiatives, resources, and support for small firm and sole practitioners to assist them in hiring articling students.
What can law schools do?
(1) Immediately reduce the number the number of students admitted each year until the labour market is stabilized; (2) revise the curriculum to teach the actual practice of law along aside the theory; (3) make full semester clinical placements a mandatory component of legal education; (4) ensure that career services offices are staffed with competent professionals who can actively guide students through the transition into the labour market; and, (5) ensure that students are provided with regular updates about the state of the labour market for articling students.
That's my take on the articling crisis. I'll be following the work of Articling Task Force closely and will report on any significant developments. If you have any comments please email me and if you're a recent law graduate struggling to find a position I'd love to hear from you about the on the ground situation.
Andrew, thanks for the article. You make a lot of great points, but you left out one key group: law firms. How might they help with the problem?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the question Ivan.
ReplyDeleteI didn't cover off them off because in the short-term firms are clearly not part of the solution. Remember that both firms and lawyers generally have a self-interest in maintaining the status quo as it: (1) provides for cheap labour in the form of articling students whose employment isn't subject to key protections contained in the Employment Standards Act, 2000 such as overtime and minimum wage; (2) keeps the pool of lawyers smaller meaning less competition and the ability to bill clients at higher prices; and (3) gives firms greater a lot of leverage during hiring particularly in the current labour market as it heavily favours employers due to the glut of law graduates desperate to obtain articling jobs.
A minority of firms and government organizations are using the depressed labour market to demand that articling students work for free or far below the minimum wage. Many students are doing this as a means to gain entry into the profession. These sorts of situations are exploitative, fly under the radar, and are going unaddressed by the Law Society. So to come back to your original question it wouldn't be logical for firms to act against self-interest and I wouldn't suggest otherwise so that's why they were left out of my original post.
Many lawyers are unemployed. But it is also true that many people need lawyers but cannot find them or cannot afford them. Especially in family law and in small communities, there's a a shortage of lawyers and therefore large numbers of self-represented litigants.
ReplyDeleteThere is a huge quantity of work available for lawyers serving low- and middle-income consumers in small and mid-sized communities. The problem may be that many new lawyers are, so far, holding out for Bay Street-style jobs. They are perfectly entitled to do so, but articling student unemployment rates need to be understood in the context of this fact.
The problem in this market is not a glut of supply, the problem is that the supply is not meeting the demand. Cutting back on the number of law school spots would (i) deprive Canadians of professionals who are greatly needed, and (ii) deprive young people of the opportunity to launch a career in law .
A young person who wants to go to law school should not be denied the opportunity by the state or the law society; especially not when Canada clearly needs more lawyers. I prefer your blog's suggestion that honest and accurate information be provided to prospective law students about the labour market, and what kinds of jobs are actually available.
Thanks for the comment Noel. You make some excellent points on access to justice.
ReplyDeleteI'm so not sure about about the supply not meeting the demand as there doesn't appear to be many unfilled articling positions in small and mid-sized communities in Ontario. Firms and sole practitioners in these locales just don't see the justification to create new articling positions amid a depressed economy with limited growth prospects. On the other hand though, there's some truth to the idea that new graduates often hold out for Bay Street type jobs and to a certain extent these preconceived ideas are fueling the access to justice problem. Perhaps law schools are letting in the wrong type of person and need alter admissions criteria to favour students with track records in social justice who are committed to careers furthering access to justice.
What are your ideas to get more law graduates into under-serviced areas like family law?
I know this is a really old article, but the situation is still pretty much the same today.
ReplyDeleteAs a law student who interviewed with several smaller firms, I would like to point out that there are actually rather few articling positions in smaller communities in Ontario. In fact, some local law associations actually told students at a networking session that they were interested in first-year or second-year associates rather than articling students. Moreover, if you look at the profiles of most lawyers in smaller communities, you will note that they tend to hire people with familial or other equally strong ties to the area...
I second this. There aren't any jobs out in the sticks. And when there are, they want you to have roots there or to already have a license.
ReplyDelete