A recent graduate from a paralegal program recently informed me that Access Legal Services Profession Corporation ("Access Legal"), a North York paralegal firm, had posted an anonymous advertisement on Craigslist soliciting applications from paralegals and legal assistants for a six-month unpaid internship. Access Legal is owned by Thambipillai "Deva" Devendran, a licensed paralegal. The advertisement appears to have been posted by Mary Renuka Selvanathan who is a licensed paralegal and an employee of Access Legal.
Access Legal is a firm that primarily works in the areas of personal injury and disability litigation. The duties that the firm wants the unpaid intern to perform include: administrative tasks, making expense payments, conducting legal research, drafting legal documents, and writing file summaries. The advertisement requests that the person send a cover letter, résumé, and references. Overall this looks very much like a job and decidedly not like a training opportunity.
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| Thambipillai Devendran |
In all likelihood this unpaid internship offerred by Access Legal is in contravention of the Employment Standards Act, 2000 ("the ESA") and the associated regulations. Consider the following, the six pronged test under the s. 1(2) of the ESA would most likely be breached as this internship would offend prongs one and three of the test (those dealing with training being similar to a vocational school and the employer deriving little benefit). While there are two other exclusions, neither s. 3(5)(2) of the ESA relating to students enrolled in post-secondary education would apply (as Access Legal's advertisement is looking for a licensed paralegal), nor would the exclusion enumerated under s. 2(1)(e) of O Reg 285/1 (it only applies to students).
This appears to be a possible case of misclassification with the aim to avoid adhering to the minimum requirements under the ESA (such as minimum wage, vacation pay, and overtime pay). It's troubling to see these sorts of labour practices being deployed by legal professionals and given the growing prevalence of unpaid work the Law Society of Upper Canada should look at regulating a living wage for new lawyers and paralegals. Young workers shouldn't be subjected to rampant exploitation that devalues their work and subjects them to the indignity of indentured servitude. If you're a recent paralegal graduate struggling with unpaid work let me know the labour market you're facing by sending me an email.
Thanks for this post, and for your post at Craigs List, which led me to this blog.
ReplyDeleteAs a mature recent paralegal graduate, I had become inured to a certain amount of underhanded, slimy and illegal tactics from "job' posters. One develops a sense for such things.
To have gone through the paralegal education and licensing process, only to encounter folks already in the profession who behave in these sneaky ways is distressing.
That is tempered by your willingness to jump in and wave a flag over unfairness.
If an employer is informed they have run afoul of the ESA and continue to flaut the law, what is the realistic chance the Ministry would react? Would reporting these people to the LSUC have any effect? Is retribution a concern?
Keep up the good work.
The Ministry of Labour certainly would investigate a complaint if someone complained about misclassification or unpaid wages. With regards to LSUC I'm uncertain how they would respond, while LSUC has the ability to regulate the condition of employment for students I suspect they would run into a jurisdictional issue if they started to intervene in employer-employee relationships that exist between licensees. Retribution is certainly a possibility, but I suspect the possibility is over-hyped and could be dealt with using the Rules of Professional Conduct.
ReplyDeleteAndrew, you inspire me. I check your blog daily.
ReplyDeleteOMG I applied for that position... and do not think I am alone. I am a licensed paralegal, looking for a position almost a year, as I do not have Canadian experience. Being in my shoes you would apply as well, to get this experience thinking about future.
ReplyDeletemaybe attend a canadian community college for a practicum?
DeleteI don't particularly like the comment from Mr. Patterson, but I decided to post it anyway as an example as I think it's reflective of the "pocket racism" that pervasive within Canadian society and the discrimination that immigrants to Canada face in the labour market. I would highly recommend this study, "Canada's Colour Coded Labour Market", as required reading for people as it deconstruct a lot of myths and exposes the racism new immigrants face. See: http://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/National%20Office/2011/03/Colour%20Coded%20Labour%20Market.pdf
ReplyDeleteIn Response to: “Why are law firms addicted to unpaid work?”
ReplyDeleteDear Mr. Langille:
Your readers and fellow legal professionals should know that I do encourage having these discussions, and I sincerely hope that any discourse will serve to enhance the legal profession and educate the public.
First, I must emphasize that Access Legal Services Professional Corporation did not violate any laws. I am disheartened that you did not attempt to reach out to me before presuming our intentions, disparaging the benefits of our internship program, and arguably libeling Access Legal Services. Furthermore, it appears that you might be providing legal advice based off of false assumptions. As someone who holds the legal profession in high regard, I respectfully request that you to properly research your facts before posting patently false accusations that are now available to the general public.
I would like to take this opportunity to invite you to engage in a fair dialog. From my perspective, the root cause of the problem facing new paralegals is market saturation. There are simply too many paralegals entering the workforce in competition for paid work in their profession to make a living. Perhaps regulating the number of graduates would serve to improve the odds and lay to rest the concerns you’ve addressed in your blog?
As it stands, legal firms willing to train these paralegals without compensation, so at least some of them will gain vital legal experience, should be applauded. While the knowledge gained by completing a paralegal degree is certainly worth being proud of, it is not a substitute for real world experience. I’m sure you’ll agree that a six month internship that teaches new paralegals the ropes is far more beneficial than six months of unemployment in a crowded industry or employment in an unrelated field.
Access Legal Services Professional Corporation has trained many bright paralegals and legal assistants over the years and the majority of them are presently working in the legal industry. These aren’t “indentured servants” or exploited individuals, as you have dramatized, but driven men and women who understand that they need above-average credentials to stand out in a tough market.
I also find your suggestion to restrict legal firms from offering non-paid internships a bit short-sighted. The fact of the matter is that if legislation, like the one you propose, is the law, new paralegals would simply be denied access to valuable training in a supportive environment. Your proposed changes would mean that the paid competition would be larger and new paralegals would have to no choice but to succeed or fail in a much faster-paced, less forgiving atmosphere. Additionally, the general public would be at a greater risk by having licensed paralegals that have no practical tribunal/court experience or knowledge of how to run a paralegal firm. I’m sure you can appreciate that “access to justice” can only be meaningfully implemented when these paralegals have practical experience.
I urge you to keep the dialog going, but with the caveat that it’s balanced, fair and in a manner that accurately represent the facts, as it relates to Access Legal Services. While I agree that there are systematic problems with the way the legal profession supports new professionals, the target of your frustration is sorely misplaced. I kindly request that you redact the erroneous facts contained within your blog and remove the name of our company , my name, Ms. Selvanathan’s name, and my picture that I believe, has been taken from my personal and private Facebook page.
Sincerely,
T. Devendran
This sounds like a long, drawn-out justification for exploiting the saturated market and frustrated, jobless paralegals you speak of. A "volunteer" internship will likely enrich you from the fruits of the intern's labour and yet you would pay them nothing? Even minimum wage would be less of an insult.
DeleteIf an intern would be taking over tasks that free your time or some other person in your firm then that is a calculable benefit to your firm financially. You make the case that the sole "reward" of the experience of back-office, grunt work and doing the stuff no one else wants is more than sufficient in itself and that the magnanimous offer of allowing someone to do your work for you for free deserves applause?
Seems as though the paralegals could just offer to do cases for free for people and obtain the same resulting "practical experience" without making you money off their labour.
I stand by my statements in the blog post above and if you feel that you have been libelled in any way than I encourage you to seek any remedies that you deem appropriate through the Courts as I would relish the opportunity to obtain a significant costs award against you.
ReplyDeleteHi Andrew,
ReplyDeleteI read the report Canada's Colour Coded Labour Market and I disagree with their findings. Simply blaming racism for the patterns seen is a very simplistic and offensive conclusion. This type of argument displays a total lack of imagination.
In addition, perhaps the large numbers of immigrants to Canada contributes to an oversupply of workers and helps to drive down wages. Do you see any parallel between this and your argument concerning the oversupply of law school graduates?
Langille here. Canada's Colour Coded Labour Market is an excellent report and was researched exhaustively. The conclusions that are drawn are reasonable given the overwhelming amount of evidence that racism is huge (and rarely acknowledged) issue in Canada's labour markets. I should note that the criticism that "[t]his type of argument displays a total lack of imagination" is bizarre and frankly dumb. It isn't the job of social science researchers to use their imagination, rather it's to explain complex socio-economic patterns in a straight-forward manner.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of immigration, one needs to parse out what you mean by "immigration". In a nutshell with Canada's labour markets we have immigrants, refugees, temporary foreign workers, undocumented migrant workers, and foreign students. All of these sub-groups face rampant discrimination and exploitation within our labour markets. In many ways we are starting to see the formation of an underclass. If anything, the government and employers are responsible for creating an environment where Canadians citizens are being forced to compete with the underground economy and where employers enjoy a carte blanche to exploit immigrants, migrants, or refugees. Also, one needs to make assessments about wages and labour supply issues on a sector by sector basis (i.e. something happening in the construction sector might not be happening in agriculture) and avoid making sweeping generalizations.
Finally, are there any parallels? There might be a few similarities on a basic level, but on the whole I would say that the problems faced by immigrants, migrants, or refugees differ significantly from those facing recent law school graduates. Simply on an intersectional basis a law graduate faces far better economic prospects than a migrant workers picking tomatoes in Leamington.
Why not to bring the problem of the illegal employment up with help of CBC - GO PUBLIC?
ReplyDeleteDeva is evil, he can stab you on your back and make you feel he is helping you at the same time (with a polite smile). All I learned from him were deadlines and long hours didn't always pay off, no need to work there to learn that lesson (sweat shop came to mind). Its like sleeping with the producer to get a better role in a movie, take advantage of the inexperienced.
ReplyDelete