Spring at UofT Law

Hey all,

I apologize once again for the delay in posting - life just seems to have a way of keeping me away from my PC these days!

First things first - you may still be wondering how Kate and I fared in Lansing at the Client Counselling Competition. It ended up being a great deal of fun, and we surprised ourselves by placing as the top Canadian team at the event and 2nd place overall! The scenarios were very challenging and diverse: We encountered "clients" ranging from a woman who was running an overseas adoption agency in collaboration with a known war criminal, to a laid-off auto worker desperate for cash and dumping toxic waste for a buddy to make some cash, to a well-meaning but misguided board member of a church who invested half of the organization's budget in a pyramid scheme and got in a bit of trouble after the funds invariably disappeared!

Aside from the event itself, I found it to be a really interesting experience to speak with the US law students and judges at the competition. In many ways, it made me very thankful - the American job market for lawyers is not in very good shape right now, and many of our competitors in their upper years were still searching for work, or weren't sure if they would be able to practice law after they graduate, even with a raft of extra-curriculars and solid grades. While this is partially a structural problem (U.S. has a huge number of law schools relative to Canada and so even in good times legal jobs are much harder to land than up here), the current economic environment hasn't helped either. So I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for some of my new acquaintances in Michigan that things pan out for the summer and beyond.

In contrast to the relatively bleak employment picture south of the border, last week my colleagues and I were inundated with options at the Faculty's annual career day. There were over 70 employers at the event, including a large number of firms, a few government organizations (federal DOJ, provincial Ministry of AG, City of Toronto), and a scattering of non-profits, though apparently, most NGOs looking for lawyers have a separate event later in the month.

One feature that I found useful about the day was an opportunity to have some substantive conversations with lawyers in private practice about what their work actually entails - for example, I had known that much of corporate law is concerned with working on transactions/mergers, but I wasn't at all clear what the role of the lawyer was in that process. Interestingly, much of it boils down to doing risk assessment - essentially, looking at a proposed transaction and analyzing it to see if it triggers specific legal risks (e.g., competition/antitrust concerns, runs afoul of ownership requirements, whether tax obligations will increase, etc.) as well as the very precise sequencing of a deal (how and when assets will be exchanged, which party will need to bear the various risks and when) and finally, who gets what in terms of intangible assets like intellectual properties. While it seems like it could be very engaging work, I'm not sure if it's where my longer-term interests lie - though this could just be a symptom of the fact that I had some very good conversations with both a provincial Crown Attorney and some DOJ litigators at the event!

At the end of the day though, I do find myself torn in different directions - above all else, I know that I want my career to have an impact that outlasts me and gives me a chance to do some very important work, but figuring out how to get there is not so simple. Private practice offers the potential to play a key role in addressing some of our country's significant challenges about making our businesses more productive and competitive in a very uncertain world economy, and a quick scan of the current practitioners/alumni of some of the big firms here in TO illustrate that these institutions are undeniably the "gateways" to some of the most powerful individuals and interests in Canada. On the other hand, much of the work on the corporate side is not always done in service of the public interest, and the crushing hours it demands could act to crowd out other opportunities for me to contribute in the voluntary sector that I would otherwise want to. Fortunately there's still a lot of time for me to find a balance between these considerations, but for now, I'm just grateful for the opportunity to keep learning.

Shifting gears for a bit, I received a bit of disappointing news when I returned from Michigan. As you know from my last entry, I was concerned about my first client, who didn't show up to his court date. It turns out that the reason he couldn't come to court was that he was arrested for failing to comply with his bail conditions. When this happens to someone, the usual policy is that you will not be able to get bail again while the charge is pending. However, they do tend to offer you "another way" out, which is to plead guilty to the fail to comply and the original charge. When faced with a few weeks in jail awaiting trial or an opportunity to go home with a conditional discharge, my client took the latter. While I respect his decision, it is disappointing in that had we been made aware of his arrest sooner, there was a chance that we could have done more for him and perhaps arranged for a superior plea option. For me, while this case didn't turn out the way I would have liked it to, it was an early lesson in some of the power imbalances that exist in the justice system, and it will defiinitely inform how I advise my future clients (I had mistakenly assumed that "of course" my client would comply with their conditions, but real life is often more complicated).

Well, this has been a long post so I'm going to wrap things up before I start my property class this afternoon. Next time, I hope to share another learning experience with you - on Saturday night, I'm going on a "ride-along" with the Toronto Police in District 23, which is in one of the toughest areas in TO's Northwest corner (apparently, I even get to wear a kevlar vest while "on duty"!) Will do my best to stay safe and keep you informed. Take care!