Draken

Ryerson has already placed students in the 1L Toronto recruit from its first class ever, so all the consternation on this forum over the quality of their program and market reaction is unfounded (IMO). Go to Ryerson, you'll come out virtually debt free if you live at home and as long as you perform academically, you will be fine in the market. Reality is that once Ryerson's IPC produces a year or two of successful grads, the pressure will be overwhelming for other schools to follow or for the LSO to finalize modernize and eliminate articling altogether.

I think the only difference would have been that this discussion would have been percolating for a longer time and likely we would have seen concerted action by students earlier. The unfortunate reality is that the Law Student's Society of Ontario, who I support and did some great work advocating for us in the face of an institution that I can only see as openly hostile to student engagement, is weak. It can hardly get enough candidates to fill out its executive and has to pick up and start over every year because few executives stay with it beyond one election. It is just added debt; reality is $5k is a drop on top of the potentially $100k debt many of us are looking in the face. But the reasons underpinning it, the timing, the lack of any avenue to inquire or challenge it, it all just rubs me the wrong way. At least I can look at my degree debt and think "well I got classes and student events and career support and, and, and" out of this as well as an administration that was responsive and willing to engage on the issue of tuition cost, even if we made no headway. For the LSO to show up and tell us we now owe them $5k to go to work, having provided us nothing and telling us to get fucked when we go through their formal process to ask for the bare minimum of an opportunity to speak on the fees they charge us? Unbelievable. Most of the Benchers I can see on the site are so far from the reality of the cost to become a lawyer today, they likely studied before the tuition deregulation and could go to school working the snack bar during summers. That they think $5k is an appropriate amount for the regulator to tack on top of our debt the first day out the gate is freakish.

No one I know heard a word from the LSO all through law school and I was heavily involved with student gov and advocacy. The first communication I had from them was after I applied for licensing and the completely opaque invoices followed after. Certainly, there is a point to be made that this stuff is publicly listed on the LSO site. But let's be honest, during law school, you're not thinking about your licensing, you're thinking about the 100 other things demanding your attention, your grades, and then taking a break when you can. Which I know, practice is busier than school, but I don't think the LSO gets a pass on the 0 communication they have had with students. We get more communication from WestLaw and LexisNexis reps than from our own regulator, who starts controlling our actions the moment we enter law school. It's a complete failure of constituent engagement. The LSO does not even treat law/articling students as constituents, just a convenient piggybank they get to draw on with no representation. The recent Benchers vote against both LSSO motions for representation is a clear indication of that. Not one law student should be surprised at the amount of fees charged, it should have been clearly and consistently communicated by the LSO to all law students starting from 1L. But I'm certain the LSO doesn't want to deal with the opposition they would face, so they wait until halfway through the last semester of 3L and move the payment deadline to April 15th so there is virtually no time to argue with them. It's appalling.

Which was a gross decision for the LSO to make without any voice from students at the table. They took an industry problem that they failed to head off and decided to burden licence candidates with it because they could and they knew we had no power to challenge it. And now that we got organized through the LSSO and asked for a sliver of consideration, they shut the door on us. I believe the LPP is a great program to have for those unable to secure articling due to the state of the industry. But, that cost should have been spread over the licensed lawyers, who are more able to bear it (seeing as we would all be paying it eventually through licensing fees, this makes no real difference beyond saving students from even more crippling debt immediately out of the gate) and additionally, the only reason the LPP is necessary is because the LSO has failed in advocating for its members. If the LSO had been paying attention and fighting to represent us with the ON gov and law schools to ensure that supply of new licencees was kept commensurate with new positions, we would not need the LPP. This is exactly the issue teachers had that resulted in teaching degrees moving from a one year to two year program. Not to mention the whole concept of articling is archaic (the US has shown us that articling is completely unnecessary today). But that's another fight to have with the LSO.

I don't know what the numbers are like for other provinces (hopefully lower) but the LSO charging roughly $5000 for articling students to receive their licence is gross. I'm lucky enough to be with a firm that is covering part/potentially all of my costs, but my colleagues going to practice outside of big law, many in less financially remunerative but critical areas in criminal defence, legal aid, family law, etc are expected to shell out $5000 more for the privilege of working an articling job they secured themselves and to take two online exams? We are in the middle of a global pandemic, financial pressure on everyone is increased and there was already a shortfall in articling positions before COVID (1.6 new licensees to every new practice position, per the ON gov). I'm honestly disgusted with the LSO at the moment, especially considering the same day they sent us these bloated invoices, the current Benchers voted down a motion to consider permitting articling students voting rights, not even to actually provide us with some representation in the organization where fiscal decisions significantly impacting us are made. All while the LSO announces it has an unexpected $15M GAIN from 2020. Just sick stuff.

Back on the main topic, it's worth your time to look into recent initiatives by law schools too; Western has historically not been great on diversity, but the admin and student body are very engaged on this, especially in light of the current uptick in BLM advocacy and conversations in the law school. Admissions has committed to increased emphasis on overall class diversity and there are multiple initiatives on campus broadly and in the law school specifically to address this. I'm sure other law schools are doing the same. Food for thought!

Western had one too if I recall. Always write them; why give an admissions committee less material to consider you on? Why make them think a spot in the class is not worth a few hundred extra words to you?

Hi all, I like to mess around with cocktails in my spare time and I've been thinking of making a "Bay Street" themed speciality in line with my summer job 😆 Any thoughts on ingredients or drinks that law students/lawyers around here would associate with Bay Street? Like what base liquor do you think is the most corporate law-ish? Other suggestions? Would love some inspiration to help me centre my efforts

I wore a button-up and tie for my onboarding zoom and the Directors of Ops literally laughed at me (in good fun). No one is wearing formals to work right now unless they have something with the court. I wear a hat in 50% of meetings so everyone doesn't see how bad my hair is. Just wear some regular clothes, but I would avoid anything very loud if you have video calls.

Sometimes the truth hurts 😭

Learn how to read financial statements.

I mean, this is purely my experience from working with my own law school's admin, but a significant part of the Dean's job is administrative tasks that do not require legal background or training. They were probably looking for someone with those kind of management skills to stop-gap while they search for an appropriate candidate with legal skills. Given his resume points in the announcement, this seems an entirely smart decision to ensure the law school has stable, experienced leadership while they find the right candidate.

not wrong tho

Toughest issues are the amount of bs that comes up in student politics because everyone at law school has strong opinions even where they are clearly wrong. Deal with that by drinking.

Winter likely online as well from the same email.