Great Students, or Great Lawyers?

For those of you in 1L, the excitement of O-Week is just starting to fade, and the realities of life as a law student will soon be kicking in. For the rest of us, the first week back also represents a transition, as we jockey for positions on the waiting lists, get ready for OCI’s, or scramble furiously for a precious articling position. The beginning of the year is all about change with chaos, followed by a relatively peaceful period where we get down to the business of being students; attending class, making summaries, and writing exams or papers.

These large, stressful transitions fill our minds so much that we often forget that law school itself is a transitional period. We are all being transformed, over the course of three years, into lawyers.  Our work habits, our world-views, and our very personalities are being transformed by the education we are receiving, and the people we’re sharing our experiences with.  We’re being taught how to construct arguments, and to not love those arguments too much. We’re being taught how to read and write with a great deal of precision. We’re being taught to love working under pressure, to thrive in environments where others would burst. But the dirty open secret of the profession is this: law school doesn’t really prepare us well to be lawyers, it best prepares us to be great law students. What we’re doing now as students doesn’t bear much resemblance to what we’ll actually be be doing as lawyers, whether one goes on to private practice, to academia, or to government.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a criticism of the quality of our legal education. There are good reasons why we need to learn (among many other things) how to do legal research, and write great facta from start to finish: a lawyer who can’t research the law or prepare an argument isn’t much of a lawyer. But the bulk of your professional life will not be spent engaging in these tasks.  Take for example the writing of facta. In private practice, most lawyers simply don’t have time to write a factum from scratch. Clients either can’t or won’t pay lawyers to duplicate work. Instead of taking a day or two or three to research, argue, edit, and revise a 20-30 page factum, you’ll be going to your firm’s precedent library, pulling a copy of the most recent factum that most closely applies to the facts of your case, and then you’ll spend a couple hours editing and tweaking that factum where it doesn’t address the arguments you need to make. Law school is about thoughtfulness and attention to detail; private practice is about process and efficiency.

What you learn here at Osgoode is how to identify the important details and understand what they mean for your fact situation. These are critical skills to have, but they are far from the only skills you’ll need. In academia, you’ll need skills in pedagogy and academic writing (which is not quite the same as legal writing); in private practice you’ll need to understand thoroughly the legal process and how to manage a team; in government you’ll need a fine appreciation of policy and how it relates to politics. Sadly, it’s possible to get your JD, even here at Osgoode, without having more than a cursory look at any of those skills. Despite the fact that Osgoode offers extensive opportunities to do clinical, academic and policy work to us students, we often miss these opportunities, or participate in the programs but still miss the point.

We all know that doing activities like editing for the Law Journal or doing a clinical intensive program are good for our education, but many of us think of these activities in terms of resume-building, failing to see that they can be a critical component of our education, one that will immediately affect our work lives after graduation. If you sit and think a bit about what you want to do after law school, and have some idea of the kind of training you’re going to be receiving while doing your Articles, you can pick activities that will give you a running start. Even your choice of summer job can help you get ready for the “real world” that comes after graduation. Is your new firm going to put you to work babysitting a photocopier all summer, or are they going to send you to court? Will they give you a chance to try a bit of everything, or will they need you mainly to assist a solicitor? Or a trial lawyer? These are all questions you can be asking yourself, and your interviewers, when you go through the job interview process.

You have choices, and you have a long working life ahead of you after graduating with your JD. While the staff and faculty here at Osgoode do their best to make you aware of those choices and future needs, the headlong rush of a legal education will tend to pull you along, and you’ll always be distracted from thinking long thoughts by the ever-present pressure of deadlines. Take the time to sit down, think about what you want for yourself, and ask yourself if your education is giving you all the tools you need to have the career -- the life -- you want after law school. A little time spent doing this now will make a big difference for you down the road.

The Ten Osgoode Commandments

This is the first of my articles for the Obiter Dicta, school newspaper at Osgoode Hall Law School.

1. First Year is the Hardest Year.

Getting used to the reading requirements, keeping up with the pace, and having the heaviest course-load of your three or so years at Osgoode Hall will all make your first year a thrilling, scary ride. But the hardest thing you’ll likely learn this year is how to “think like a lawyer”, and how to accept that your carefully constructed, highly researched, meticulously-polished argument is wrong. Not because there’s anything wrong with your argument, but because your professor (or judge, or classmate) likes somebody else’s argument better. The hardest part about first year is accepting that it’s the constructing, researching and polishing of arguments that is the point, and not whether you got the right answer or not.

2. Master the Bell Curve, Grasshopper.

Understanding the bell curve and how it works will go a long way to helping you get the most out of your classes here at Osgoode. What your particular score is on an exam is much less relevant than how everyone scored on the exam. For example, if one of your goals is to get the best grades possible for yourself, you may be inclined to also take classes with the very best professors. If you do, you’ll find yourself in fierce competition with a large number of other keen people, over a handful of A grades. If instead, you take the less popular classes with those of us who aren’t quite so motivated to pull down A’s (or even B’s), your competition will be greatly reduced.

3. Hard Exams are Your Friend.

Forget about building character, hard exams will help you get a more accurate picture of how well you understand the material, and you’ll be less likely to be shocked by a low grade if the exam was tough. Because of the bell curve, an easy exam can result in the situation where there may be only 5-10 points between the C grade and the A grade. If you happened to drink too much (or too little) whiskey that morning, and maybe misspelled a word or two that otherwise you wouldn’t have, it could cost you a letter-grade as your professor looks for something, anything to distinguish your paper from eighty other near-identical answers.

4. Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be the Whole of the Law.

Of all the market-speak you’ve heard about Osgoode, one factoid rings most true. At Osgoode, there’s a little bit of everything for us law students. Take this chance to explore legal areas that might not have otherwise occurred to you. Get involved in extra-curriculars. Have fun, it’s your last chance.

5. Don’t Believe the Hype about Bay Street.

You’re going to hear a lot about OCIs, and Articles, and things like “If you ever want to work on Bay Street, you have to start on Bay Street.” Don’t believe it. All you need to know about Bay Street can be summed up in two words: pyramid scheme. You’ll be herded like a cow through a chute, if you buy into the propaganda. If you want to work on Bay Street, go for it: there are obviously rewards for those suited to the work. But don’t think that you have to participate in their process if you might maybe possibly want to work there some day. If you have talent, they will be most happy to welcome you on board.

6. Don’t Believe the Hype about Grades.

Unless you’re going to be an academic, it really doesn’t matter that much what grades you get. If you are applying for Toronto jobs, the firms might use grades to differentiate between closely matched candidates, but nobody else cares. Hirers would rather know if you’ll fit in with their team, or if you’ll monopolize the Red Stapler.

7. You Are Not Here By Accident.

No matter how impossible the work seems, you can be sure that the rest of your class- or section-mates are just as scared shitless as you. The hardest part of law school is getting in.

8. Keele campus is a hole.

That is all.

9. Get Yer Ass Out to the Pubs…

… And Mock Trial…And Clubs Fair. Go for Intramural sports. Get out and have some fun. You’ll be working with the people you meet here at Osgoode for the rest of your legal life. Get to know them. Party with them, play with them, accumulate blackmail material on them.

10. It’s Not a Competition.

Okay, the bell curve does make it a competition, but it’s not a cut-throat competition. As I said above, you will go on to work with the people in your classes and they will remember how you behave towards them now. Treat your colleagues with kindness and respect, be helpful, accept help graciously. We’ve all seen the bastard lawyers on T.V., we all know the stories about students cutting cases out of the books in the library, and we all think those people are asses. You don’t have to be that person to be a great lawyer. Being nice will pay you dividends in the long run.

End of Summer Edginess

Graaah! I have just under three weeks left to go before I head back down to Toronto for school. I'll be starting even earlier than my classmates, because I have to get down in time to get the Obiter Dicta office set up, get a new computer for the office, and get an issue of the paper ready to go for the next Monday, when classes start. None of this is particularly hard work, don't get me wrong, but the end of the summer means the end of spending lots of time with my family, and that's very hard work indeed.

Of course, these things are never simple, and in some respects I'm very much looking forward to getting back to school. My re-education project is about 8 months from being substantially complete, and I want to get it over with. Also, I'm going a bit batty living with the in-laws (who, to be fair, are probably pretty sick of me by now too), and I'll be eager to be in my own place again, even if I'd rather Mel and Maddie were down there with me instead of up here.

Ah well, all will be well in the end, and I'm keeping my eyes on the prize, and all those trite, sad sayings that are no less true for being trite and sad.

So far, an uneventful long weekend

So with Mel recovering from a surgery and most of our friends either busy or out of town, it's been a pretty quiet weekend so far. Mostly I've been working on the Obiter Dicta website, getting some new functionality into it in preparation for the start of the school year.  Mel's been busy with her new website too.

Maybe we'll light a bon-fire tonight, that would be a good long-weekend activity.

Bannock Pizza

On the Lake, Part II

Our second day out on the lake saw the sun come up and remain clear most of the day. The day was much less windy than even the previous day, so we decided to go out in the canoe for a short paddle, to get some practice. We paddled around the island we were camped on, which turned out to be a little bigger than I'd thought. The water was mostly calm, however, as the island itself provided a natural wind-brake for most of the trip. People paddling farther out in the lake were not so fortunate, and we later heard from friends of ours that they'd been turned back to the launch by the wind that day.

We spent the rest of our day loafing, napping, and eating leftover bannock pizza, of which we had a large surplus from the night before. We had so much that we ended up not preparing the bannock cinnamon buns that Mel had put on the menu. In fact we never did end up eating that meal.  The bannock pizza also gave me my first real clue as to why we had so much food on the trip. Going out, I noticed that our food pack (actually a 30 l dry bag) was packed right full, with extra food tucked away in the day pack. Now I'm used to trips where four adults can pack food for a five-day trip in one internal-frame pack, with room to spare for the cooking gear. Carrying such a large amount of food on a canoe trip, even one where we didn't plan on portaging, seemed excessive to me. This would be understandable if we were taking a lot of canned or wet goods out with us, but we weren't; Melanie had dehydrated everything dehydratable, and as far as I could tell from the menu we had a reasonable meal plan for the four days we'd be out.  The discrepancy, it turned out, wasn't in the number or kind of meals, but in the size of each meal -- there was enough bannock for the pizza to feed us for the whole trip! And there were two other dishes with large quantities of bannock to boot! So basically we carried enough bannock for a five day trip, plus enough food on top of that for a second trip as well. Needless to say, next year, we're bringing less bannock.

Maddie settled into outdoor living fairly well by this day, and seemed to have a lot of fun playing in the dirt, the water, and seeing all the wildlife (which consisted mainly of squirrels and frogs). She also instituted a ritual of sorts. Each day we were out, at about 4 pm, she would stop whatever it is that she was doing, and grab a couple of pots, spoons, or plastic shovels. We all had to line up, each of us with an improvised instrument, and have a marching parade around the campsite for fifteen minutes. It was pretty fun.  Later that day, she regaled us with an impromptu ballet recital out on the rock overlooking the lake.  Totally made my trip.

The trip ended Sunday morning, with Mel and I deciding to get into the landing before the wind went up. The paddle was uneventful, except for the large number of boats that blew past us, kicking up wakes as they went. We made it to shore without incident, packed the car, and headed home to civilization.  And so ends the Anima-Nip Trip, 2010.

Out on the Lake -- Part 1

So our 4 day trip on Anima-Nip
Didn't go quite as expected.
The day we arrived,
The waves were too high,
We feared that we'd be ejected.


So we went to Finlayson Point Provincial Park the first night, and car-camped there until the next morning. It was a pretty good back-up plan, and we had a great site in the park, quiet and removed from the worst of the park traffic. Alas, it was also a fair way removed from the comfort station, which is a somewhat painful experience when you have to run a 3 year old child to the pot every few hours (an experience which gets worse when you arrive at the pot 5 minutes later, only to find she had a false alarm). Fortunately for me, Melanie bore the worst of that particular task. I got the glamourous job of keeping the fire going. A job that was surprisingly difficult. We didn't bring wood this year (since Finlayson wasn't in the plan) and the stuff they sell at the park is fresh-cut and very green.

The next day, we packed up early and drove out to Anima-Nip again. This time, it looked like we'd be able to load the canoe at the launch without capsizing it, so we loaded up and paddled out. The island wasn't too far from the launch, probably about a 20-30 minute paddle if you go straight out over quiet water. We didn't have quiet water, as the lake was still up, so we had to hug the shore and hang a right at the first point past the fire-tower bay instead of heading straight out.

We got to the site without incident however, and got to work picking out a site (near to the shore, in the wind), setting up a tarp, and getting our shiny new Marmot tent up and covered. This done, we settled in for a relaxing time on the island. Supper consisted of bannock pizza in our new firepit oven, and it was very tasty.  The rest of the evening was fairly bug-free, despite the humidity, thanks to a breeze that went across the island (and the near-gale force winds scouring the far shore of the lake).   The biggest surprise of the night came when Maddie announced that she was going to go to bed, climbed into the tent herself, changed into a Pull-up herself, and went to sleep. On her own. Without coaxing, prodding, or even assistance from either me or Mel. Weird.

(part 2 shall appear after a brief but thoughtful delay)