It was the year the articling issue developed into a full-blown crisis.
Among the stories you’ll see in
Law Times’ top news, newsmakers, and cases supplement this week is a review of the articling shortage, an issue that became top of mind for the profession this year when the Law Society of Upper Canada revealed that 12.1 per cent of applicants in 2011 were unable to get a position within their first year of eligibility.
Some observers rightly note an alternative approach to the issue. While 12 per cent of applicants didn’t get a position, the overwhelming majority of them did.
That’s not a bad result compared to some sectors but it is disturbing given the high tuition law students pay and the resulting debt loads they carry on graduation. Law, then, simply isn’t a profession where it’s fine to say that a significant number of graduates won’t get a job.
If people are going to take on those debt loads after three years of school, they need employment. Moreover, the number of people who can’t get an articling position has increased significantly.
Let’s hope, then, that 2012 is the year we finally see action.
In fact, 2011 featured a number of issues that highlighted the need for change in the profession. As you’ll also see in the
Law Times supplement, Gov. Gen. David Johnston made a loud call for change during the Canadian Bar Association’s conference in Halifax this August.
Noting the profession’s monopoly on legal services, Johnston said lawyers have an obligation in turn to work for access to justice and the public good, something he believes they’ve failed to live up to.
The calls for change — and the need for it, as evidenced by the articling issue — came around the same time the Competition Bureau issued a disappointing report on restrictions in five professions, including the law.
While a 2007 report made fairly substantive recommendations for opening up competition in the legal profession, including by shortening the articling period and allowing for self-regulation of paralegals, the bureau’s post-study assessment left many observers disappointed.
The assessment noted the previous report’s success in raising awareness about competition issues and praised the legal profession for its actions on jurisdictional mobility.
But given developments on reducing barriers elsewhere and the likely return of slow economic growth, that’s not good enough. Hopefully, the profession will reconsider the issue in 2012.
Of course, one of the other big stories in 2011 was the federal government’s introduction of its omnibus crime bill. The legislation will dramatically change the practice of criminal law in this country, but lawyers have had little sway in convincing a very determined government to heed their objections.
As a result, they can’t stop the legislation but they can work to track, research, and highlight the implications of it, including unfair judgments against their clients and the increasing burdens on the justice and corrections systems. Criminal lawyers will also be busy with constitutional challenges of the various provisions.
If the omnibus bill is as problematic as many critics say, the issues will become evident in court fairly quickly. Lawyers, and perhaps judges, will play a key role in ensuring the public knows about them so they’ll have a better chance of changing the law when the opportunities arise.
