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D. FEATURE – “DIARY OF AN ARTICLING STUDENT” – MONTH 5

May Installment

This upcoming month concludes the Articling Phase for me and most of my colleagues of the Bar Admission Course. Most of us will be called to the Bar in late July, after which time we will finally be able to call ourselves "lawyers", "barristers", and/or "solicitors". An exciting time it is.

Having written about the articling experience right from its inception, it seems only fair to try to express the single most important change that has taken place from its beginning to its end.

Is it financial security? Hardly! If my readers are anything like me, then there are student loan repayments looming in the horizon, waiting to take their piece of the pie. Is it knowledge? Well, knowledge is a definite contender, with all of the concrete involvement of articling, but there is something else that stands out as constituting the single biggest change, and that is involvement with clients. Ever wonder how referrals get around, how people know to call you? Despite our ultra-chic advertising technology in this part of the globe, I find that making a name for oneself in the legal community is still based in plain, ordinary conversations between clients and soon-to-be clients.

Awhile back I advanced the claim that knowledge is the primary thing to gain while articling. If I could make an adjustment to that without taking it back entirely, I would add client contacts. I have found that many people are simply intimidated and upset by the act of calling a lawyer - intimidated because they do not have legal knowledge, and upset because they have a problem that requires it. I cannot stress enough the importance of being able to interpret clients' problems and then formulate a legal solution in a way that they can interpret as a solution. This is where law meets up with the rest of the world, and this, I am finding, is the mark of a lawyer's presence in the community at large.

I feel that all that I've said warrants a final note - for those of you entering or in law school, please do not believe everything you hear. I have found that there is such a multitude of contradictory rumours and urban legends that the misinformation that circulates around the law school student body is almost comic. The good authorities that represent real information cannot control everything that gets said, so it becomes quite the task distinguishing truth from falsity. Good luck to all of you, and see you in the practice.

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