With the number of Ontario articling candidates exceeding the number of positions by 200 each year, the LSUC Convocation approved an alternative licensing pilot program in November 2012. According to LSUC Communications Advisor Susan Tonkin, the Law Practice Program (LPP) will provide an alternative articling pathway for lawyer candidates and ensure the required competencies for entry level practice. The program proposes a four month teaching component and a fourth month paid or unpaid training component supervised by practicing lawyers.
Uncertainty has surrounded the progress of the LPP program to date. This is because a Request for Proposal is currently outstanding. This request seeks an organization that will administer the LPP pilot. A final closing date for applications is scheduled for May 31 2013, with the winning organization beginning work on November 1 2013. Many significant issues raised by the Articling Task Force remain.
Doubts regarding whether or not the LPP program is well designed to alleviate the job shortage for law school graduates continue to surface due to the uncertainty about how competitive the program is compared to articling. Dean Anthony Duggan remarked that he will be upbeat if the course is “fabulous”, “affordable”, “has placements” and “good experiences” but admits a proposal could be a “half-baked” program with “wobbly placements”.
Dean Duggan noted that Australia has a long history of offering Practical Legal Training (PLT) courses. In fact, PLT courses are the most common way for a lawyer to become licensed in Australia, and are more popular than articles or clerkship.
Where and how many job opportunities the Ontarian LPP program opens up remains to be seen. The Articling Task Force identified shortages of lawyers in less populated jurisdictions and among the criminal and family law bars. LSUC declined to speculate on the likely future careers of the approximately 400 candidates expected to commence the LPP in 2014-2015.
Another significant point of contention is that a large portion of the LPP expenses will be borne by the entire articling class. Instead of asking each LPP candidate to bear approximately $9,950 in costs from the LPP the licensing costs for candidates for both streams would be equalized to $4,350. This is an increase of $1,400 for non-LPP students compared to the approximately $2,950 that articling students currently pay.
There is continued concern that law school enrollment continues to outpace entry-level legal careers, a problem worsened by overstated job statistics that attract law school applicants. David Segal’s well-known feature “Is Law School a Losing Game” in The New York Times highlighted how many U.S. law schools inflate graduation hiring by relying on 2010 U.S. News rankings that claim, “93 percent of graduates were employed nine months after graduation”. The Globe and Mail found that 15 percent of Ontario applicants failed to find an articling position in 2011.
On this issue, Dean Duggan states that “law schools should be upfront” about the proportion of students able to find work and have a “duty of good faith” to be truthful regarding their students’ employment prospects. As well, Duggan says the law societies are collectively responsible for regulating entrance into the law profession and that law schools should regularly dialogue with law societies about these issues.
Finally, the articling crisis is dovetailing with a trend promoting experiential learning. This trend is placing significant pressure on law schools to offer more clinical placements and legal work for students during their education. Some schools, such as New York Law School, have launched courses teaching specialty lawyering skills as part of their three year curriculums. Speaking against this trend, Dean Duggan notes that the J.D. is meant to provide a liberal education with “durable” skills such as critical reasoning and legal research that cater to a wide range of interests and careers. As well, Duggan observed that courses offering legal practice training may be outdated by 2015 after a student graduates. Moreover, law schools are ill-equipped to offer job training or the learning-by-doing that is crucial to successful skills acquisition.
With several concerns still unresolved, the LPP continues to keep law students on their toes as they enter their final year.
