And some suggestions to make it better
Let’s be real. This year’s articling recruit was hell. There were about five positions for everyone to fight over and three days to do it. Tensions were high and moods were low.
What is it that makes the articling recruit so exhausting, every single year? Well, the recruit normalizes self-sacrifice and unhealthy grind culture. It disempowers law students and perpetuates ableism in the legal profession.
Let’s start with the narratives the legal community tells about the recruit. Every year, students are told that the Law Society of Ontario (LSO)’s articling recruit is the only way to get an articling position. This is just not true. Many rewarding articling positions come up after the recruit at boutique firms, with in-house counsel, with sole practitioners, with firms that just don’t care about the recruit, you name it! And whether you get an offer is often not at all about how ‘good’ you are, but a combination of many factors outside your control, like systemic discrimination, the economy, or whether your interviewer liked your ‘vibe.’ I was lucky in my recruit, but many weren’t; pushing the recruit as the one kick law students get at the metaphorical articling can is the reason many students at the Faculty who did not have a successful recruit are now anxious, stressed, and blaming themselves for somehow failing.
The recruit’s structure also propagates extremely harmful attitudes towards work, work-life balance, and students’ labour by normalizing sacrificing health and well-being to succeed. Worried about missing the boat, students are incentivized to apply to dozens of positions and accept as many interviews as possible. The Law Society (for reasons unknown) requires all interviews to be shoved into the span of three business days. This causes many students to be terribly stressed on a near-continuous basis for the better half a week. The 10-minute breaks between interviews barely allow for a respite, let alone a meal or the sprint to another in-person interview. The stress is exacerbated by students’ belief that they must be on-call and ready to respond even after 5pm in case an interviewer writes or requests subsequent interviews.
Normalizing an uncompromising capitalist grind is just one of many ways that, as the Disabled Law Students’ Association (DLSA) has stated, “ableism is rampant throughout the recruit processes.” Per a DLSA statement, students with visible or disclosed disabilities “are frequently subject to inappropriate questioning and discriminatory treatment.” This is unacceptable. Mandating that interviews can only happen on three specific days penalizes students who cannot attend due to life events or illness flare-ups. It sets up a relationship where students are expected to ‘suck it up’ and sacrifice their health for their employers. The recruit thus forces students with disabilities to ignore their own needs and well-being to get through the process, thereby contributing to the continued exclusion of people with disabilities from the legal profession.
Law students deserve a recruit that respects them and their needs. The LSO has a lot of power to make next year’s recruit less painful and more equitable. Here are a few suggestions, courtesy of myself and the DLSA:
- Implementing mandatory breaks during the interview days where no recruit activity is allowed;
- Requiring employers to stop contacting students after a certain time in the evening so students can pace themselves, attend to their needs, and prepare for their next day;
- Requiring position listings to include disability considerations and a point of contact for students who require accommodations;
- Spreading first and second interviews over a longer period than three days;
- Implementing make-up interview days; and,
- Writing clear guidelines so students know their rights in the recruit process and are empowered to make complaints about inappropriate employer conduct.
Editor’s Note: Paloma Alaminos is a member of the University of Toronto Law Union Steering Committee.
