So I'm working full-time at NS DOJ Legal Services, and things are shaping up well. On my first day I got a cubicle, a working computer, and email all ready to go, and jumped right into orientation materials and meetings. I wrote an introductory email, outing myself as a Canucks fan and mentioning my time at PPS last year, and since we've had constant cloud and rain for over a week now people ask me if I feel at home yet - I tell them I left Vancouver to get away from the endless rain, because Halifax rain normally just gets it over with and blows on by. Apparently I'd just missed Royal Wedding festivities - there were British flags on the walls, and I was told everyone wore (their best) hats and one woman made, at home from scratch, a 3 level wedding cake! This is an office where everyone's very friendly and helpful, and keen to get me as much experience as possible in a broad area of practises.
I'm working under a "principal" or supervising lawyer who's dominantly assigned to environmental work. She's sent me around various departments and is encouraging them to give me work to do. So far I've done two assignments on environmental law, one on freedom of information (FOIPOP), some collections work for an environmental fine, and assorted research for a municipal government assignment coming up. I've had a current articling student (almost done) show me the ropes in the department's library and down at the Supreme Court office, and other paralegals and such introduce themselves to me with offers of assistance. For now I'm working by myself, but come the end of June a second summer student will join me and the workload and training will be more spread out.
I'm not overworked yet, though. I'm told it's feast or famine sometimes. I finished my projects early and got very complimentary feedback on them, despite not really knowing what I was doing. My plan so far is to say yes to as much experience and work as possible. So far that included some time with a lawyer who works on pending legislation. She'd just finished writing a bill extending protections to migrant workers, and brought me along to a briefing with the opposition representatives and Deputy Minister (head departmental bureaucrat, like Humphrey from Yes Minister), to the press briefing with the Minister, and to First & Second Readings in the House where there wasn't much debate. I couldn't make it to the full-scale debate (Committee of the Whole House) due to project deadlines, but did get to see a very brief set of bills go through the Law Amendments Committee (where members of the public get to have input on pending legislation). There's a lot of work going on behind the scenes, much more than ministers getting inspired to introduce a bill one day. Hopefully I'll get to see more, but the House is likely to rise for the summer break soon, so I'm likely lucky to have seen as much as I did.
I'm not going to be seeing much of PPS, court, or prosecutions this summer, but I am likely to do work and possible court appearances for child protection, administrative (tribunal), environmental, business, and legislative stuff (including drafting bills and regulations). Most likely it'll be different flavours of research and memo-writing, but at least I'm getting to know the practicalities of how a legal office works - that's not something well taught in school!
The office is just 1.1km down the road from us, a nice 12-minute walk with a slight hill in the middle of it. I'm likely going to be able to not wear a suit for the whole summer, but some exploration of the nuances of what exactly "business casual" means will have to come first before I dress more comfortably in the coming summer heat.
Now you're pretty much caught up with the first 2 weeks at DOJ! More to come later, I'm sure.
Keep your stick on the ice!
A.
15 May 2011
01 May 2011
2L, Looking Back - A
You've probably noticed I don't blog so much during the school year - it's kinda unavoidable due to the workload. I'll get you caught up on what happened and lay out what's ahead next year. For sanity's sake this will be the short version.
January - preparing for oral arguments in our Compulsory Moot case at the same time as preparing for summer job and articling position interviews - loads of pressure, not much fun. The moot went well and I got extremely good feedback on both the oral argument and my written factum. My interviews were with the federal and provincial departments of justice (DOJ) and Nova Scotia Legal Aid. They went ok and after a delay I got a callback for a second interview with NS DOJ. I was up against 5 or 6 other people in round 2, and handled myself well enough to get an offer! There were some unexpected questions, including "tell us something about yourself that isn't reflected in your transcript." I managed to throw out a laugh line about improvising in the face of the unexpected, and later that week in class I got a call with a job offer! It didn't take me long to discuss it with Racheal and accept!
February - floor hockey wound down and the two big stresses of moots and interviews gave way to researching my major paper for the Restorative Justice course, starting during Reading Break. On the down side my team didn't make the playoffs. On the up side I had a point in each game and we didn't get shut out once. On the down side there was a very large pile of readings to do in order to give myself time to research and draft the paper.
March - I handed in a draft copy of the paper and was rather surprised at the feedback I got, and not in a good way. I pretty much had to redo the whole thing from the ground up. That plus readings and advance exam preparation had me riding the edge of burnout. Things got rather dicey toward the end of the month as the paper was due and classes finished, and I didn't have as much quality study time as I wanted. Some people juggle knives, some people juggle geese, and it seemed I was juggling flaming chainsaws. The stress started getting to me as the semester wound down and it sunk in that I actually managed to schedule 2 exams on consecutive days - far from an ideal situation.
April - exams came and went in a flurry. 4 exams in 7 days, which isn't much time to prepare and practise in any kind of depth. When it was done I wasn't sure if I should feel relieved, exhausted, empty, or stabby. I took a week to decompress, and in that time my body made it clear just what kind of cost that stress had exacted under the cover of adrenaline. We went to Cuba for the last week of April (see Racheal's updates and pictures for details) where I didn't have to cook, do dishes, or study, and instead got to finish recovering. I came back and almost immediately caught a cold though, which I seem to have passed on to Racheal.
May - starting May 2nd I began work with NS DOJ as a summer student. What a nice change of pace! I go to work, I put in a solid effort and try to learn as much as I can, then I go home and watch playoffs! No studying required! And I get paid for it! It helps that I'm in an office full of very nice people, and that they're easing me into the flow of things and showing me how they like things done and what's expected of me, and I've got some interesting projects on the go already. My summer plans involve reading recreationally (Harry Potter and the Wheel of Time series), watching my Canucks, and enjoying the local sights. My grades came back with a few surprises, both higher and lower than expected, but all passed so I'm officially done with 2L!
Eventually I'm going to be signing up for my 3L courses. It looks like I'll be taking Crown law (suing the government), Administrative law (less-formal tribunals), Tax law (not because I want to but because it's on the bar, complicated, and taught by a good prof), Labour law (dealing with unions), and Youth law in the fall semester. That will give me more consecutive exams but at least now I know how to deal with them. The winter semester will be much lighter, exam-wise. I'll be taking Professional Responsibility (legal ethics with my Irish Contracts prof from 1L), Succession law (writing wills), and the Criminal Law Clinic, which has no exam and instead involves 16-20 hours/week following a judge or lawyer around and doing occasional seminars. This was highly recommended by a bunch of lawyers last summer and I'm looking forward to it immensely. Despite my high moot mark I didn't qualify for a competitive moot, which means one less thing to worry about. Fall will be another busy semester like this last one, but spring will be a nice way to finish.
I'll start a new round of posts describing my work at NS DOJ shortly. Until then, take care and Go Canucks!!
A.
January - preparing for oral arguments in our Compulsory Moot case at the same time as preparing for summer job and articling position interviews - loads of pressure, not much fun. The moot went well and I got extremely good feedback on both the oral argument and my written factum. My interviews were with the federal and provincial departments of justice (DOJ) and Nova Scotia Legal Aid. They went ok and after a delay I got a callback for a second interview with NS DOJ. I was up against 5 or 6 other people in round 2, and handled myself well enough to get an offer! There were some unexpected questions, including "tell us something about yourself that isn't reflected in your transcript." I managed to throw out a laugh line about improvising in the face of the unexpected, and later that week in class I got a call with a job offer! It didn't take me long to discuss it with Racheal and accept!
February - floor hockey wound down and the two big stresses of moots and interviews gave way to researching my major paper for the Restorative Justice course, starting during Reading Break. On the down side my team didn't make the playoffs. On the up side I had a point in each game and we didn't get shut out once. On the down side there was a very large pile of readings to do in order to give myself time to research and draft the paper.
March - I handed in a draft copy of the paper and was rather surprised at the feedback I got, and not in a good way. I pretty much had to redo the whole thing from the ground up. That plus readings and advance exam preparation had me riding the edge of burnout. Things got rather dicey toward the end of the month as the paper was due and classes finished, and I didn't have as much quality study time as I wanted. Some people juggle knives, some people juggle geese, and it seemed I was juggling flaming chainsaws. The stress started getting to me as the semester wound down and it sunk in that I actually managed to schedule 2 exams on consecutive days - far from an ideal situation.
April - exams came and went in a flurry. 4 exams in 7 days, which isn't much time to prepare and practise in any kind of depth. When it was done I wasn't sure if I should feel relieved, exhausted, empty, or stabby. I took a week to decompress, and in that time my body made it clear just what kind of cost that stress had exacted under the cover of adrenaline. We went to Cuba for the last week of April (see Racheal's updates and pictures for details) where I didn't have to cook, do dishes, or study, and instead got to finish recovering. I came back and almost immediately caught a cold though, which I seem to have passed on to Racheal.
May - starting May 2nd I began work with NS DOJ as a summer student. What a nice change of pace! I go to work, I put in a solid effort and try to learn as much as I can, then I go home and watch playoffs! No studying required! And I get paid for it! It helps that I'm in an office full of very nice people, and that they're easing me into the flow of things and showing me how they like things done and what's expected of me, and I've got some interesting projects on the go already. My summer plans involve reading recreationally (Harry Potter and the Wheel of Time series), watching my Canucks, and enjoying the local sights. My grades came back with a few surprises, both higher and lower than expected, but all passed so I'm officially done with 2L!
Eventually I'm going to be signing up for my 3L courses. It looks like I'll be taking Crown law (suing the government), Administrative law (less-formal tribunals), Tax law (not because I want to but because it's on the bar, complicated, and taught by a good prof), Labour law (dealing with unions), and Youth law in the fall semester. That will give me more consecutive exams but at least now I know how to deal with them. The winter semester will be much lighter, exam-wise. I'll be taking Professional Responsibility (legal ethics with my Irish Contracts prof from 1L), Succession law (writing wills), and the Criminal Law Clinic, which has no exam and instead involves 16-20 hours/week following a judge or lawyer around and doing occasional seminars. This was highly recommended by a bunch of lawyers last summer and I'm looking forward to it immensely. Despite my high moot mark I didn't qualify for a competitive moot, which means one less thing to worry about. Fall will be another busy semester like this last one, but spring will be a nice way to finish.
I'll start a new round of posts describing my work at NS DOJ shortly. Until then, take care and Go Canucks!!
A.
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