Advice: Articling in Ontario for Municipal Government

[Nebula]

Hi all!

Apologies in advance! My post may be vague re details about my articles. I think I may be easily identified otherwise.

Anyways, I somehow managed to land an articling position in Ontario with a municipality. I can't tell you folks how relieved I was because with my grades....I thought I was not going to land anything, let alone in Ontario. I was already mentally preparing to cold call and just spam my resume to possible employers across the country. I almost didn't even apply to this position because of my grades coupled with me being out of province. It was my first articling interview and thankfully my last (please let me relief brag). 

What I guess I'm trying to say is, now that I got this opportunity, I REALLY don't want to fuck it up. So I want to go in as well prepared as possible. 

Anyone have any advice for me in terms of what I should expect from such an articling position? What kind of work do articling students do in such an environment? Still a lot of research and memos? Drafting? Should I mentally prepare to pull long hours similar to private firm articling or will I mostly likely work the standard 9-5 most days? Is there something else I should be considering that I am not considering? Are there particular behaviours or "way of doing things" that I should avoid? I find advice or tips for articling in non-private firm settings hard to come by. 

The impression I got during the interview process was that I could somewhat steer my experience. For example, if I wanted more employment files, I can try to ask for it. So I want to take advantage of this. Is there a particular area I should definitely build experience in that would be advantageous in the future? My main area of interest is administrative law, things like human rights, employment, immigration, planning, regulatory bodies etc. Although I somehow find myself having serendipitous encounters with tax. I suck at anything corporate related but I actually wouldn't mind doing working in the area. 

For context, I went to law school at 26 so I had/have work experience. I also continued working throughout law school (one of these positions 100% landed me this articling position). From high school onwards,  all my jobs have been with government - mainly with my home province but I also worked for my hometown's municipal government between undergrad and law school. But the work was more administrative or customer service in nature. However, I absorbed a lot of non-administrative information or had opportunities to do more legal adjacted or policy work in the last couple of term positions. My current position is with a quasi-judicial tribunal and the legal counsel have been fantastic at letting me really get involved and do more articling student type work. Personality-wise, I talk a lot and ask a lot of questions. I naturally find myself giving my thoughts and input and I'm not afraid of being part of discussions with people in senior positions. I don't know if this may come off as overstepping my bounds during articling though - it worked well for me this far though. I'm also familar with municipal law both from my past work experience and taking the course in law school, although my understanding obviously gears towards my home province. My major weak point is my tendency to lose concentration or procrastinate (I need some sort of pressure to work) and my writing could use some improvement/be more succinct. 

All advice or tips or guidance etc would be much appreciated! 

(I'll even take tips on renting in the GTA because goddam it makes me question running off to article in that area. How are people even paying rent??!)

 

[Nebula]

I see there was a question about working in municipal law recently and articling with a municipal government seems to be rare....so I may have unintentionally outed myself with the context I provided. If anyone from my employer is on here and you do figure out who I am, please pretend you don't know so I can also pretend.  😬