Course Selection...

[undertheletter]

I've been agonizing over 2L course selection for the past week and still feel like I have no idea what to select. I liked contract and property in 1L and will definitley be taking the advanced course options along with some other business ones in 2L...but I'm not sure if I should be taking courses in different subject areas? Do students in 2L focus on one thing or take a broader survey of subjects as was the case in 1L? I feel like I would be putting all my eggs in one basket by taking business courses only...but I'm not sure if that's a correct intuition. Are there certain essential courses to take such as evidence? and should I be looking at taking courses based on what's tested on the Bar?

[Byzantine]

I’m heading into 2L as well so been thinking about this. I’m mostly interested in litigation so planning to take courses around that (evidence, trial advocacy, maybe civil procedure). I also want to get a decent amount of the required courses I need done (federalism, admin, jurisprudence). There’s also some courses that have peaked my interest such as white collar crime. 
 

So not much to address your question, just what I’m thinking about in my course selection. 

[JustHereNotStaying]

I chose only Crim classes over 2L and I am realizing that I still want to learn business/civil law (the end goal is ultimately to open my own firm). The problem is I kind of shot myself in the foot for articling if I want to do business/civil for articling because I have literally 0 business/civil courses over my second year and the Articling recruit is right now (between 2nd to 3rd-year summer). 

The result is I have to apply for articling during my third year after grades are released for the first semester or potentially apply for the articling recruit after my third year in the summer. It's better to figure your path out now than leave the uncertainty to later if you're looking for your law degree to pay off quickly. 

 

 

[Lawllapalooza]

9 hours ago, JustHereNotStaying said:

 

 

 

There's no reason you can't apply to the articling recruit. Do you have experience in moots, clinics, volunteer? Hone that experience and have a compelling story. Self-selecting out because you don't think you took the right courses isn't a great idea.

[JustHereNotStaying]

I am definitely applying. don't get me wrong on that part - ended up doing a criminal law clinic for a semester and only took criminal law-related courses (only a real estate transaction course in my second year that was non-criminal). In my third year, I'm going to take business law-related courses. But even during my second year when I had an interview with one of the big Bay Street firms they stated do you have any solid business-related background or something else you can point to and I realized I did not have much. I got my foot in the door through at that time doing well in one of the 1L mandatory courses and got a course prize.

Now I am applying and trying to gain good experience in business law fields. clinics, volunteer experience, classes over my third year. most likely aiming towards IP with a mix of business law.

Worst case scenario - going to do an MBA (partially because I've really wanted to do this and now have the justification/reason to do so). then re-enter the legal job market. That's why I don't mind the MBA cost anymore plus I am only doing it if it has extensive co-op. 

The MBA is more one of my life goals - tbh worst case scenario get a decent job using the MBA and drop the law part, but highly doubt that.

End goal, open my own firm.

Edited July 2, 2022 by JustHereNotStaying