Can anyone share their experiences articling in a legal aid funded office in ON?

[Healthygarden]

Hello all, my articles in one lao office start in the next few months! I am excited to start because I find the work interesting. I know the work and culture varies by office, but Id appreciate if someone could share their experience articling in an LAO office. Ill be starting at a non-toronto office.

Edited July 13, 2021 by Healthygarden

[Darth Vader]

19 hours ago, Healthygarden said:

Hello all, my articles in one lao office start in the next few months! I am excited to start because I find the work interesting. I know the work and culture varies by office, but Id appreciate if someone could share their experience articling in an LAO office. Ill be starting at a non-toronto office.

It's one of the most comfortable, 9-5 jobs you can get in law. You also have a great chance of getting hired back at this office or another LAO office/legal clinic post-articles.  You'll probably get exposure to all the areas of law the office works in. You'll be doing intakes, managing a caseload, and participating in public education and community organizing initiatives. If you volunteered at a clinic in law school, it won't be all that different from it. 

[artsydork]

4 hours ago, Darth Vader said:

It's one of the most comfortable, 9-5 jobs you can get in law. You also have a great chance of getting hired back at this office or another LAO office/legal clinic post-articles.  You'll probably get exposure to all the areas of law the office works in. You'll be doing intakes, managing a caseload, and participating in public education and community organizing initiatives. If you volunteered at a clinic in law school, it won't be all that different from it. 

Duty counsel offices aren't at all like clinics. Unless OP means legal clinic, in which case, strange description. Hire back hasn't been that great. My year, they hired back like 9 of us out of a pool of 40ish students. Legal clinic hiring is largely limited contracts.

Like OP, I was also not Toronto. During my family rotation, I shadowed lawyers, interviewed clients, and was a drafting machine. Under a supervising lawyer, I was also responsible for assisting self reps understand their rights and obligations. Articling students have a more limited role in superior court so I only was more support.

In criminal law, I was largely responsible for consent releases, interviewing the people in cells to get their bail plan started, contact sureties, get instructions from counsel, get positions from the Crown, run surety checks with the police, etc. Basically, bail back up as much as possible. Fair amount of shadowing and assistance in other courts when needed.

I also did a rotation at a clinic and the district office. Clinic work was fun, doing negotiations with landlords, repping at the LTB and working on odsp and cpp-d appeals. District office was kinda dull but useful as I am a machine when it comes to understanding LAO disbursements/billing!

Disagree about "comfortable" though. Private lawyers yelled at me several times for their errors or at their perceived over stepping of duty counsel role, shared offices/no office space, working in cells, spread across 3 courts, being constantly pages by impatient JPs that thought that since the "real lawyers" were busy, that they could just call all the self reps, etc. It was high volume at my office and, while the hours were 845-445, they were largely very intense and jam packed days. 

Loved my experience, wouldn't trade it for the world. I worked with intelligent and passionate advocates that believed in the LAO mandate. My principal was awesome and it was a DC office respected by the bench. Various friends had different experiences, and DC's role has changed during covid so ymmv. I was also in an enhanced DC office so we had file management, and q more fun role than the typical summary legal advice.

Prepared me well to jump into DC as staff counsel. Also a smooth transition to private (in family). Ymmv depending on the office though. There are amazing people throughout the organization and some people that I question why they are still allowed to be there.

Edited July 14, 2021 by artsydork

[Darth Vader]

@artsydork I thought OP meant a clinic but if they are talking about a duty counsel office then I agree with your description. There is a lot of internal debate whether the Crown’s office or Legal Aid is better and it’s usually location specific. You go rural and your caseload doubles easily. Different stressors but similar systemic issues. A clinic has a more chill environment generally. 

[Healthygarden]

Thank you both for responding. I will be wfh, give or take a few drives a week to the clinic so that should be an interesting experience.