Voluntary Revoking the license. The process of coming back.

[Wizard]

Hi guys, I have a bit of an unusual question (compared to what I have seen in other threads on this forum).

I am wondering if anyone heard of lawyers voluntarily surrendering their license and then reapplying to LSO as a new licensee after some time? If so, I would like to know the process in detail as the LSO website is not very clear about it (in fact, it is confusing, and the LSO practice line is not helpful either).

I will try to explain my situation so you guys can have a better picture. I was called to the bar in 2019 in Ontario. I did well on LSAT, was a pretty good student in law school and had no problems on the bar exam; however, I was very very terrible at securing a “good” articling position. I always dreamed of working in the public sector, either in the provincial or federal government (such as a Crown counsel position or crown attorney) or in big Downtown firms as a plan B. Yet, I could not get into either of those places for articling purposes. I am not looking for pity, but the process was callous for me mentally and physically – I even had surgery during my articling search as my health had significantly worsened. Eventually, after talking to a professional mentor, I found a job in a small law firm with hopes of reapplying to the public sector after several years.

Now, after working in the legal profession for almost four years (primarily family law and civil litigation), I have started reapplying to the public sector again; however, I was advised that those places do not generally hire you unless you have been trained in “big” firms or did an articling with the MAG  – it appears they generally pick candidates from their internal pool, with limited exceptions. After several months of unsuccessful applications, I became pretty upset and started questioning some of the choices I had made before (such as accepting an articling position in a small firm outside of Toronto).

I always wanted to be a crown counsel, as this was the main reason I got into law school. In fact, I never wanted to be a lawyer in the private sector, and I feel like this is not what I want to do for the rest of my life. I d rather change my profession to IT entirely (I have a diploma in this area as well) but not work in the private sector again. I am trying to seek ways of getting into the public sector as an external application, and I am looking for advice on what I can do to go around the internal hiring thing.

I had a conversation with somebody from MAG, and they made a joke that they would gladly accept me if I applied for an articling or LPP position, which made me wonder if it is possible to do an articling a second time after four years of practice.

It is funny that I did not realize that LPP is essentially considered an articling at MAG - if I had known it back then, I would definitely pick this option four years ago; however, you cannot do it again once you have already completed your articling. I have done some research, and it is generally impossible to do an articling a second time unless your license is revoked and the LSO orders you to complete the bar exam/ articling placement again. I read in the LSO rules that it is possible to revoke a license voluntarily, but it is not clear whether I “must” do an articling placement again in such as case.

I am aware of another option to move to a different province and try to get into the public sector there (and I know people who did this); however, my main issue is that I have family that wants to stay in GTA, and ideally, I would like to work in Ontario.

So here comes my question: I would like to know the process of revoking the license in detail and whether this can restart my L1 application from scratch. I am willing to write the bar exam in Ontario if necessary and pay all of the fees, but I really need to know whether I can do an articling or LPP a second time after reapplying for a license in Ontario so that I can get into the public sector (or at least try to it).

I would like to know if anyone has done this before. I also want to hear some other ideas.

Thank you in advance. I understand that this thread might look unusual and that I am seeking some unorthodox ways to pursue my dream, but I would like to know if this idea is realistic.

Thank you,

Wizard

[PePeHalpert]

My friend, I really do not think you should put so much stock in a joke made by somebody from MAG that you would consider revoking your license and re-doing your bar exam and articling.  How would you explain that history to a potential employer?

[Wizard]

I have thought about doing this for the past several months, and I concluded that I am willing to take this step.

I can explain this situation to potential employers by being honest and saying that this is my dream job and that I took this step because it was the only way to go around this rule, as I have always wanted to work in the public sector.

Btw, as we speak, I got another email from MAG (probably the 20th time I received it):

Thank you for your interest in working as a lawyer in the Ministry of the Attorney General (MAG), Government of Ontario. Unfortunately, you are not eligible to apply for this competition and your application will not be considered.

I do not want to sound rude, but I feel like this is just discriminative, and there must be a way to go around this rule and not move to a different province. In fact, I know many lawyers who studied in other countries and got into the internal pool through Law Practice Program. And now the system does not even allow me to compete with them. With all due respect, I do not think this is fair.

If I must revoke my license to go around this rule in order to be considered worthy by MAG and start the process from scratch, I am prepared to do this; I just wanted to make sure that it will be possible for me to do articling a second time.

 

 

 

Edited April 13, 2023 by Wizard

[PePeHalpert]

I don’t know the answer to your specific question about whether you can do Articling a second time.   But even if the answer is yes, I’d urge you to think further about this. 
 

I’m not sure that revoking your license is going to give you the clean slate you are looking for. Your history will be there and I can’t imagine an employer is going to overlook it. 
 

I have no experience with MAG or the public sector generally. I work on Bay Street and I recognize it’s a different kettle of fish so I’m happy to be corrected if I am way off base here, but I don’t think this plan is going to look good to any employer. I interview students applying for Articling positions every year, and I have to be honest, if this scenario came across my desk it would raise a lot of flags for me. Primarily, why wasn’t this student able to secure an articling job in this sector the first time around or able to lateral into a position during 4 years of practice? 
 

What if you don’t secure a spot with MAG the second time around? You’ve set yourself back 4 years only to end up in the same place. 

[LMP]

1 hour ago, Wizard said:

I have thought about doing this for the past several months, and I concluded that I am willing to take this step.

I can explain this situation to potential employers by being honest and saying that this is my dream job and that I took this step because it was the only way to go around this rule, as I have always wanted to work in the public sector.

Btw, as we speak, I got another email from MAG (probably the 20th time I received it):

Thank you for your interest in working as a lawyer in the Ministry of the Attorney General (MAG), Government of Ontario. Unfortunately, you are not eligible to apply for this competition and your application will not be considered.

I do not want to sound rude, but I feel like this is just discriminative, and there must be a way to go around this rule and not move to a different province. In fact, I know many lawyers who studied in other countries and got into the internal pool through Law Practice Program. And now the system does not even allow me to compete with them. With all due respect, I do not think this is fair.

If I must revoke my license to go around this rule in order to be considered worthy by MAG and start the process from scratch, I am prepared to do this; I just wanted to make sure that it will be possible for me to do articling a second time.

 

 

 

I'm a little confused, why are you getting emails saying you aren't eligible for certian roles? Are you applying for articling positions when you are already called? How is this the 20th time you're getting that response? 

[whereverjustice]

Wizard, I think it would be a very bad idea to surrender your license just to make another attempt at MAG articling. MAG articling positions are competitive and even you were able to achieve 'eligibility' in this way (and I am not at all confident it would work), you may not get hired.

(I strongly suspect that the MAG e-mail you got was because you had applied to an internal competition.)

To the contrary, I think that if you want to get into MAG, your best bet is to look toward entry as an intermediate-level lawyer. MAG will look for external candidates when they have need of particular skills which they don't have (enough of) internally, and that tends to happen when they need someone at a more experienced level but their juniors in that field are just too junior. So what you would want to do is build up a specialized expertise that will be appealing to MAG as an outside hire. Frankly, developing your experience in family law and civil litigation may be a good path toward a future external hire into the Family Responsibility Office, the Office of the Children's Lawyer, the Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee, and perhaps other MAG branches (maybe Crown Law Office - Civil).

A plausible timeframe for being a credible intermediate-level hire to MAG would be around 6-10 years of call. It can happen sooner, but you should keep your expectations realistic. Ideally, you would want to build up a practice in which you can show that you were the lead/sole lawyer with carriage of important matters for clients. And of course it's also possible that your skills and MAG's needs just never align within a timeframe that's acceptable to you, and I have to stress that is not at all a remote possibility.

Finally bear in mind that the public sector is not just MAG. There are municipalities, the federal government, in-house counsel roles at NGOs and nonprofits, officers of the legislature (like the IPC), Crown agencies (like AGCO), etc.

(Note: Please do not rely on the accuracy of this post as thoroughly as you have relied upon your "conversation with somebody from MAG".)

Edited April 13, 2023 by whereverjustice
Six years rather than five

[Zarathustra]

Don't do it

[KOMODO]

12 hours ago, Wizard said:

...

So here comes my question: I would like to know the process of revoking the license in detail and whether this can restart my L1 application from scratch. I am willing to write the bar exam in Ontario if necessary and pay all of the fees, but I really need to know whether I can do an articling or LPP a second time after reapplying for a license in Ontario so that I can get into the public sector (or at least try to it).

I would like to know if anyone has done this before. I also want to hear some other ideas.

Thank you in advance. I understand that this thread might look unusual and that I am seeking some unorthodox ways to pursue my dream, but I would like to know if this idea is realistic.

...

This is a bad, bad, bad idea. I would bet quite a lot that nobody has ever done it before, as it makes absolutely no sense and I cannot imagine that it would work.

I agree with WJ that your chances seem much better if you just keep developing expertise and apply to a role you are eligible for in a few years. In the meantime, if you have the energy, feel free to keep applying to roles that you might be eligible for and that are open to external applicants, and don't let the rejections get you down so much, they happen to everyone looking for a competitive position. I completely agree with WJ that you should be looking at municipalities and other agencies and not limiting yourself to MAG.

Also, you mentioned your dream was to be "crown counsel"....do you mean like a criminal crown lawyer, or still specific to civil/legislative/policy work? If criminal, that's a different path where you would be better off switching to criminal defence work (which maybe would also fix your "I hate my job" problem?) and then trying to go from defence to crown in a few years. 

Lastly, you may just need to step away and do nothing or a non-law related job for a bit, to gain some perspective. I think your idea of working in IT, while not the best, is far better than trying to be delicensed and re-article. Your posts read a little like you're at a breaking point and want to do something completely drastic - I wonder if a few weeks or months away from work would allow you to step back and see the actual reasonable options (of which this is not one) in a more objective way.

[scooter]

If you were to voluntarily surrender your license and then later reapply, you would be exempt from the articling requirement and the bar exam requirement. 

Bylaw 4, Part II, ss 9(2)(d) and 9(3)(d) - https://www.lso.ca/about-lso/legislation-rules/by-laws/by-law-4

But yeah, if you are considering something this extreme, you must really hate your job. Take a break or do something different (law or otherwise). I'm skeptical that working for MAG will somehow solve all your problems, but that's going to be hard to think about objectively when you're in a job that you hate this much.

[Damages]

Don’t do it!

[CleanHands]

At least this one isn't quite as bad as the dude from the old forums who already had a JD and was contemplating doing law school over again so he could have another crack at the student recruits.

[Diplock]

This is roughly the equivilent of being 40 years old, realizing you'll never have the chance to play organized football at any level, and going back to high school in the hopes that someone will allow you to either run over or get run over by teenagers on the field while a coach younger than you yells at you for not doing enough burpies between games. As in, you sometimes see something like it on television in a 22 minute episode that glosses over all the reasons why people don't do these things in real life, but it isn't really a thing otherwise.

Whatever your issues are right now, pretending like the last four years of your life didn't happen isn't going to solve them. The jobs that won't hire you right now for who you are aren't going to hire you after you do something monumentally stupid and still remain exactly the same person otherwise.

If you can't get the job you want, make another plan. Stop trying to reset your life to an earlier save point like it's a video game and you want to try again.

[FlyingFish]

14 minutes ago, Diplock said:

The jobs that won't hire you right now for who you are aren't going to hire you after you do something monumentally stupid and still remain exactly the same person otherwise.

I agree.

[Misfit]

Could someone explain what the appeal of MAG is over the alternatives WJ mentioned (federal, municipalities, crown agencies)? I admit, I’ve been more drawn to these jobs over MAG but that’s prob because of my practice area. Trying to understand OP’s fixation. 

[123]

I don’t mean to come across as unsympathetic, but OP, you’re in a much better position than an LPP student. Most third-fourth year calls have transferable skills. New calls and LPP students don’t. You have practicing and non-practicing options available to you.  They may not be immediately available. They maybe aren’t exactly what you want. But they are out there. Even if the thing you wanted was possible, I struggle to think of how that would ever be in your interest.

[Yogurt Baron]

Usual disclaimer for anyone who needs it: I'm the furthest person here from being a lawyer and I know nothing. But:

On 4/12/2023 at 8:27 PM, Wizard said:

It is funny that I did not realize that LPP is essentially considered an articling at MAG

is this right? I feel like this isn't right.

[Scrivener]

Just to give you some hope, OP: I've heard of at least 5 lawyers who moved into public from private within the last year. One had been Bay Street for 10 years and another was name partner at a mid-size firm, but the other three were boutique or sole-practitioners at 5-7 years after call.

 

[Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer yet, so maybe shouldn't answer on this thread, but my heart goes out to OP and these drastic measures being considered]