Insight for Intl. Trade & Customs Practice and Litigation

[practitionerpak]

Hello! I'm at the end of a nine-year litigation practice in a common law jurisdiction with a focus on customs, tax, administrative and constitutional law. I'll be taking the NCA route (with an LLM at Osgoode starting this Fall).

 

Given my background, my preference for articling / summer student positions is in customs / international trade, esp. litigation. I have looked at some law firms (the first ones that come up are usually Bay Street firms) but would also like to know the general shape of Ontario Customs practice and how your experience has been in it. 

[Hegdis]

Welcome to the forum! Hope some one is able to give you insight here. 

[PzabbytheLawyer]

18 hours ago, practitionerpak said:

Hello! I'm at the end of a nine-year litigation practice in a common law jurisdiction with a focus on customs, tax, administrative and constitutional law. I'll be taking the NCA route (with an LLM at Osgoode starting this Fall).

 

Given my background, my preference for articling / summer student positions is in customs / international trade, esp. litigation. I have looked at some law firms (the first ones that come up are usually Bay Street firms) but would also like to know the general shape of Ontario Customs practice and how your experience has been in it. 

From my limited knowledge, most of this work is done in Ottawa at Ottawa law firms. This includes both boutiques and full service firms. Ottawa has its own "summer recruit". I would see if it would be possible for you to apply through this process, since as a fresh call foreign graduate, it would be difficult to find your foot in this area in Canada.

In Toronto it is mainly full service firms which do it, and there aren't that many. McCarthys, BLG, and Bennet Jones come to mind. I'm not sure about others. Toronto would have more international arbitration than they would trade.

Again, limited knowledge. I hope this helps.

[Jaggers]

It's a pretty niche area, but I think we do have at least one person around here who practices in the area in one of the big firms.

[practitionerpak]

Thank you so much for the responses. I should also look at Ottawa firms too. I looked at the Canadian International Trade Tribunal but wrongly assumed it to be in Toronto (the lack of Canadian experience glaring through here). 

 

A few other queries maybe someone could shed light on:

- I'm hoping to sit in on some appellate proceedings during the Summer to get a feel for how proceedings are conducted there. While I would love to find ones relevant to my areas of preference but honestly any would do. Where would one go about finding what's on a docket on a given day and any case contexts?

- What's the best way to access caselaw and statutes? I've only managed to find canlii and it seems to be adequate but my experience has been that the free resources are sometimes limited in their access to caselaw especially those pertaining to niche areas. 

- There's a small boutique in Toronto, Counter-Tax. Anyone have any insights to their practice?