1L Crim related summer position

[Naj]

Title. Been volunteering this semester with community legal aid but, without disclosing too much, it's pretty clear taking up a summer job with them would entail dealing with mostly LTB stuff. I'm also unsure if there's a formal recruit of some sort going on, but I haven't heard anything interesting. 

A couple of 3Ls did host a mentor program with certain local defense practitioners and crowns who opted in, and they're willing to help get me situated for summer . ATM I'm thinking of going that route + I'll probably be making some cold calls to local criminal defense practices around me soon. 

Wondering, am I shooting for a paid position, or nah, what's the play/norm? Willing to shoot for it regardless, but I want to know my limits. Primarily interested in somewhere that's gonna get me the most experience or where I would learn the most.

 

Edited March 3 by Naj

[ZineZ]

2 hours ago, Naj said:

Title. Been volunteering this semester with community legal aid but, without disclosing too much, it's pretty clear taking up a summer job with them would entail dealing with mostly LTB stuff. I'm also unsure if there's a formal recruit of some sort going on, but I haven't heard anything interesting. 

A couple of 3Ls did host a mentor program with certain local defense practitioners and crowns who opted in, and they're willing to help get me situated for summer . ATM I'm thinking of going that route + I'll probably be making some cold calls to local criminal defense practices around me soon. 

Wondering, am I shooting for a paid position, or nah, what's the play/norm? Willing to shoot for it regardless, but I want to know my limits. Primarily interested in somewhere that's gonna get me the most experience or where I would learn the most.

 

Sorry just so I understand the basics here:

• You're a 1L who has been helping out with community legal aid clinics. You may have a potential paid position with them for the summer. But it's likely LTB related.
• You'd like to do crim work for the summer and likely longer than that. 
• You're figuring out how to find a summer position and are thinking of cold-calling places. Plus you'd like to know if to ask for pay.

Ask for the pay. Do NOT be a summer student who volunteers at some small crim firm for free (I'm also curious about whether there's any LSO implications here - I don't think so but I'm not sure). Though someone with crim practice experience could chime in?

PS - I wouldn't necessarily turn down a position with the legal aid clinic for your first summer in school if it's on the table. Keep your options open, but if there's a deadline here - consider taking the position. Finding something inside the profession in 1L is hard - and getting that summer litigation experience is quite valuable. It can set you up for 2L jobs. 

[Naj]

3 hours ago, ZineZ said:

Sorry just so I understand the basics here:

My bad I typed that out like a bit of an idiot, but yes. 

3 hours ago, ZineZ said:

 getting that summer litigation experience is quite valuable. It can set you up for 2L jobs

So I've heard, but I don't have much interest in any area of law other than crim. I believe there's also an expectation to return to the clinic during the 2L academic year. Grades look good so there's a decent chance I end up transferring out for 2L and screwing them over. - That and the workplace is bland as shit, frankly speaking. 

Quote

Ask for the pay. Do NOT be a summer student who volunteers at some small crim firm for free

Why though? I mean sure I'll exhaust all paid crim options before considering any un-paid options. I don't mind being exploited if there's some sort of industry insight/experience/mentorship I'm getting in return. 

I guess the better question is: how likely is it that a local criminal defense practice will be able/willing to afford a summer student?

The answer to that partially depends on how much value a 1L student can bring. - I don't exactly know so I'll sort of be bargaining blind. We'll see how it goes. 

Edited March 4 by Naj

[ZineZ]

1 hour ago, Naj said:

So I've heard, but I don't have much interest in any area of law other than crim. I believe there's also an expectation to return to the clinic during the 2L academic year. Grades look good so there's a decent chance I end up transferring out for 2L and screwing them over. - That and the workplace is bland as shit, frankly speaking. 

I respect you for the honesty and don't take the position if you're not interested in it and you might transfer out.  
 

1 hour ago, Naj said:

Why though? I mean sure I'll exhaust all paid crim options before considering any un-paid options. I don't mind being exploited if there's some sort of industry insight/experience/mentorship I'm getting in return. 

I guess the better question is: how likely is it that a local criminal defense practice will be able/willing to afford a summer student?

The answer to that partially depends on how much value a 1L student can bring. - I don't exactly know so I'll sort of be bargaining blind. We'll see how it goes. 

 

  I'll tag @Diplock on this one as this would be a better question for someone in sole-practice. On a related note - this could have been a good question to put into their AMA

 

[Phaedrus]

FWIW, you'd be surprised how many clients have overlapping criminal justice and LTB issues. I attended my school's legal aid clinic and it was a mix of family, tenancy and youth criminal. Most of us that ended up in criminal or family practices appreciated the experience, despite the fact that LTB ends up being more social work than legal work. Though I practice criminal and family full-time, I provide LTB representation for my region. I didn't think it would be a passion of mine, but dealing with enough greaseballs that take advantage of the downtrodden, single moms barely scraping by, etc. got me fired up. An added benefit @ZineZ pointed out is the exposure to litigation: Client management, hearing prep, cross-examination and oral argument. I realized the experience was invaluable when I started practice and had court appearances literally the same day. 

As for finding criminal work in law school, research or assistant-type work is probably the best you'll find. I found research work with a lawyer (who later became my principal) by networking with professors who I had relationships with. I let them know my area of interest and asked if they knew any lawyers that needed ad hoc research students. I think I was paid $15/hr at the time and the workload picked up in the summer when a couple appeals came down the pipe. My principal billed my research time out as a disbursement. Colleagues of mine, however, found 1L criminal work that involved a lot of binding, photocopying, document scanning, and note taking at hearings. 

[Diplock]

First, let me echo what @Phaedrus has said, though I'll put a slightly different spin on it. I appreciate @Naj is at least trying to approach this topic from imagining what has value to a prospective employer, either now or in the future. So let me confirm, client management is a huge part of criminal defence practice. For the Crown, less so, I'm sure, though they still have to deal with people sometimes. As a student, in any position, you're going to learn at least small amounts of substantive law. I suppose the value of that exposure shouldn't be discounted entirely, but it's minimal. The real experience is just dealing with people, assuming responsibility for the management of their issues, getting information from them, learning how often the information you get from them is wildly inaccurate, communicating expectations and realities they may not wish to face, etc. And that experience is far, far more valuable than anything else you'll learn as a summer student.

Regarding finding actual work in criminal defence - I'll confine myself to that because I don't imagine there are any real prospects of doing so with the Crown - I would have really no better suggestions than what the OP is doing already. That is, cold calling, networking wherever possible, etc. The issue would be there are virtually no criminal defence shops large enough to have a structured summer student program.  And when we're talking about the smaller practices - often just a single lawyer with maybe one support staff - it would be very hit and miss in terms of when there might be anything of value that a student could do. If things happened to come together at the right time, maybe a lawyer you could be talking with might have a six week trial scheduled over the summer and could find it valuable to have you sifting through things, managing evidence, etc. Or maybe they just lost an associate, possibly their only one, and they would benefit from having someone do some running around while they try to recruit someone permanent. But most of the time, as a bottom line, these practices aren't set up to rely on work from students, and certainly not summer students.

I'm going to think about this some more, and perhaps leave room for more back and forth, before I confirm anything else I might want to say. But I guess the bottom line is this. Finding a worthwhile position in criminal law as a 1L summer student would not be impossible, but it's improbable. And the quality of any position you might find would be variable. Compared against that, the direct experience of working with clients, assisting with real legal files, etc. - even if it's LTB stuff - is most likely superior to anything else you'd find. Perhaps it doesn't scratch the itch you feel to be involved with criminal law stuff, but it's nevertheless valuable and would likely be seen as such by any future employers in criminal law.

Hope that helps, at least for now.

[Naj]

I will look into that ad hoc research position. We had a few major research assignments this year, one having to do with charter issues on the new SOIRA provisions. I never thought I’d enjoy research of any kind, but man it’s been pretty sick.

I’m probably still going to make a few calls around just to see if anything genuinely interesting and potentially valuable is out there, but it does now seem apparent that I’m jumping the gun. I’ll check if CLA is cool with a summer position despite the possibility of a transfer.

Thank you all for your help.

[SNAILS]

I found summering at a small law firm to be a valuable experience. In the first year, I "volunteered" but they gave me $5000 towards my tuition at the end which was unknown to me until the end. The second year, I got an hourly wage ($21).

To find such a position, you want to cold email a whole bunch of firms. You will get some responses, and I would suggest inquiring about the types of duties you'd be expected to do rather than money.

Valuable experiences include:

• Appearing in set date court and learning basically how to talk to a judge and general court process
• Looking at disclosure (both written and audio/video) so you have some idea later what disclosure looks like
• Formulating ideas and discussing them with your principle lawyer about defenses various clients have, the elements of those offences, etc
• Researching real issues that can help a client have a triable issue at trial or get a good plea bargain (or a withdrawal)
• Face-to-face time with clients (if permitted). I found this the most valuable part of summering, and principle layers (in my limited experience) appreciate it since it saves time if you are the middleman when they are busy and the lawyer can follow up when she wants. 
• Scheduling
• Learning a bit about billing including how Legal Aid works
  basic applications

The above is especially valuable if you want to work in criminal law as a career. It is hard to know that as a 1L. But if you think you might want to work in criminal, and the experience shows you that you don't like it, then that's valuable in itself.

Another advantage is that the criminal bar is surprisingly small. If you later say "I summered in 1L for Joe Blow," that actually carries some weight since other lawyers will surprisingly often know who you mean.

[Naj]

8 hours ago, SNAILS said:

To find such a position, you want to cold email a whole bunch of firms. You will get some responses, and I would suggest inquiring about the types of duties you'd be expected to do rather than money.

Valuable experiences include:

Any comments on why this sort of arrangement isn't made more structured and available to law students who may be interested in crim?

On 3/4/2024 at 9:20 AM, Diplock said:

the direct experience of working with clients, assisting with real legal files

Wouldn't the sort of arrangement SNAILS is describing fall under what you characterize as worthwhile? 

 

Edited March 9 by Naj

[Diplock]

3 hours ago, Naj said:

Any comments on why this sort of arrangement isn't made more structured and available to law students who may be interested in crim?

Wouldn't the sort of arrangement SNAILS is describing fall under what you characterize as worthwhile? 

 

I'm going to reply quickly, and hopefully usefully, but please consider this answer more geared towards adjusting your perspective and expectations rather than providing information.

You've already been told we're talking about lawyers who work for themselves, by themselves, and may or may not have even one support staff as their entire workforce. I doubt you have a reasonable picture of what we're talking about despite being told. Imagine one room in a shared office environment somewhere. That's the workplace. That's the entire office. That's the "law firm" as you are probably still inclined to call it.

So your question is, why the whole group of criminal defence lawyers who are just trying to get through their days, and wring some kind of reasonable income out of their jobs despite often working for Legal Aid rates - who may not be able to earn in a year what even a junior associate would in a large firm environment - your question is why they aren't all organizing themselves to provide you and other students with better opportunities to gain experience?

Your questions to this point have not been unreasonable. But I still think you need to adjust your expectations despite that. The obvious answer is, no one in the legal profession is prioritizing the needs of law students over the constraints of their own need to earn a living. No one is motivated to make things easy for you because the few practitioners who actually want a student are able to find a student, and everyone else is busy just trying to get through the day.

And that's basically it.

[Naj]

2 hours ago, Diplock said:

please consider this answer more geared towards adjusting your perspective and expectations rather than providing information.

At what point am I expected to find out that there’s a relatively decent chance I end up opening shop by leasing a small tool shed in some senior practitioner’s backyard of a house that was repurposed into an office? At some point, the concrete reality of day-to-day life is going to turn over any care about abstractions of practicing criminal defense, and that’s going to be a tough point for anyone who hadn’t made some predetermination of the circumstances that they would likely be subject to, or for how long a certain circumstance would persist before they could become comfortable. Especially when the alternative is, as you alluded to, living comfortably right out the gates in a large firm environment.  There are genuine questions that anyone in their right mind would want to have asked and answered before they start making decisions that have the effect of further snowballing them down a particular practice area and subsequently making it harder to change direction as that snowball grows bigger. So, on some level, yes, regardless of the realities of criminal practice and the constraints that those realities place on practitioners, I am going to do everything I can, so I have before me the clearest idea of what it exactly looks like to practice criminal defense – not just the substantive legal work, but certainly other aspects of practice (e.g financial, social). Part of doing that includes trying to convince senior practitioners that they have some inherent obligation to take the time out of their day and draw back the curtains to show me what goes on behind the scenes, so to speak. Maybe I’m being naïve, but that’s my perspective, and I think there’s an equilibrium to that that flows both ways, but I suspect that’s a whole other discussion.

[Diplock]

10 minutes ago, Naj said:

At what point am I expected to find out that there’s a relatively decent chance I end up opening shop by leasing a small tool shed in some senior practitioner’s backyard of a house that was repurposed into an office? At some point, the concrete reality of day-to-day life is going to turn over any care about abstractions of practicing criminal defense, and that’s going to be a tough point for anyone who hadn’t made some predetermination of the circumstances that they would likely be subject to, or for how long a certain circumstance would persist before they could become comfortable. Especially when the alternative is, as you alluded to, living comfortably right out the gates in a large firm environment.  There are genuine questions that anyone in their right mind would want to have asked and answered before they start making decisions that have the effect of further snowballing them down a particular practice area and subsequently making it harder to change direction as that snowball grows bigger. So, on some level, yes, regardless of the realities of criminal practice and the constraints that those realities place on practitioners, I am going to do everything I can, so I have before me the clearest idea of what it exactly looks like to practice criminal defense – not just the substantive legal work, but certainly other aspects of practice (e.g financial, social). Part of doing that includes trying to convince senior practitioners that they have some inherent obligation to take the time out of their day and draw back the curtains to show me what goes on behind the scenes, so to speak. Maybe I’m being naïve, but that’s my perspective, and I think there’s an equilibrium to that that flows both ways, but I suspect that’s a whole other discussion.

Well, you're talking with a practitioner who is taking time out of his day to try to help. Which I have done. But your actual question was why sole practitioners haven't organized themselves in a way that's equivalent to large firm OCIs. And you got your answer. If you want to feel the entire field you apparently want to enter is somehow negligent in our obligations towards students like yourself, you can feel that way. But my advice would still be this. Within the reality that exists, try to help yourself following the advice you've been given. Save your efforts to reform the entire marketplace for when you are, you know, actually part of the marketplace. By which point I strongly suspect you'll have learned why it's unreasonable anyway.

[Naj]

6 minutes ago, Diplock said:

If you want to feel the entire field you apparently want to enter is somehow negligent in our obligations towards students like yourself

No not at all.

7 minutes ago, Diplock said:

Well, you're talking with a practitioner who is taking time out of his day to try to help. Which I have done

As always, thank you for doing so. I do appreciate it. 

[CleanHands]

2 hours ago, Naj said:

Part of doing that includes trying to convince senior practitioners that they have some inherent obligation to take the time out of their day and draw back the curtains to show me what goes on behind the scenes, so to speak.

This is framed in such a bizarre way.

Building relationships and seeking mentorship is great. Suggesting to people who already went through exactly what you're going through that they have an "obligation" to put in work to make sure that you have an easier time than they did (in order for you to probably ultimately become their competition) is...well, oddly entitled.

I was grateful for the opportunities I was afforded and have built relationships with a number of lawyers who have been happy to help me just as a matter of common interests and sympathies. It never crossed my mind to think that I was somehow owed this from them.

I know @Diplock already addressed this and you've walked things back a bit, but your search for mentorship is going to be counterproductive if you approach it with the mindset you've articulated in this thread.

Edited March 10 by CleanHands

[Naj]

55 minutes ago, CleanHands said:

This is framed in such a bizarre way.

Ngl I can see how it sounds pretty entitled now that I'm reading it again but that's not what I intended when I initially typed it out. I moreso meant as a tool for persuasion, especially since there is no obligation, time, money, or perhaps any real efficiency in all that mentorship jazz given the industry nature. It's more of an admission that the mentorship/arrangement at this point would primarily benefit me but the trade-off is that I'd be willing to work/volunteer without pay.

Yeah just thought I'd clear that up, it is what it is. 

[SNAILS]

19 hours ago, Naj said:

Any comments on why this sort of arrangement isn't made more structured and available to law students who may be interested in crim?

Crim lawyers are just busy working 60+ hours a week. They might think in the back of their mind "If I could find a keen law student, eager to learn, I would let them summer with me." But actually applying to be listed in the formal recruit is not their priority since they have 4 trials to prep for, 10 Crown meetings, 5 client meetings, 3 new intakes, etc.

If that layer gets a cold email, he'll respond favorably, and this could build tremendous bridges for you in your career.

It differs a bit from big corporate law which has tons of support staff and intricate work management channels for who does what (with somebody in charge of getting students for the next summer).

[BHC1]

9 hours ago, Naj said:

Ngl I can see how it sounds pretty entitled now that I'm reading it again but that's not what I intended when I initially typed it out. I moreso meant as a tool for persuasion, especially since there is no obligation, time, money, or perhaps any real efficiency in all that mentorship jazz given the industry nature. It's more of an admission that the mentorship/arrangement at this point would primarily benefit me but the trade-off is that I'd be willing to work/volunteer without pay.

Yeah just thought I'd clear that up, it is what it is. 

To be fair, you’ve shown more maturity here than the vast majority of posters asking for early career advice on this forum. It’s not like you’re getting upset you’re not being anointed the next Amal Clooney.

The early stages of any legal career can be uncertain and frustrating. You’re asking some good questions.

[Diplock]

3 hours ago, BHC1 said:

To be fair, you’ve shown more maturity here than the vast majority of posters asking for early career advice on this forum. It’s not like you’re getting upset you’re not being anointed the next Amal Clooney.

The early stages of any legal career can be uncertain and frustrating. You’re asking some good questions.

Yeah, this. The reason I didn't take more offence, btw, is I put it down to this distinction. And this is an error I've been prone to in the past myself.

You see something that's hard to navigate and looks like it isn't working well for you. You want advice about how to help yourself - and you've certainly got that here - but at the same time as you deal with the thing that isn't working well for you, you start to want to fix the thing at the same time. And that's a worthy instinct. It can serve you well in legal practice - that urge to look for solutions not just in the moment but to a more general problem. In this case, however, you don't know enough about the thing you're trying to critique and theoretically improve, so anything you say about it in general terms is likely to be stupid. Which is what happened here.

So, concentrate on yourself. Do your best to get the help you need, and if you do end up in the profession and you still want to tackle the big picture issues you can do that some years into your career. There are lots of people who are, in fact, spending all kinds of time trying to make things better. They aren't doing it exactly the way you might wish they were because - again, due respect - they are immersed in the reality whereas you have at best some hazy theories developed at a distance.

Anyway, that's it. No offence taken, just concentrate on yourself.