01/30/2010 10:02:00 PM EST
How Do You Learn to Be a Lawyer?
Until our modern era, most lawyers learned their profession by apprenticing themselves to practicing lawyers, learning from them by watching and doing. Today doctors still train that way. They put in years of residency as part of their training. They work in hospitals and clinics, treat patients, observe other doctors as they go on their rounds. Most doctors begin their medical careers with a very good idea of what they will face. They also, for the most part, have a good “generalist” understanding of what providing health care services is all about. In contrast, law school students read about the law rather than engaging in it. When they graduate, young lawyers rarely know how to interview clients, advocate for their positions, negotiate a settlement or perform any number of other tasks that lawyers do every day.
An admirable contrast is the way law is practiced in Canada. Upon graduation from law school, prospective lawyers in Canada begin professional training with the law society of the province where they wish to practice. All provinces require not only completion of a bar admission course and exam, but also a period of practical training under the supervision of a qualified member of the law society, called articling or articles of clerkship. This is essentially an apprenticeship with a law firm, legal department, court or government department. Most large Canadian law firms have articling programs that can stretch up to 18 months. Only upon completion are young lawyers ready to practice – either where they articled, or with some other firm or organization.
Such a model has been sorely lacking in the U.S., but under pressure of recession, big law firms are changing the model. As one example, Philadelphia’s Drinker Biddle & Reath, rather than assigning Fall 2009 associates to new matters, enrolled them in a new training program with courses on taking depositions, writing briefs, and meeting client needs. The instructors included the firm’s attorneys, professional development staff and clients. The new associates also shadowed partners' client meetings and court appearances, and handled client work at significantly reduced rates. The cost of the program was covered by a reduction in starting salaries, with a return to “prevailing” market rates when training ends.
For years corporate clients have complained about new associates who learn on the job at the client’s expense. Now that hiring out of law schools has become “decremental” – an ongoing decrease that is the opposite of the incremental increases of the past – such an apprenticeship program may answer those complaints. Firm, clients and the associates themselves all stand to benefit.
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