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a Canadian law school.” says Sossin, a 1992 Osgoode Hall LL.B. grad, who began teaching law there 13 years ago before moving to the U of T and, as of this year, returning to Osgoode as its dean.

He explains that one solution may be to create more law schools, which is underway with the planned opening of a new one, next fall, at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, B.C., in partnership with the University of Calgary’s law school — along with a proposed Ontario law school at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay and possible others at Ryerson University in downtown Toronto, Laurentian University in Sudbury, the University of Waterloo and nearby Wilfrid Laurier University.

A private university in B.C., University Canada West, has also sought approval from the provincial government to establish a law school.

However, as Sossin says, new schools will depend on the willingness of provincial governments to become funding partners of such ventures.

Meanwhile, existing law schools face significant expenditures in training future lawyers.

“Legal education as it is delivered today is a lot more expensive than it has been historically where you had one faculty member being brilliant in front of a large class,” says UBC’s Bobin-

Lorne Sossin (right), dean of Osgoode Hall Law School, at an open house for students hosted by Osgoode’s Community and Legal Aid Services program.

PHOTO COURTESY OF OSGOODE HALL LAW SCHOOL

ski, a 1989 Harvard Law School LL.M. graduate.

“Classes are taught in a more
active learning environment
with more clinical programs
and the like, all of which are
more expensive to deliver but
which also offer students a
wider range of knowledge and
skills relevant to their chosen
practice area. At the same time,
we’re making sure law school
remains accessible to the best
students, regardless of their
financial situation.”
“That’s a tough challenge for
all law schools.”
She says that UBC’s law
school is developing a scholar-
ship program with regional B.C.
Bar associations that would pro-
vide financial aid to prospective
students from those areas and
perhaps encourage them to
return to their communities to
practise law.

IN 2002, 94.8 per cent of students who entered the Bar admission course and who were actively looking for an articling position were placed within six months of the usual start of articling, according to the Law Society of Upper Canada. By the end date of the usual articling term (June 2003), all of the equity-seeking, self-identified student groups (aboriginal, disability, gay and lesbian, mature and visible minority) had a placement rate of more than 90 per cent. Francophone students experienced a rate of 88.4 per cent.

More recently, 93.1 per cent of all 2009 licensing process candidates had secured an articling position by June

2010—a placement rate roughly the same as last year’s at 93.4 per cent, according to the law society.

Of the 2009 candidates, 27.7 per cent self-identified as members of an equality-seeking community (aboriginal, persons with a disability, francophone, gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgendered, mature, racialized community), who in turn had an articling placement rate of 89.7 per cent.

Based on the results of a voluntary survey—to which 84 per cent of candidates responded—the hire-back rate of candidates returning to the firm with which they articled was 42.8 per cent, a 1.5 per cent decrease from last year’s survey. As well, 55.5 per cent of candidates indicated that they had secured some type of employment at the June 2010 call to the Bar— a 2.1 per cent drop from last year’s results (57.6 per cent) and a 10. 2 per cent decrease since June 2008.

NYUL / DREAMSTIME. COM

Meantime, the lineup to study at one of Canada’s 22 law schools (six of them offering civil law degrees) continues to grow.

“Relative to the small number of law schools we have, there’s far more demand for a spot than there is in most of our peer jurisdictions, in the U.S., the U.K. and Australia,” says Osgoode Hall’s Sossin.

“There hasn’t been a new law
school in Canada for over 30
years [since the Université de
Moncton’s law school was estab-
lished in 1978], even though the
population has been expanding
rapidly across the country, par-
ticularly in urban areas. So,
there’s tremendous pressure
when it comes to access to legal
education—every available spot
is hotly contested.

We want to hear from you! E-mail us at: tlw@lexisnexis.ca 

Announcements

Introducing...

our newest associate.

Practice areas... ESTATE PLANNING ESTATE ADMINIS TRATION

Saman Jaffery sjaffery@balesbeall.com Direct Line: 416.203.4560 Called to the Bar of Ontario in 2008 Queen’s University (2007) LL.B

Municipal Li;ga;on Associate

We are the largest full service law ;rm in Central Ontario. We have a well-established Municipal Law sec;on which represents many municipali;es throughout the area as well as private development interests.

The ideal candidate will have worked in a municipal li;ga;on department of a law ;rm or municipality for 1 – 3 years and have had signi;cant exposure to the OMB process. Municipal prosecu;on experience would de;nitely be an asset. You will have the opportunity of working with senior counsel as well as managing and conduc;ng hearings and trials on your own ;les.

If you would like to move to a community with unparalleled recrea;onal and life-style oppor-tuni;es, ideal for raising a family, Barrie is close enough to Toronto yet far enough away.

Please forward your resume and references to the a;en;on of Jason McArthur, on or before November 1st, 2010. We thank all applicants for their interest, however, only those candidates chosen for interviews will be contacted. No telephone calls please.