Shared Articles Registry Now Available

by Frank Kraemer, QC

You will no doubt recall that in the April issue of BarTalk, I alerted you to the fact that a working group consisting of representatives of both our B.C. law schools, the Law Society of British Columbia and CBABC was working on a joint project to develop a web-based self-matching system to assist law firms and law students in arranging articling positions. I am now pleased to report that the Shared Articles Registry has become a reality. It can be found at www.cba.org/bc/initiatives/articles.

CBABC is hosting this Registry in the public area of its website so that it is available to all lawyers and law students who may be interested in the Shared Articles Program.

This program was developed because of the increasing challenges students are encountering in securing articling positions in British Columbia in the traditional fashion – with one firm and one principal. The Registry offers some new and innovative opportunities for firms who either cannot provide a full articling program or who cannot afford an articling student for a whole year. Similarly, it helps students who are interested in working with two or more firms or two or more principals during their articling term in order to gain experience in a variety of work environments and to learn from and be mentored by more than one principal. The working group recognized that the time and effort necessary for a student to locate firms who might be interested in offering opportunities like this could be overwhelming.

Therefore, the Registry was developed to permit firms to list themselves and provide sufficient information to allow students to determine whether or not the student might be interested in approaching the firm to work on the development of a Shared Articles Program with at least one other firm.

I invite you to visit the website and explore the information to be found there. Of particular interest is the introductory piece, providing background information about the Shared Articles concept as well as a section on Frequently Asked Questions. There is also a wealth of information about the requirements of the Law Society for these types of programs and what may need to be done in order to ensure they are approved. There are also many links to other important information.

The next task of the Working Group is to publicize the availability of this service to lawyers, law firms, and students. Only if this service becomes widely known as being available is it likely to be a success. We encourage you to share information about it with your colleagues.

Finally, the Working Group invites your feedback on this project and the information provided on the website. If there is additional or other information you think would be valuable, either to law firms or to students, please do not hesitate to contact me here at the Branch at 10th Floor – 845 Cambie Street, Vancouver, B.C. V6B 5T3 or fkraemer@bccba.org.

This article was published in the August 2006 issue of BarTalk. © 2006 The Canadian Bar Association. All rights reserved.