By Marketta Jokinen, Director of Professional Recruitment, Borden Ladner Gervais, Vancouver and Kyla Sandwith, Director of Professional Recruitment, Borden Ladner Gervais, Calgary 
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Stepping up to your articles

Whatever your experience or background, making the transition from law student to articling student is a difficult one. You should expect the articling year to be extremely demanding and challenging. Intellectually, you’ll face a steep learning curve as you learn to apply legal concepts in service of your clients rather than in an academic setting. Emotionally, you’ll question your abilities without the benefit of a grading scheme to gauge your success. Physically, there is a great deal of work to do. You’ll be expected to meet client needs as they arise, which will require work on evenings and weekends, while maintaining an enthusiastic and committed attitude.

While the transition may be difficult, it’s key to remember that you will reap the benefits of your articling year if you approach it with a can-do, committed attitude.

Developing good relationships with all members of your firm will be key to your success. Related articles Landing an articling position (May 2006) Two truths about articling (May 2006)

Building your career

Often the hardest part of the transition is to understand what’s expected of you as an articling student. Both colleagues and clients will expect you to behave like a professional, but what does it mean to be a ‘professional’?

Start by observing successful lawyers in your office and the community. Undoubtedly you’ll find they’re respectful, work well with colleagues and support staff, and are team players; their work is timely, thorough, and meets the needs of their clients; and they consistently seek to improve themselves as professionals and, most importantly, take responsibility for themselves, their work, and their career. This is what will be expected of you!

Working with others

Developing good relationships with all members of your firm will be key to your success. The staff members at your firm are professionals and are invaluable in the work you do. Remember to treat them well and with respect.

Develop good relationships with members of the legal community outside your office. It’s important to be fair, civil, and professional to other lawyers and members of the legal community. They’ll be your colleagues for years to come, and you’ll likely need to rely on them at some point in your career. In particular, avoid sending any type of communication in anger or frustration. Reconsider your position the following day to determine if your response is appropriate. Remember, your reputation is everything.

Your support network

No-one succeeds alone. Any successful senior associate or partner will tell you that their success was based, in part, on the people who mentored and inspired them along the way. If your firm offers a formal mentor program, take advantage of it. If not, seek out mentors you trust to guide you in the development of your career. Remember this is a professional relationship designed to help you meet the challenges of your career. Be pro-active and seek their guidance regarding the work that interests you, your workload, lawyers you should seek work from, and the practice areas within the firm.

You should also develop a support network amongst your peers at work. Articling students should work together and assist each other where possible. Share information, precedents and research. Remember your fellow articling students are your colleagues, and perhaps one day your partners in the practice of law, not your competitors. Their failure does not ensure your success and you will be evaluated, in part, on your ability to work with them to serve the client’s needs.

Work assignments

At the early stages of your career most of your clients will be the senior associates and partners in your firm. Meeting their needs in a complete, timely, and efficient manner should be your primary focus.

Receiving instructions

Always make sure you understand the scope and purpose of the work you are being asked to undertake. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Confirm your instructions and deadlines. It’s what any client would expect from their lawyer.

Efficiency

Improving efficiency doesn’t mean cutting corners – it means using available resources wisely. Use precedents and ask associates, legal assistants, and librarians for advice or information on where to start. Working smarter, not harder, will ensure that you meet your client’s needs.

Docket your time

Keeping track of your day in six-minute intervals may seem daunting. However, effectively docketing your time is critical to your long-term success, both professional and personal. You won’t receive credit for work that isn’t recorded on your timesheet. This means you may need to make up the time on evenings and weekends. It’s important to note that at a law firm, a balanced lifestyle is not a given, but rather something that can be achieved through effective time-management skills. Pay particular attention to developing these skills now and you won’t just meet your clients’ needs, but your own as well.

Communication

Keep the lines of communication open and provide updates on your progress. If you feel a project is taking longer than expected, you can’t meet a deadline, or you feel you’re getting off-course, talk to the lawyer you’re working for. If you don’t know how to approach the lawyer, speak to your mentors for guidance. Trying to hide a problem or delivering a product that doesn’t meet the lawyer’s needs won’t contribute to your success.

Seeking feedback

It’s important for your professional growth that you pro-actively seek feedback. Unlike law school, you won’t be graded on each assignment. Sometimes you won’t even hear back from the lawyer you worked for. Give the lawyer time to review your work, and if no feedback is forthcoming, speak to them and ask for ways you can improve the next time. This is a key part of taking responsibility for your career – don’t miss these opportunities for growth!

Make the most of it

As a new lawyer, you’ll be faced with many challenges. Success will depend on how mindfully and pro-actively you approach your career. Seek out and take advantage of the resources available to you to build a reputation to be proud of. It’s all in your hands!

Marketta Jokinen is the Director of Professional Recruitment in Borden Ladner Gervais' Vancouver office. She began her career at Borden Ladner Gervais practicing labour and employment law, and assumed responsibility for student recruitment and programs in BLG's Vancouver office in 2002.

Kyla Sandwith is the Director of Professional Recruitment at Borden Ladner Gervais’ Calgary office and a member of BLG’s National Student Recruitment Committee. Kyla focuses full time on recruiting, training and developing BLG Calgary’s students. Prior to taking on her current role, she practised in the area of civil litigation.

By Elizabeth A. Hyde, Director, Professional Development, Miller Thomson LLP and
Joanne Clarfield Schaefer, Director, Student and Associate Programs, Bennett Jones LLP
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We all go to law school with different ideas about the practice of law and what it will bring to our lives. From Perry Mason and The Paper Chase to Ally McBeal and Boston Legal, the practice of law is fraught with stereotypes that shape our view of what we are working towards. Law schools, on the other hand, pride themselves on focusing on the study of legal tenets and adamantly maintain that they are “academic institutions, not training schools.”

Nonetheless, over 80 per cent of graduates from Osgoode and the University of Toronto head off to private practice for their articles. For those who haven’t been exposed to the practice of law beyond portrayals in the media, the transition from student to articling student to associate is a steep uphill climb. Many young associates become frustrated and disillusioned early on. This does not need to be the case.

Discuss with your mentor what the business development expectations will be like as you move forward and what this means in your firm. Every firm deals with this differently, and you should be clear as to what your role is at every stage. Related articles Landing an articling position (May 2006) Two truths about articling (May 2006)

Historically, the “soft skills” (what you need to know, but aren’t taught) came to you by way of osmosis, through working closely with a mentor and other senior practitioners in the firm. As the business side of law has become a more significant driver, billable-hour pressures have eaten into the amount of time senior lawyers can devote to “non-billable” activities.

So what do you do need to keep in mind to be successful as you make the move from student to lawyer?

First and foremost, take responsibility for your career. Start out with the premise that you are responsible for your own development. Your employer may provide tools, but you have to choose to learn them and use them effectively.

Come to the table with an open mind. Recognize that opportunities come to people who have a positive attitude and take initiative. People want to work with people who take an interest in what they do. Ask questions. If you’re given a chance to help on a file – jump in, without hesitation.

Be patient. Law firm timelines may be different that what you’re used to dealing with. It may take more than a few months to get the type of work you think you want.

Understand that feedback is sometimes scarce in law firms. You won’t necessarily be told that you did a great job each and every time. Many lawyers still operate under the presumption that “no news is good news” – so if you haven’t heard otherwise, assume all is well – or ask.

When asking for feedback, pick the right time and place and solicit feedback on a specific area. If you ask when a lawyer is too busy or you ask a vague question like “is my work okay,” you will likely not get a constructive answer.

Establish short- and long-term goals annually regardless of whether or not your firm has a formal career development plan or skills and experience/benchmark checklists.

Learn about the policies, procedures and programs your firm offers. What are the criteria on which you will be reviewed, compensated and put forward for partnership? These will help you clarify your short- and long-term goals each year.

Manage your own expectations. The private practice of law is a business, and you need to be aware of the how you fit into this at every stage possible. Many lawyers are well-paid – but there’s a reason and a cost for this.

Pay attention to the organizational dynamics and culture of the firm and find someone who can guide you through the first few years. Look to a respected senior associate for guidance and pay attention to what they do and do more of the same.

Establish formal and informal mentoring relationships. Mentors come in all forms, and not all are good at mentoring in all areas. Mentoring networks, where you may have a different mentor for different stages of your career and for different skill sets, are becoming more and more common.

Discuss with your mentor what the business development expectations will be like as you move forward and what this means in your firm. Every firm deals with this differently, and you should be clear as to what your role is at every stage.

Ask to attend as many functions, proceedings, transactions, meetings, etc., as possible. Every lawyer will deal with each of these in a different way, and it’s important to not only establish a wide network within the firm, but to see as many “styles” as possible.

Go to as many formal training opportunities as are offered to you.

When you attend training sessions, be present. Take notes, display interest and ask questions. Often the “faculty” are senior partners from whom you can learn a lot.

Treat everyone in the firm with the same level of respect and civility. There is no room for error here. Treat every work assignment as if it came from the managing partner directly.

Get organized. The sooner you can become an efficient time manager, the sooner you will be able to regain some (and we say only some) control over your life. Track what you are doing and establish a “to-do” tickler system early on. Get the help of your assistant in running your practice and brining work forward.

Docket as you do the work – not at the end of the day or the next day.

Don’t edit your dockets. No ifs ands or buts. And remember, it generally takes about 10- to 12 hours at the office to docket eight.

Remember that file work is confidential. Client issues cannot be approached like a take-home exam. Talking about clients and confidential matters in the elevator, on the subway or in the food court is not acceptable.

Finally, keep your eye on your long-term goals, and don’t be afraid to change them. If your interests change, talk to your mentor or a confidant about your new interests. The world of law is also changing, and there may be opportunities in your current firm of which you’re unaware.

Elizabeth Hyde joined Miller Thomson after seven years in private practice, where she gained extensive advocacy and negotiation skills. She has been in professional development for over six years and is involved in all aspects of the firm’s PD programs combining her experience as a former practising lawyer and educator. She is an experienced facilitator and trainer and acts in a coaching capacity for associates throughout their development. Her main focus is on the professional development of students and lawyers in the firm including recruitment, orientation, mentoring and training.

As the Director of Student and Associate Programs for Bennett Jones, Joanne Schaefer is responsible for the professional development of associates and the recruitment and training of law students at the firm. Her background is in the law, as she was a commercial litigator for over 10 years at a major Toronto firm before dedicating her career to associate and student training and development.

By Jared Adams, Addendum Editor
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If you work on more than one computer in more than one location, you’ve probably experienced the frustration of not being able to find or use the programs and files you need. While you can bridge some of the gaps by using a laptop as your main computer and taking it everywhere, laptops do have some drawbacks despite their convenience. The batteries have a finite life – as, too, do the laptops themselves. Even the lightest are fairly heavy, and the relatively small standard screens aren’t designed for long-term viewing.

Fortunately, with a little ingenuity you can fit the solution right into your pocket by creating your own portable office.

Enter the thumb drive, sometimes known as a flash drive, USB drive, or jump drive. Over the last few years, these thumb-sized portable storage devices have replaced floppy disks and CD-ROMs as the method of choice for moving files between computers. Small in size but large in storage capacity, these increasingly affordable peripherals can solve a number of storage problems. And while you’re probably already familiar with what they can do in terms of making file transfers easier, you might not know about one of their lesser-heralded abilities: they can act as a portable computer.

Our friend the thumb drive.

Here’s how you can make your own in six simple steps.

1. Get a thumb drive: Making the common thumb drive into your portable office suite is easier than it seems. Start with any drive with a reasonable storage capacity – 512 MB is probably the minimum. Both Future Shop and Best Buy (in both online and bricks-and-mortar formats), for example, carry a variety of flash drives in a wide range of sizes from $40 and up.

2. Get secure: Once you’ve got your drive and connected it to your computer’s USB port, allow your computer to read the drive and install any necessary drivers, and then you can start customizing your portable office. First, and most importantly, download a copy of TrueCrypt. This open-source application will let you encrypt and password-protect your USB drive, so that if it happens to go missing, you don’t have to worry about sensitive information being compromised (you can also set your drive to automatically ask a finder to return it to you).

3. Get inoculated: Your next essential is anti-virus software. If you’re going to be moving between systems, there’s no telling what viruses the host computer has been exposed to, unless you’re the only user of both systems. And if you’ve got critical data stored on your portable drive, you can’t afford to lose it. Pick up ClamWin portable and McAfee’s AVERT Stinger in order to check for and remove any virus that happens to hitch itself to your portable drive.

4. Get connected: Now you can head to a site specializing in portable applications, like PortableApps.com or The Portable Freeware Collection, where you’ll find a number of programs custom-built for life on a portable drive.

Grab Firefox Portable for a web browser, and its companion e-mail client, Portable Thunderbird. Installation is as simple as moving the downloaded files to your portable drive and double-clicking on the install program.

(If you’re absolutely married to Internet Explorer and Outlook, you might want to take a look at CoCoSys’ Carry It Easy, which allows you to carry your data – e-mails and IE favourites – around while making use of a host system’s versions of the software. The catch? While most of the software listed in this article is freeware or shareware, Carry It Easy will set you back about $25)

5. Get tools: Now that your Internet needs have been taken care of, add some office software. OpenOffice.org Portable is the on-the-go version of Sun Microsystems’ OpenOffice suite: a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation manager, and drawing program, all compatible with Microsoft Office’s range of products, and acting in much the same manner – and it’s free. Again, installation is straightforward.

Your portable office is starting to take shape. Already you should be able to plug your drive into just about any computer and work away, without having to use any of the host system’s programs, and without having to worry about your confidential files being saved on a third-party system or accidentally accessing someone else’s confidential files while looking for one you’ve saved (always check to make sure you haven’t left any temporary files on the host system). Moreover, your portable system will become more and more familiar with time, especially if you haven’t been using the products up until this point.

6. Get flashy: With the basics taken care of, you can start looking at some bells and whistles. Consider adding some other programs, like Sunbird Portable for calendar and task management (or export your current Outlook calendar to portable calendar EssentialPIM).

With the rise in popularity of both portable drives and the idea of using them as mobile workplace solutions, just about any type of program you might need now has a portable version. Need to access PDF files? There’s Cool PDF Reader or Foxit Reader. Graphics editing software? There’s GIMP Portable or i.Mage. An RSS reader? RSSOwl or GreatNews will do the job. And the list goes on.

With your thumb drive loaded, you’re ready to go on the road. You should be fully equipped to work from any relatively new computer, although you may find some problems if your host computer is still running Windows 98 or early, un-updated versions of Windows XP, with a full suite of useful applications, and your information protected. And better, your “new computer” fits into a pocket, around your neck, or into your perpetually packed attaché case with ease. Just try doing that with a laptop…

Jared Adams is the editor of Addendum and assistant editor of National.

By Jared Adams, Addendum Editor
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The Internet is full of great resources for lawyers and law students. But why spend time sifting through endless pages of Google results when you can bring the information you need right to you?

In today’s on-demand world, the Internet is right at the forefront of the just-as-you-like-it customization trend. And the ‘Net also offers a solution that lets you bring current legal information, like case analysis, practice tips, and information on the latest legal technologies, right to your computer, when you want it – and when you have time to read it. Just like ordering a movie on request through a TV set-top box, Really Simple Syndication (RSS), an emerging web technology, delivers updates from RSS-enabled websites in real-time, direct to your desktop.

I saw the sign: look for the orange RSS symbol on webpages to determine whether or not you can add a feed from the site. Related articles 5 Sites: Focus on law school bloggers (November 2006)

And like on-demand movies, (most) RSS feeds don’t include e-mail’s version of commercials – spam that has to be waded through before getting to the steak of the information without losing any of the sizzle.

If you’re using a newer-model e-mail client, like Thunderbird, or web browser like Firefox or Internet Explorer 7, you’re already set up to receive content via RSS. Or you can download a free RSS feed reader like RSS Reader or Feed Reader and follow the installation instructions. And if, like many students, you used a web-based e-mail system, like Yahoo! or Gmail, look a little closer at your service – chances are, it’s already set up to pull in RSS feeds.

You can choose how often you want the reader to check for updates – pick a timeframe that works for you. If you go through your e-mail or read the paper first thing in the morning, it’s easy to incorporate reading your RSS feeds into that timeframe – think of them as an electronic newspaper delivered right to your door.

Already web-surfers are using RSS to pull in the latest news from their favourite sites rather than navigating to those sites one after another to see what’s new – and that can result in a substantial time savings. Once the exclusive domain of bloggers, even mainstream sites like cnn.com, cbc.ca and macleans.ca are now distributing their news via RSS.

Want to see for yourself how easy it is? Surf over to the CBA’s website, www.cba.org, using Firefox 2.0 or Internet Explorer 7. You’ll see a small orange icon at the far corner of your browser’s address bar. Click on it, and your browser will walk you through adding a live bookmark. Then just click that bookmark to see your real-time updates from the CBA site.

Where else can you find the feeds to load into your reader? Most RSS feeds come from blogs – web logs – produced by writers with expertise on a given topic. Many Canadian lawyers have gotten in on the action, producing well-written, thoughtful “blawgs” (more on this in National’s April/May 2005 issue) reviewing developments in particular areas of law, trends in the profession, case summaries and analyses of recent decisions, and practice management tips. You can spend time surfing the Internet looking for them, but who’s got that kind of time? Thanks to the Vancouver Law Librarian Blog, here’s a list of Canadian law blogs, most of which come equipped with RSS feeds (look for the orange RSS or XML icon). Just copy and paste the feed address into your reader, and have the news come to you. You can also check out the list of law student blogs to find out how some of your peers are dealing with the law school experience.

Jared Adams is the editor of Addendum and assistant editor of National.

By Jared Adams, Addendum Editor
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It’s mid-morning in Eastern Ontario, but Nadia Khan’s body is busy telling her that it’s late evening. Khan has only recently returned from Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, where she’s been working on law reform projects with the Law Society of Kenya as part of the Canadian Bar Association’s Young Professionals International Program. She, along with six other interns (there were 13 in all involved with the program last year), is in the association’s offices reporting on their experiences.

Through the program, which receives funding from the Canadian International Development Agency’s (CIDA) International Youth Internship Program and, until its recent cancellation, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade’s (DFAIT) Young Professionals International Program, young lawyers, typically just beginning their careers after articling, are placed in eight-month internships (they are overseas for between six and seven of the eight months) to work with human rights legal organizations in Southern and Eastern Africa and Southeast Asia. These young lawyers take with them values – like procedural fairness, equality, the rule of law, and basic human rights and dignity – that Canadians take for granted, and are thrust into situations where ideals Canadians assume are universal simply don’t exist.

Nairobi, Kenya's capital city, home to the Law Society of Kenya.

Khan relates the details of a case she found on her desk, one that chilled her despite the tropical temperatures and lack of air conditioning.

It was a gang-rape case, Khan says, from the northern part of Kenya, where laws are considered more guidelines than rules. The case is a complicated matter involving tribal honour, clan disputes, nine women, 20 men, and some sitting members of Kenya’s parliament. After being assaulted, the women had complained to local officials, and were forced into participating in a local alternative dispute resolution process – “essentially mediation according to tribal law,” Khan says – where it was found the men had committed no crime.

The women brought their case to the law society, asking it to get involved, and it was passed on to Khan. While she wasn’t able to convince the society to take the case, she was able to get Kenya’s human rights commission to take it on. The commission launched a full investigation, and while it’s still ongoing, already the women are further ahead than they would have been otherwise.

That’s just one of Khan’s stories, although there are others, like volunteering with a group hoping to improve conditions in the slums and helping them write grant requests for the international community, or helping to rescue a man held at a “private hospital” against his will (it turned out the man’s wife had paid the “doctor” to keep him there), that also underscore just how valuable the work young Canadian lawyers like Khan do during their eight-month internships.

In Khan’s case, she worked directly for the law society’s secretary, the society’s chief officer, providing support on governance of the legal profession issues, as well as representing the society in working with the Kenyan government’s pilot legal aid program. She also took a lead role in assisting with the planning of the Commonwealth Lawyers Association Conference, which will be hosted by the society in Nairobi this coming September.

“It was a fascinating, busy experience being there,” she says. “Working there was very exciting and often chaotic. And experiences like these really coloured my experience there.”

Over the last 10 years, dozens of interns have made their mark in places like Namibia, Zambia, Tanzania, Laos, Uganda, Kenya, Cambodia, South Africa and Ethiopia. Despite the research they’re required to do in advance, most find the conditions – both of the countries themselves and their legal systems – surprising. But they take what they’ve learned, both in school and in the society in which they live, and try, in small ways, to make the world a better place.

For the last eight months, Jordan Zed, a graduate of York University’s Osgoode Hall law school, has been in Johannesburg, South Africa, working with the Legal Resources Centre. And although South Africa, a Commonwealth nation, has become far more stable since the end of apartheid in 1994, and is one of Africa’s more developed nations, Zed says dealing with the justice system there was an eye-opener.

“A worker at another non-governmental organization there was visiting a detention centre, and found that there were a number of migrant Congolese who were being held just because they were migrants,” he says. With xenophobia rampant in South Africa, and its more-developed status acting as a beacon of hope to unemployed and impoverished Africans, South African jails are filling up with would-be job hunters, arrested and held, essentially, for the crime of being foreigners.

“The worker told us, ‘hey, look, you’ve got to go in there, these people are being mistreated,’” Zed says. “And we went in, and saw the split lips, and the bruises, and everything else.”

The guards at the centre were employees of a private security company that runs that particular detention centre. And while that in and of itself isn’t a problem – Zed points out there’s a prison outside of Toronto that’s also privately run – the government, when confronted with abuses like these, is apt to throw up its arms and say “that’s the company’s problem, not ours.”

Detainees are often held anywhere from nine to 12 months without being charged, Zed says, and its difficult for legal representation to get access to the prisoners to help mount a defense or to help the cases move forward.

“In fact,” he points out, “when we were there checking up on the prisoners, with permission, we were taking photos of the abuses, and there was a confrontation with the guards. They ended up forcing us to delete our [digital] photos and then called the police to have us removed.”

In response, Zed and his co-workers at the Resource Centre team called together a number of local human-rights organizations to discuss ways in which they could work together to address the problem.

Like Khan, Zed has other stories – working on a land claim dispute that would have seen a community of 200 families who had occupied a lot for the last 50 years displaced without compensation, working to help expand the definition of rape in South Africa (currently, it’s limited to an assault by a man on a woman that involves vaginal penetration, making no allowance for same-sex assaults or other types of penetration) in a case where a woman had been assaulted anally, and having to fight against a women’s-rights group who wanted to maintain rape as a female-victim-only crime in order to do so (Zed was part of the team that argued in front of South Africa’s constitutional court, a rare experience) – that show how much development still remains for the rule of law in some countries, and the good that the Canadian interns, through theYoung Professionals International Program, are able to help accomplish.

For more information on the CBA's Young Professionals International Internship Program, visit the International Development Committee’s website at http://cba.org/CBA/IDP/YIIP/, or write to Program Director Al Cook at alc@cba.org.

Jared Adams is the editor of Addendum and assistant editor of National.

By Jared Adams, Addendum Editor
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Juggling a million tasks, assignments, summaries and still trying to find time to sleep? Don’t worry – you’re not alone. In this issue’s 5 Sites, we take a look at places to find tips and tricks on managing your time to ensure you make the grade.

1. Andrew Roberts’ ABC study guide http://www.mdx.ac.uk/WWW/STUDY/Timetips.htm
   This online guide, developed by a former Middlesex University student, offers all kinds of tips and tricks on time management and studying techniques for students, including real-life student anecdotes.
2. University of Guelph’s Learning Commons http://www.learningcommons.uoguelph.ca/ByTopic/Learning/TimeManagement/index.html
   The University of Guelph’s Learning Commons has tips on controlling procrastination, making a task list, effective time planning strategies and their top 40 study tips. As an added bonus, it also includes podcasts and video, meaning you can manage your time that much better by listening to them on your MP3 player while going to and from class.
3. Arizona State University time management calculator
   http://www.vpsa.asu.edu/vpsa/timetool/time.asp
   Now that you’ve got the basics of time management down, head over to the Arizona State University time management calculator to break down your 168-hour week into categories and discover where you can find some extra time.
4. University of Texas at Austin Learning Center
   http://www.utexas.edu/student/utlc/class/mkg_grd/timemanagement.html
   With tips and your weekly breakdown behind you, take advantage of the University of Texas at Austin’s weekly and monthly planners and daily to-do lists in printable format.
5. Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities
   http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/career/time-man.html
   Still want more advice? The Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities has links to even more time-management resources for students in one convenient webpage.

Jared Adams is the editor of Addendum and assistant editor of National.

By Geoffrey Trotter
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Legal ethics is a hot topic both within law schools and the profession these days. I have followed with interest the exchange in National between Victoria Netten (“Faith and the Law: The Rise of Religious Lawyering,” April/May 2006 issue, p. 8) and Ian Rennie (“Faith and the law redux,” July/August 2006 issue, p. 9). It seems to me that Mr. Rennie’s critique really does not address the substance of Ms. Netten’s article.

Mr. Rennie writes: “Are legal ethics secularized? Ms. Netten thinks that they are, but I am not so sure.” In support, he points out that Augustinian natural justice is the basis for statutory civil procedure, and that the law of equity was developed by the courts of the Church of England.

We undoubtedly owe the great benefits of civil procedure and equity to the Christian heritage from which our legal system springs. However, the persistence of religiously sourced rules of our legal system does not rebut Ms. Netten’s claim that legal ethics have become secularized. The former relates to substantive laws; the second relates to the behaviour of individual lawyers.

There is also an inconsistency in Mr. Rennie’s critique. On one hand, he seems content (if not pleased) that we have inherited the concepts of natural justice and equity from our Christian past. On the other hand, he warns the reader of religion’s “great capacity for evil,” especially “intolerance, exclusion, repression and suffering.” It is certainly true that various religious groups and individuals at various times in history have exhibited these negative characteristics, but by Mr. Rennie’s own admission, they have also exhibited positive characteristics and produced some excellent principles upon which our modern legal system is built. The suggestion that the exclusion of religion is the cure for bad ideas is naïve and lacking in self-consciousness. Secular ideas also have great capacity for evil, intolerance, exclusion, and repression, as Stalinism and various forms of utilitarianism demonstrate. Naïve confidence in secular principles and naïve rejection of religious principles, for no reason other than the origin of such views, is “bizarre, biased, and illiberal.” (Iain T. Benson, “Notes Towards A (Re)Definition Of The ‘Secular’,” (2000) 33 U.B.C. L. Rev. 519 at 543.)

A more fair reading of Ms. Netten’s article reveals that she suggests an openness to religious wisdom within the legal profession which can bring the following benefits:

• a fuller debate about law, ethics, justice, and the role of lawyers;
• a deeper source from which lawyers can act courageously, balance interests wisely, and determine the justice of rules;
• integrity between belief and action; and
• a covenantal lawyer-client relationship which transcends the retainer contract, and maintains the moral agency of the lawyer.

These would all be valuable contributions to the self-reflection of individual lawyers, and of the legal profession as a whole. As I wrote in a previously published Letter to the Editor of National, “[w]e need to face squarely the real and difficult issues of moral and social responsibility which arise from our position of tremendous power in contemporary society.”

As Ms. Netten wrote, “whatever may be thought about the truth claims of religions, it cannot be denied that religions provide a rich and unique way of understanding the world and one’s own life unmatched by philosophy, law or political theory.” I agree, and I urge my fellow students to resist the temptation to discount this rich, and sorely needed, wisdom through a hubristic and flippant dismissal of all ideas with religious roots. Our duty to our future clients and to society at large demands that we evaluate our role with greater openness and intellectual maturity. One of the crucial tasks for law students and new lawyers is the establishment of a meaningful and robust ethical foundation upon which to construct our legal practice. Ms. Netten is simply pointing out one of the crucial sources for us to consider as we carry out this important task.