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  • Career Profile: Lawyer

    Career Profile: Lawyer

    Are you interested in the law? Lawyers are intelligent, perseverant and outspoken individuals responsible for promoting the rights and values of their clients. They do incredibly varied work, from drafting a house deed to suing corporations for damages to defending our rights in court. Studying the law is a lot of work, but it is incredibly rewarding. If you’re looking to be on the front lines of one of our most important social institutions, this career is one worth fighting for.

    Here’s an overview of the process and requirements you need to become a lawyer.
    • An undergraduate university degree (4 years). There is no requirement for what field you wish to major in — many future law students pursue a degree in social science or communications, but law schools definitely accept students from all fields.
    • The LSAT. You must score high enough on the Law School Admission Test to meet your chosen law school’s cut-offs. (As well, you must meet the GPA standing with your undergraduate degree.)
    • Law school (3 years).
    • Articling (10 months — you apply for a position between 2nd and 3rd year). Basically, this involves working under the guidance of an already qualified lawyer. You get paid, too!
    • The Bar. Finally, you must pass the Bar Admission Course including its required exams.

    If you’re looking to become a lawyer, there are a variety of fields of law to explore, including:
    • Criminal – often popularized in movies or TV; deals with criminal offenses and offenders. Positions are either defense (speaking on behalf of the accused) or Crown attorney (prosecuting on behalf of the government).
    • Corporate – deals with the relationships between corporations or businesses, including contracts, taxes, etc.
    • Public Interest – involves doing legal work for public interest groups, directly linked with human rights, education, and aid
    • Torts – deals with personal injury law; filing lawsuits on behalf of your client, who was wronged in some way by another
    • Family – deals with marriage, divorce and custody of children

    Your duties as a lawyer vary depending on the field you’re in. Most lawyers conduct research for cases, consult with clients, present cases in court and file lots of paperwork. If you’re looking for an easy ride, being a lawyer is not the job for you — it’s an incredibly demanding career, requiring a lot of skills, determination and hard work. That being said, the higher the risk, the higher the reward: lawyers are often paid quite handsomely for their efforts, especially in the private sector.

    If you’re opinionated, determined and love a good debate, a career in law is something worth investigating. Don’t let the lengthy process discourage you: you can do anything you set your mind to if you’re passionate about your work. For all you future lawyers out there — study hard and be prepared for the career of a lifetime.

  • Career Profile: Family Lawyer

    Career Profile: Family Lawyer

    When you think “lawyer,” you might think of high-profile cases against notorious lawbreakers. It seems glamorous and exciting. But, just as there are many aspects of the law itself, so there are many types of lawyers to practice different kinds of law.

    Each type of law practice comes with its own job description. Family lawyers, for instance, represent clients in divorce cases, child custody disputes, and ensuring that other family members fulfill their legal obligations. They also handle matters such as wills and estates, setting up trust funds, and working with adoptions, among other matters. Family lawyers prefer to work efficiently. Court battles are time-consuming and costly. Family lawyers strive to settle disputes out of court by mediation, arbitration, or other forms of problem-solving. They will meet frequently with clients to discuss their options, advising them on the best course of action. But that is not all- attorneys have responsibilities within their own firm as well. Often, a newly-graduated lawyer will supervise office staff. These include paralegals, legal secretaries, office assistants, and interns. But getting into a law firm in the first place takes a lot of schooling.

    Before you even attend law school, you must complete two to four years of schooling in other areas. Some law schools prefer that you have an undergraduate degree before they accept you. Once this prerequisite schooling is complete, the aspiring law student will study for and pass their LSATs- Law School Admission Tests. Then, at law school, they acquire their Bachelor of Laws. This qualifies them for their first year of training, called articling. While many students take their articling year in a law firm, some choose to work as a clerk for a judge.

    Once this term of articling is complete, the next step is to take a bar admission course and the accompanying exams. This qualifies you for practicing law in the province where the exams were taken. If you want to practice law in other provinces, you may have to meet other requirements.

    Once all of these requirements have been met, you are eligible to practice any type of law you desire. Family lawyers often specialize even further: some do only estates and wills, caring for the property of a large variety of clients. Others may do pro bono work, offering their services for free to those in desperate need of representation but who cannot hope to afford it. Some may choose only to work custody cases, support arrangements, and adoptions.

    Client confidentiality is of utmost importance to all lawyers, but especially to family lawyers. Because of the often turbulent nature of cases involving family disputes, sometimes it is required that each party have a separate lawyer to avoid a conflict of interest. This means that often, a husband and wife seeking divorce would not have the same lawyer, nor would the mother and father each seeking custody of their children. This means that if a case is to be settled quickly, family lawyers must have a good working relationship with lawyers in other firms.

    Working as a family lawyer takes a lot of preparation. Schooling alone takes a commitment of six to eight years, but making a difference in other people’s lives makes all that hard work worth it.

  • Career Profile: Lawyer

    Career Profile: Lawyer

    Lawyers are often the most important people for maintaining justice and making sure that the rules of society are followed. These rules that determine how business is conducted between individuals and organizations are the walls and the structure that ensure people are safe, happy, and able to lead fulfilling lives. Lawyers are the people that defend justice and they help to advance society in a logical and well reasoned fashion.

    Becoming a lawyer involves a lot of hard work, and being a lawyer involves a lot more hard work. To become a lawyer, one must complete high school with good enough grades to get into an undergraduate degree in university. When choosing an undergraduate degree, one may want to select something that is of interest such as science, arts or engineering, or one may wish to select something very particular to law like history, politics, environmental studies, ethics or law. The most important thing is to get grades that will allow you to enter law school – once you pass the LSAT exam. You will want to be in the high 70’s and up in order to get into a school. For the more competitive schools, you will want to score in the high 80’s and up. It is also important to be aware of what the requirements are for the particular school you are aiming for.

    The LSAT is an exam composed of tests evaluating reading comprehension and logical and verbal reasoning proficiencies. The average score on an LSAT is 150, with a low of 120 and a high of 180. It costs around $160 US dollars to undertake. Different schools accept different scores, and, once again, knowing what score is expected from the school you want to get into is the best way to determine how prepared you need to be. Once you gain acceptance into law school, you have four years of rigorous studying of laws and many tests to pass to ensure your successful completion of your program. It is also important to always be prepared for class, as you will often be called upon to answer questions.

    As a lawyer, there are many benefits and perks in addition to the hard work that you will have to do. The benefits include having a highly respected social status – being a lawyer puts you in a position of responsibility where others will look at you as an authority on the law. As a lawyer you will be working independently as well as on a team. You will be working on a team made up of judges who ultimately determine what is right and what is wrong, as well as officers of the law, more commonly known as police officers – the people who act on the ground to ensure that the law is put in effect. Finally, you will also enjoy being well paid, making $90,000 to start and then moving into the upwards range of $200,000 (source: ivyglobal.ca).