Our summer student program is designed to introduce students to the practice of law and to the firm's variety of practice areas.
Our summer students have the opportunity to work with Canada's leading lawyers in business law, tax, litigation, real property and planning law, and labour and employment law.
Our summer program begins with orientation and training to introduce our students to the firm, research and writing techniques and to provide our students with tips and strategies to help them maximize their summer experience at the firm. As part of the summer student orientation training, students receive a 2 day exercise based research training workshop from members of the Firm's Research Group. Additionally, we offer extensive legal education and professional development programs covering topics such as “The Student's Role in Closings”, “The Student’s Role in the Litigation Process” and “The Student’s Role in Due Diligence”, Our lawyers are frequently invited to speak to the students about their area of practice or topical cases or transactions.
Summer students are given a broad range of responsibilities, including attending meetings, hearings and other litigation processes, researching and drafting legal memos, providing research support to our trial teams, preparing draft advocacy and transactional documents, due diligence and work relating to the closing of transactions, participating in the drafting of conference materials, articles for publication, and case summaries. It is important that our students have a well-rounded experience.
As a strong supporter of pro bono initiatives and as the sole firm sponsor of Pro Bono Students Canada, our lawyers provide pro bono services to the community in areas as diverse as civil liberties, human rights, financial, business, labour and employment law. We also think it is important to involve our students on pro bono matters through a variety of different pro bono projects. To offer our students the opportunity to work on student directed pro bono initiatives, the Firm offers through its Pro Bono Committee a wealth of opportunities for students to get involved and make a meaningful contribution. Under the supervision of our lawyers, our students get hands-on experience working with clients and solving real world problems with all of the benefits of the Firm's resources and experience.
In Toronto, each student chooses two practice areas and spends the summer assisting both practice groups simultaneously. Summer students are assigned a different mentor in each practice area chosen. Our student mentors are responsible for introducing our students to our firm, ensuring that students receive interesting and stimulating work, providing ongoing performance feedback and providing ongoing professional guidance and support. Students are encouraged to observe our lawyers in action, for example, by attending client meetings or accompanying them to court whenever possible.