Meeting clients, pleading cases, drafting agreements and legal proceedings, and taking part in negotiations; at Spiegel Sohmer, this work is not reserved for attorneys. Our articling students actually participate in the same experiences.

Naturally, articling includes some legal research. However, your research must consist of more than a simple review of doctrine and case law. You must take a position on the question at issue and be prepared to justify your decision. Being a lawyer means providing your opinion and being able to defend it. Our articling students must also live by this rule.

Our firm is a business and, as such, we are looking for people who are business-oriented. You will be happy at Spiegel Sohmer if you want to have a direct impact on your own direction within the firm, rather than having decisions dictated from anonymous administrators. If you are looking for an ivory tower type of career where you need not concern yourself with marketing or the development of the firm, Spiegel Sohmer is not the firm for you.

Our articling students, like all of our lawyers, carry out important work which is ultimately billed to our clients. As such, it is important for students to learn to manage and properly record their time. Our target for each attorney is 1,600 billable hours per year. We do not have one publicized target and another, quietly conveyed, higher figure which attorneys and articling students are actually expected to reach. Obviously, being a lawyer or an articling student is not a day at the beach. But if you compare our requirements to those of other firms, you will see that our expectations are quite reasonable. For example, in our firm, working late at night and on weekends is the exception, not the rule.

But why base yourself solely on our description of our articling program? Why not read what certain lawyers who articled with us have to say.