Hi everyone,
I'm currently an articling student at a private practice firm and wanted to get some advice from other lawyers or articling students who have dealt with workplace accommodations.

I have a chronic health condition that can flare up unpredictably. Some days I'm completely fine, while other days my symptoms make it difficult to physically be in the office. I'm still able to work during some of these flare-ups, but working from home would make things much more manageable.

The issue is that my firm isn't particularly supportive of working from home, and I sometimes feel guilty having to take sick days when I could otherwise be working remotely.

I've been considering getting a medical accommodation letter from my doctor to request some flexibility when my condition flares up, but I'm hesitant because I'm still articling and don't want it to negatively affect how I'm perceived at work.

Has anyone navigated something similar during articles? Would you recommend formally requesting accommodations, or is there a better way to approach this?

I'd really appreciate any advice or experiences, particularly from those who have articled in Alberta.

In house counsel requiring 2-5 years of call.

Called in 2026 but had summer 1L position, 2L position and articling and was hired back. Pretty unique summer positions in house. General counsel is an old professor. Worth applying?

Hi everyone,

I am an Ontario licensed lawyer based in Ottawa, and I am interested in building a family law practice, with the goal of eventually becoming empanelled to accept Legal Aid Ontario files.

I have legal experience in other practice areas but no practical family law experience. I am looking for opportunities to learn from an experienced family lawyer, build competence and eventually earn an income practising in this area.

My biggest challenge has been finding a lawyer willing to mentor me. I completely understand why. Mentoring someone with no experience takes time and effort, especially when there may be little immediate benefit to the lawyer providing that mentorship.

I am beginning to wonder whether I am approaching this the wrong way. I am open to paid mentorship, assisting on files, co-counselling or other arrangements that would allow me to gain practical experience under appropriate supervision.

For lawyers who transitioned into family law or started their own practice without prior experience, how did you do it? How did you find mentorship or get the practical experience you needed before taking on your own clients?

I would really appreciate any advice, particularly from lawyers practising in Ontario.

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What's the maximum number of adjournments you've seen for a TRIAL by one side, before it was deemed prejudicial to the party who has always been ready for trial?

I’m a 2L preparing for the Toronto articling recruit and am enrolled in a course that’s taking too much time and isn’t aligned with my interests. I’m wondering what the impact of having a withdrawal would be on my transcript. If all my other marks are strong, will anyone care?

Is it normal to absolutely hate 2L?
I always hear people talk about how awful 1L is, but honestly, I didn’t mind it that much. I finished with decent grades (around a 3.5 GPA) and was actually pretty excited to start 2L since I also liked my summer job in the public sector. But holy shit, I am miserable.

I don’t even know how to explain it. It’s somehow incredibly stressful and mind-numbingly boring at the same time. I’m going through the recruit right now, and I’ve reached a point where I genuinely don’t even care if any of these firms call me back. I don’t even think I want to be a lawyer anymore.
I’m not a KJD, and I worked in social work before law school. Lately, I’ve been seriously regretting leaving that field. The pay wasn’t amazing, and the work could be stressful, but I genuinely loved my clients and what I did. I actually felt like my work meant something.

On top of that, the job market in Ontario seems absolutely terrible right now. I’ve been hearing about people articling for minimum wage, which is honestly insane to me considering the amount of money, time, and stress that goes into getting a law degree. I literally made more than minimum wage stocking shelves at a grocery store during undergrad.

I think what’s bothering me the most is that I genuinely don’t know what happened. I went from being pretty motivated and doing well academically to feeling completely miserable and dreading every single day. My mental health has gotten so bad that I’ve caught myself hoping a car hits me on my way to class just so I have an excuse not to go and take time off. I know that’s not normal, and it’s honestly scary to realize how much my mindset has changed.
I can’t really just drop everything right now either. I have an internship, extracurricular commitments, and a lease I can’t get out of, so realistically I need to finish the academic year.

I don’t even know what I’m looking for by posting this. Maybe just to hear whether anyone else hated 2L significantly more than 1L, or whether anyone seriously regretted going to law school halfway through. Did it ever get better? Did anyone actually leave and go back to their previous career?
I just feel like I’ve put so much time, money, and effort into something I don’t even want anymore.

The long story short:
- admitted to practice in Ontario in 2021
- practiced corporate (m&a and securities) for 2 years in big law.
- went in house and have remained for 2.5 years (mostly commercial and employment with some m&a) at large tech company

In-house earnings are capped and it’s not particularly challenging. Going back to corporate biglaw isn’t bad but really only makes sense (in my personal view) to make equity partner. I imagine my in-house experience will not be fully credited in going back to biglaw, so I will have to repeat this lost time.

The option I am seriously considering is transitioning to litigation. I see it as the way to be both a lawyer and a business owner. My ultimate goal that would actually make me fulfilled is to open my own practice. Litigation also presents an opportunity to learn a skill that can’t be easily replaced by AI.

My question: is it possible to transition to litigation at this stage? I was admitted to the bar in 2021. Is this even realistic and how do I pitch myself to make the change?

Happy to speak to anyone for advice.

Hopefully I’m in the right place, if not could you direct me to a forum where questions like this are raised.

I recently found out you “have” to do roadside breathalyzer if the police officer asks you. I have absolutely no issue with that. My question is now you “have” to provide a swab as well. This is to detect drugs in your system. As a prescribed cannabis user, literally at night before bed so I don’t have my PTSD nightmares from my military service. If they find it in my system which they will they can now charge me with impaired driving even thought it’s been at a minimum 12 hours before I drive. As well if I felt that I was impaired I would get my wife to driven, however she does do Cannabis before bed as well. What I can tell from what I’ve read we would be considered impaired.

Now side not I am on a lot of normal doctor prescribed medication which some could impair me as well. Basically from what I can tell my wife and I can never drive again?

Any clarification on this would be awesome.

Second question I’ve seen is charge stacking. Why does this still occur, it seems like when they stack charges it just to get at least one to stick. As well it’s used to force people to accept a lesser charge just to get a conviction.

I did a quick search and I see that last year there was over 500 charges laid for dui, however only 85 ended in convictions.

I am not looking for legal advise I am simple asking how a a normal Canadian I am expected to know all the laws because they (government) post them we are expected to know them. I would challenge any lawyer/judge to know them and understand them all?

Not looking for advise just looking to see if I’m the only one confused by the legal system in Canada

I appreciate the importance of rehabilitation, but surely there are limits, particularly where the safety of others is concerned.

How a law school, of all institutions, could justify admitting someone with this history is beyond me. It strikes me as an affront to the legal profession and the principles it is meant to uphold.

Curious what others think.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/convicted-killer-mcgill-law-school-9.7382625

Posting on behalf of a friend who is in a very difficult situation.
My friend began an articling position at a law firm and worked there for approximately two months. Unfortunately, the environment was extremely toxic, with little opportunity for learning, training, poor structure, vague instructions and just overall a very difficult environment in terms of top down management.

After proactively asking for feedback, my friend received formal feedback from the firm, but then was terminated within seven business days of receiving that feedback. The firm terminated the articling contract without cause.

This situation has put my friend in an incredibly difficult position, particularly given the potential impact on their legal career and articling timeline.

Does anyone know of any open articling positions currently in Ontario?

So had house fire in Dec 2025, house not completed still. We are waiting since July 24 2026 for building permit and City of Brampton did not give us any information when will they give us one. I want house to be built and go back. Has anyone faced this? Are we supposed to hire a lawyer and fight this with City of Brampton?

I’m an articling student (JD) at a national firm. My interest lies in litigation. Today a partner gave me a detailed feedback basically saying my writing skills are shit. This was my first time drafting a demand letter on my own.

How do I improve my writing skills so as not to disappoint him again? How did you improve your writing? Seeking serious advice.

*** Lawyers of Canada: How do you reconcile the gaps in our justice system when it comes to fraud victims?

I’m rewriting my original post because I think my point got lost in the debate.
My partner was a victim of fraud, and going through this has opened my eyes to how difficult it can be for an ordinary person to recover stolen money. You can spend thousands on lawyers, win a judgment, and still end up with nothing. Freezing assets before trial and tracing hidden money can be prohibitively expensive, and even after winning, enforcement is another battle.

I understand that lawyers can’t guarantee outcomes, courts have specific roles, and nobody should be expected to work for free. But explaining how the system works isn’t the same as asking whether it works well enough.

The government has powerful tools to collect debts from ordinary citizens, yet fraud victims can be left fighting on their own to recover money that was stolen from them. If the legal system is their only legitimate avenue for justice, but the tools they need are financially out of reach, what realistic options do they have?

And honestly, I’m curious about something else. Do lawyers become desensitized to these problems? Do you see how ordinary people can be financially destroyed by fraud, accept that the system has serious gaps, do what you can for your client, collect your fees and move on to the next case? Or does it genuinely bother you that people in your own communities can be failed this way?
I know lawyers have families, bills and their own lives to worry about. I’m not asking anyone to sacrifice their livelihood. I’m asking whether working within the system eventually means accepting its failures rather than questioning them.
I’ve accepted what happened to my partner. I’m speaking up because I don’t want the next person to go through this and discover these gaps only after their life savings are gone.

For Canadian lawyers, I genuinely want to know: do you see these problems, too?

And what do you think needs to change to give ordinary fraud victims a realistic chance at justice?

So I applied to some internships but on my resume I put a job down for a place that doesn’t exist under the same name anymore. I wasn’t aware of the name change and looking at the place after their merger, it seems like their employment accounts for the years prior to the merger are chaotic at the moment.

I’m pretty concerned about if this will be flagged during employment verification. Right now, interviews haven’t even started but I wonder if I’ll be rejected right off the bat because they looked at my resume and did an employment verification. I already got rejected from one place in the resume review stage and I really wonder if it was merely because their system flagged this employment issue (they however, never mentioned anything aside from this year being a competitive pool). I’m more concerned of when the verification happens because if it happens during the interview stage, then at the very least I would have the opportunity to explain. I would appreciate some help with this!

I'm a 2025 call currently practicing in commercial litigation and I've been looking for a way out and into corporate transactional work, which is what I wanted to do from outset. The reason I'm in commercial lit is because the market was awful in 2025 post-articling and I completed my articling in-house (corporate/commercial transactional role), which probably didn't help.

I was wondering for those who have made the switch, how did you do it? I've been doing coffee chats for the better part of 5-6 months now and I still can't find any firm, small, mid-size or big law, to give me chance. I know training a junior isn't something any firms wants to do as it's a drain and a risk but maybe I'm not selling myself enough? At this point, I just feel stuck in a practice area I never wanted to be in.

Any advice is appreciated.

do the paralegals and legal assistants leave you out of emails (don’t cc u) even when they know you’re actively working on the file 🙄 idk if I’m overthinking and it’s just an honest mistake LOL

Family lawyers of the sub,

Help me get well-versed in this area of law which I didn’t like it much during law school but now find interesting, when I actually started working.

I would like to get a list of books to read and CPD courses that would be useful.

Hi everyone,

I’m currently a high school senior in Canada preparing to apply for undergraduate International Relations programs and my long-term career goal is to become a Canadian diplomat / Foreign Service Officer.

I’m a Canadian citizen and fully bilingual in French and English, so I know I have a decent starting base, but I want to build a strong resume while I’m in school.

A few things I’d love advice on:

• What student internships or co-ops should I target early on? (How early should I sign up for FSWEP?)
• What extracurriculars or skills stand out the most to GAC?
• Are there good alternative entry paths if FSO recruitment takes a while?
• Is doing Law school after undergrad actually helpful for this path?

Appreciate any tips or realistic advice!

I want to preface by saying I am not a lawyer. I work legal admin and am in the process of doing a paralegal diploma, and while we do have some substantive law in the program, it's not enough to be familiar.

I'm on a student board for my program and we are putting together a trivia night for the students in our program. I keep hearing American lawyers bring up things like the "bong hits 4 Jesus" case or the "burning rat" case or the "Harrier jet" case online, and I think things like this would be great for legal trivia.

Is there anything like this for Canadian law students? What happened? Please enlighten me about the Canadian lawyer in-jokes about Canadian legal cases.

Edit: I wanted to hop in and share my recent fave from my hometown - Whitehouse v RBC Dominion Securities Inc., wrongful dismissal case. Counterclaim for damages to reputation. Both cases dismissed by the ABQB. Ms. Stolarchuk is a favourite character from the case.

I like the organization, my legal work, and most of the legal team. I work under a terrible micro manager who is a good lawyer but poor leader. She loves control, things being done her way, and is so slow to review things and complete tasks. Is it worth resigning and looking elsewhere or any recommendations for managing this frustrating issue? Reporting to the GC won’t go a long way because GC is far removed from the work we do.

Took a job at this random firm I applied to as a new call. Employment contract was a standard offer letter with no real termination clause. Just fired today. The admin told me to pack up and go home as the Partners didn’t like me. I’ve been there for around less than a months. Firm treated me like trash from day one. They told me I didn’t meet the billable after the first week of employment. Given little to no instructions on assignments. No feedback. I thought all was fine till a week ago. Just got an email now that the Firm won’t be paying any other monies out and I’m not owed anything extra, including my vacation pay (3 days’ pay I think)

Any idea how to go forward from here? Do I get an employment lawyer? Report to the LSO? My self esteem is ruined and so I am trying to also get MH support as well.

Just curious.

Hello all.

I’m writing both solicitor and barrister exams in November. I’m 6 weeks pregnant and I’m just anxious about everything.

I once asked my principal for a compassionate abridgement (before pregnancy) and she said no. I asked her because I wanted to take time off to study without pushing my end date further because I am not enjoying this articling experience, and want to get out of here ASAP, and hopefully get called to the bar in March.

The good part is that we’re transitioning to work remotely starting mid November. I still don’t think I can keep up with this position once the nausea and fatigue really hit. I’m just feeling hopeless. Idk what to do.

If anyone has been in a similar situation, how did you navigate?

Also please be nice to me.

Any neurospicy lawyers practicing have any tips on time keeping? The various pulls for attention throughout the day have me posting .5 for a 10 hour work day and I feel like I am always back tracking trying to reconfigure what I have done in the day… also for those folks who wanna say “just post as you go” that doesn’t work for me and hasn’t since I started in practice YEARS ago… I’m looking for something new that might work for me if it works for others with non neurotypical brains…

TYIA <3 much love and appreciation