I liken my experience articling and completing CPLED with family obligations during a pandemic to a camel passing through the historic ‘eye of a needle’ gate in Jerusalem. In the same way the rider had to remove all the luggage and get the camel to crawl in on its knees, I had to leave my ego in Nigeria.
In February 2019 I sought to requalify as a lawyer in Alberta by challenging the National Committee on Accreditation (NCA) exams. I wanted to article and experience the Alberta legal competency training provided for by the Canadian Centre for Professional Legal Education (CPLED). Law practice is traditionally exerting, and I have two children, so Articles and CPLED seemed like pipe dreams. Nonetheless, with 16 years of Nigerian law experience I knew it is best to participate in that process for success in the profession.
I came to Canada out of curiosity to understand why Western culture appeared to be advancing in all areas, whereas African nations seemed to be failing. Like that camel, all my knowledge in 16 years of law practice, was placed to the side and at best harnessed as transferable skills. I approached Articles and CPLED like a non-lawyer. I was blessed with two principals who provided guidance to help me through the gate - Judith Hanebury Q.C and Alan Rudakoff Q.C.
I think my articling experience might have been easier than other internationally trained lawyers because I am a self starter and my motivation to practise law is the same.
In Nigeria I fought for the equity of its marginalized population. That motivator was fine-tuned when I became a mother. In Nigeria and North America, the justice system is not particularly fair to black boys and men. We had the #endsars social movement in Nigeria where the premise was to bring attention to how the police brutalize young men. In North America the #blacklivesmatter movement also centered on the police brutalization of black people, mostly boys and men. My motivation to fight for equity planted my desire to complete the requirements of the Law Society of Alberta.
In Alberta, the current CPLED model (now PREP) is a circular learning process where the four phases are built on one another. Committing oneself to each phase is best even though the assessment of the first three phases do not determine whether a candidate passes, and so candidates may run the risk of not paying full attention. The feedback I received from the first three phases and my learning from Christine Laing at my first rotation, led to my success at Capstone – the assessment process that determines if a candidate can apply for admission to the Law Society of Alberta. Christine took the time to break down legal memo writing to me from the basics, as in Nigeria the practise was to put notes on files to indicate progress. Legal memo writing, like an audit trail and creating a file that can speak for itself, was all new to me and I am glad CPLED, and Christine taught this well.
My first articling rotation was through the Public Interest Law Clinic of the University of Calgary (U of C) which hosted a pandemic response project known as the Consumer Debt Negotiation Project with Judith Hanebury Q.C. I supported Judith to give legal advice and direction to persons with consumer debts like mortgages in foreclosure, overdrawn credit cards, lines of credit, and to negotiate with their creditors.
My second rotation was made possible by Karen Jackson of the U of C. I supported the lawyers at Scott Venturo Rudakoff LLP with legal research and production analysis for civil litigation and insurance defence. I also reviewed legal documents like agreements and worked with peers in mediations.
The first rotation and CPLED were fully remote. The second rotation was hybrid between in-office and remote work.
I preferred hybrid work because working in the office has its advantages. At the Law Clinic, in person lessons on a white board and printing out client documents to mark up for analysis helped my learning.
The CBA has also been a short-cut to my Canadian Legal Education. As a new Canadian, the professional development webinars (CBA PD) provided information from practising lawyers and other professionals. Through webinars, I learn and see how substantive law applies in practice.
There are other benefits. I reach out to CBA webinar facilitators on LinkedIn and often get accepted into their network. I form relationships with those facilitators by attending other events they advertise. At one of those events, I noted the CBA did not assign me a mentor because I was an NCA member. Afterward, Cindy Mintz stepped forward to be my mentor. Cindy met with me every fortnight for the period of the 2021 mentoring cycle. It did not end after this cycle; she is always ready to call me when I send her questions or information about my progress. Her insight has been helpful.
Also, the CBA Young Lawyers’ section helped me interact and connect with my peers in the Canadian legal community; important so we can give one another support and encouragement. I found this especially true as an internationally trained lawyer who did not have friends from Canadian law schools. These peers helped me stay up to date on developments within the profession.
I enjoyed every bit of my articles. Life is tricky and navigating new experiences has a lot of obstacles, but my recommendation for others trying to integrate into the Canadian legal community is to build relationships and ASK for help. There are no stupid questions in my books. I am only foolish when I refuse to ask someone who is willing to help.
The case confronted a bedrock assumption of North American labour law — that employees and managers have different interests and different levels of authority
A decision from Europe’s top human rights court has found people have a right to be protected from climate change through government action. Observers say its impact will reverberate around the world.
