With more than 50 lawyers,
The City of Calgary Law Department is headed by
City Solicitor, Paul Tolley, and includes an array of paralegal, secretarial and administrative staff. The Law Department essentially functions as a full service legal firm for the corporation with an annual budget of more than $1.6 billion and a workforce in excess of 15,000 municipal employees. Very little of the legal work is referred to outside counsel. As a result, the variety of the work undertaken in the Law Department is extensive. The work often relates to high-profile matters of considerable public importance.
The Law Department has a full-service library managed by a full-time professional librarian. In addition to the basic texts and law reporters, the library contains several thousand memoranda and legal opinions which are indexed in our internal computerized research database. The Library subscribes to various commercial research databases, including Quicklaw and WestlawCanada, which are available from desktops. In addition, the Law Department has a full time research lawyer.
Articling with The City
The City currently rotates articling
students through the Litigation, Corporate Services, Administrative Law and Real Estate & Expropriation sections of the
Legal Division of the Law Department. As well, in order to provide the students with as wide an exposure as possible, there is the opportunity to do planning, environmental and regulatory work.
Articling students are scheduled to appear as a prosecutor on docket court matters once a week. In addition articling students have conduct of a number of small claims litigation files.
The City typically hires three articling students. The current articling salary for the City is $53,000 annually, subject to an annual review by the City.
Students are entitled to participate in the City's extended health, dental and group life insurance benefits immediately upon starting employment. There is a 180 day waiting period for the City's short term, long-term disability and health spending account plans.
The City pays for the students'
Canadian Bar Association and
Calgary Bar Association memberships. The students are reimbursed for the cost of bar admission courses (CPLED) and are paid their salary while attending
CPLED.
Although the workload is variable, a typical work day is from 8 a.m. - 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday with every third Friday off. Because of the City's commitment to a work/life balance, articling students will be able to spend time with family and friends and enjoy the wonderful aspects and amenities that Calgary has to offer. Students also are given three weeks of vacation at the conclusion of their articles.
When we take on
articling students, we are looking for people who will be assets to the Department over the long term. However, because of the municipal budgeting process, the Law Department cannot make any commitments that articling students will have positions at the end of their articling year. This is, of course, is similar to any private practice firm as hire-back decisions are based on firm need and financial resources. Having said that, it is worth noting that approximately 35% of the lawyers presently in the Department articled here.
Articling at any firm often involves doing extensive research. When you article with The City of Calgary Law Department, you can be assured that you will be exposed to a great variety of legal issues and given considerable responsibility. You will also be appearing in various levels of Court more often than the typical articling student and because of that, you will improve on your advocacy and courtroom skills much faster than students articling in private practice. You will also find that lawyers in the Department have an open door policy and are willing to spend time with the students to assist and direct them when necessary.
In addition to the CPLED course requirements, articling students at The City have their work more or less evenly divided among four areas:
- Rotation – working with the lawyers and support staff in the rotation that they are in.
- Bylaw prosecutions – acting as the Prosecutor, you will have conduct of a court docket relating to bylaw infractions. Out of 8 to 19 items on the docket, you can expect about one to three trials.
- Litigation Files – you will have conduct of several Small Claims litigation files, addressing claims which can be worth as much as $25,000.00. Your handling of these files will be largely autonomous. You are likely to do several Small Claims trials in the course of your articling year as well as appear in Court of Queen's Bench on applications and to speak to the list in the Court of Appeal.
- Legal research on a wide variety of issues.
Articling students from previous years have been very pleased with the quality of the articling experience they received with The City.
We believe that we provide a first-class environment not only for articling students, but also for lawyers who want interesting and challenging work in a setting where they can concentrate on the practice of law, free from private practice constraints such as the need to solicit work and bill clients. No hourly targets, challenging work and a reasonable schedule continue to attract outstanding candidates year after year.
Applying for an articling position
See Applying for an articling position with the Law Department.
Summer Students
Summer Students in a current Law Program wishing to work with the Law Department, please refer to the
Law Summer Student Program.
