Why We Hire Articling Students
The purpose of our articling student program is to attract and train high-calibre law students who will remain as associates and eventually become shareholders of the firm.
What We Look For
Integrity, common sense, intelligence, maturity, initiative, honesty, an interesting background, good judgment, an ability to get along and work well with others, ambition, flexibility, perseverance and a sense of humour. Good marks will help you get in the door, but once you have an interview, high academic standing is only one of many factors which we will consider.
We look for diversity of experience and interests in our students.
Work Experience
Boughton does not have a structured rotation. Students have exposure to litigation and solicitors work and are encouraged to seek out the type of work that they are interested in. Lawyers on the Student Committee will monitor your workload to make sure you are not neglected or overworked.
Guidance
We assign a shareholder as your principal and an associate as your mentor. The Student Committee tries to keep everybody happy. Meetings and other formalities are kept to a minimum.
Training
Basically, you learn by doing. Lawyers give you work and you do it with help from the lawyer, assistants, office staff, and other students. You get to attend CLE courses and presentations by lawyers in the firm on CLE courses they have attended.
Evaluation
There is a formal written evaluation by each lawyer you have worked with after each major rotation, which you will get to see. It is usually very constructive. You can get informal assessments from your mentor or principal or anybody else any time. The best positive feedback is the amount of repeat work you receive from individual lawyers.
Responsibility and client contact
The more confidence we have in your work, the more responsibility and client contact you are likely to have.
Atmosphere and workload
We encourage a collegial approach among our students and discourage individual competition.
We expect you to work hard when there is work to be done.
Specialization
Not recommended during your articles. Our first year associates choose between litigation or solicitors practice, but usually do not specialize further until they have acquired some broad-based skills and experience and know what they want to do.
Experienced Secretarial Support
Our students are assigned experienced secretaries who can help them with the questions that will arise on a day-to-day basis. Many of our lawyers say that the support they received from their secretaries was invaluable.
Peer Support
After hours, you are welcome to relax in the Lawyers' Lounge. It is a great place to unwind after a busy day, meet your peers and discuss business and non business matters.
Business Development
Business development is a key component of Boughton's continued growth to success. From your first day at Boughton, you will be encouraged to join one (or more) of the "focus groups". These groups usually meet monthly and focus on how to better service our existing clients, as well as attract new clients to the firm. You can choose to join one or more focus groups that are of interest to you.
Something else to think about
Our firm is big enough to offer you excellent training facilities and support as well as broad exposure to many different areas of practice. Our Meritas affiliation provides us business leads and contacts throughout Canada and the world. At the same time, you will not get lost - we are small enough that you will be able to get to know everyone very quickly.
Application Deadline
If you wish to be considered for a position for the following year, your application package (application letter, resumé, transcripts and reference letters if available) must be in our hands before the application deadline set out in the VBA guidelines.
Meet some of our summer and articling students here.
Student Committee - Contact Information
Boughton Law Corporation
P.O. Box 49290
700 - 595 Burrard Street
Vancouver, BC V7X 1S8
Tel: 604.687.6789
Fax: 604.683.5317
Email: studentcoordinator@boughton.ca
Student Committee
Hugh H. Claxton
Corporate Commercial
hclaxton@boughton.ca
Scott M. MacKenzie
Litigation
smackenzie@boughton.ca
Jeff S. Glasner
Tax
jglasner@boughton.ca
