Articling Students

"As an articling student, you are going to have a lot of questions. During my articles, everyone at Shibley's was always happy to answer any and all of my questions. I never felt uncomfortable approaching any lawyer for help or guidance. It was actually encouraged!"

"I made it known that I was interested in a particular practice area and shortly after, that type of work found its way to my desk. Shibley's gives you the chance to gain exposure in many different practice areas during your articling experience, and certainly the ones you express interest in."

"Articling at Shibley's was one of the best decisions I ever made. The opportunity to work closely with talented and friendly lawyers and to be meaningfully involved in a wide range of matters was both a great learning experience and personally fulfilling. I especially enjoyed all of the opportunities I was given to see the law in action by participating on things such as client meetings, private mediations, settlement conferences and motions. Shibley's goes out of its way to give students a well-rounded articling experience."

"What I liked about working at Shibley Righton was having the opportunity to experience diverse areas of the law while also having the chance to focus on specific aspects that interest me. I worked with lawyers on entire files, allowing me to see a file progress in its entirety. This increased not only my satisfaction with my job, but also contributed to a more beneficial articling experience."

"One reason I chose Shibley Righton was because of the people. I left my articling interview with the feeling that this was a firm where people valued and respected each other. My articling experience has reinforced that initial view. This is a place where my work and opinions are valued by others, and where I feel that I am contributing to issues of real importance."

“I always told everyone that interviewing at Shibley’s was effortless. Shibley’s is a firm that promotes professionalism in a cool and relaxed way. I based my decision on the same thing. I wanted to work at a place where the firm culture was effortless to be a part of – not one in which I had to pretend to enjoy.”

“I chose Shibley Righton LLP because of its unique balance between being a full service law firm and having a mid-size vibe. This is a firm that many want to join after they figure themselves out. I consider myself lucky to have found them on my first step out.”

“If you enjoy hands-on work, expect a high-level of responsibility and a firm culture that encourages being a “real” person, then Shibley’s is the place for you. I am challenged everyday by directly working with the senior partners of the firm. This is not a place where you need to work your way up a hierarchy to get great quality work.”

"I liked that I was in control of my own workload."

"I enjoyed the level of responsibility I was given. I attended at Master's Court on a non-contentious matter and had carriage of a small claims court matter."

By now you are familiar with many terms relevant to your future articling experience. However, some of them are not applicable to Shibley Righton LLP. For example, we do not have a formal rotation program. Instead, students receive work from lawyers in different practice areas throughout the articling term.

What does this mean for the students?

It means that you may find yourself working on a real estate transaction while also conducting research for a labour and employment matter and assisting in preparing motion material for an injunction. In other words, you will likely be exposed to and gain experience in different practice areas at the same time. This will help you develop valuable time management skills while learning to juggle the demand of working with different people and their deadlines. We let our students manage their own workload, but provide time management guidance whenever requested or needed.

This also means that the chances of you seeing more of a file are greater. Files stay with you longer and you get to work on multiple aspects of a file. No handing a juicy, interesting file over to another student just because your rotation is up.

We know that at the start of their articles some students have a good idea (or at least they think they do) of what type of work they like best and find most interesting. To the extent that we are able to do so, we attempt to meet student requests to be exposed to certain types of work (that is of course, if you let us know what your particular interests are).

But not every student straight out of law school has had exposure to a wide variety of practice areas by the time they walk through our doors for an interview. We provide a great opportunity to students who also want to explore different practice areas.

What happens next?

We believe that our students are here because they see us as a great place to grow their career. Near the completion of each articling term, Shibley Righton LLP makes hireback decisions. We like to grow from within, and have hired students back as associates when we have a need and a student is well matched for the position. Historically, we seem to hire on average one student a year. But don’t worry, if a student is not hired back or is not interested in the practice area available, our students have a high degree of success in transferring their careers to other work environments quickly and with complete satisfaction.

At Shibley Righton LLP, we believe in our students and encourage them to believe in us.

In addition to obtaining a great hands on articling experience and spending time with us, we pay articling students a fairly competitive salary (competitive for our size of firm, but not quite competitive with that of those mega firms), which includes 10 paid vacation days. Yes, you will actually be able to take vacation days during your 10 months. You will also be paid for 14 days of study time for the two licensing exams. (The catch is that you will be required to take your licensing exams before you commence your 10 month articling term with us.)

We also cover your initial LSO tuition and application fees for licensing purposes and your Canadian Bar Association membership fees. We will split the costs of a TTC Monthly Metro Pass with you and we subsidize part of a health club/gym membership or other pre-approved fitness related costs incurred during the articling year. Since we value our students' health as much as that of our associates, we offer our students the same Health & Dental benefit we provide to our associates.

Each year, we will be hiring 2 students for our Toronto office and 1 student for our Windsor office. We will be participating in the hiring process set by the Law Society of Ontario.

As always, attention to detail is extremely important, so please read the instructions below very carefully.

When you have your application materials done and in electronic format, please send an email to articling@shibleyrighton.com with your attached application material as one single attachment (more below). The contents of your email will not be considered part of your application. Emails with multiple attachments will not be considered to be compliant with our requirements.

Please ensure that the subject line of your email says “Articling Toronto” if you are applying to our Toronto office, OR “Articling Windsor” if you are applying to our Windsor office. If you wish to apply to both offices, you will need to submit your application twice, with the appropriate Subject line. That is the only time you should submit your application on more than one occasion. Please do not submit your application twice. If you have found us on Videsktop and have already submitted an application, rest assured we will accept that submission. You do not need to submit again by email. Note that we have not provided instructions for submission of hard copies of your applications. This is because we are no longer accepting them. Please help us save some trees.

You should attach only ONE attachment, which contains all of your application materials, and which are in the following order (please, please follow this order!):

• Cover letter
• Resume
• Transcripts from Law School(s)
• Transcripts from other postgrad education (if applicable)
• Transcripts from undergrad
• Reference letters

Other materials you think are necessary that we read (discouraged, although exceptional circumstances do require this).

Cover letters for an articling position in the Toronto office are to be addressed to:

Stacey D. Chandler
Director, Human Resources & Administration
250 University Ave, Suite 700
Toronto, ON M5H 3E5

Cover letters for an articling position in the Windsor office are to be addressed to:

Jodie Anctil
Office Manager
Shibley Righton LLP
2510 Ouellette Avenue, Suite 301
Windsor, Ontario N8X 1L4

Please note that we have numerous tips, hints and FAQs on our website dedicated to applying for an articling position. Please ensure that you review them before you submit your application.

When you submit your application, you will get an automatic response to your email submission acknowledging receipt. If you are selected for an interview, we will reach out to you in accordance with the LSO’s Guidelines.

Subject to consensus amongst firms participating in August interviews being reached otherwise, interviews will be held IN PERSON this year (yay!). If you are not going to be in Toronto for the interview days, please let us know in your cover letter that you will only be able to participate in a virtual interview. It won’t impact our assessment of your application, but it will significantly help us with scheduling our interview team.

It is also important to remember that health is our priority. Should you become at risk of spreading one of those contagious bugs or viruses, please let us know as soon as possible, and we will work something out! We want to ensure all feel comfortable during the process (masks, distancing, virtual interview are all options that come to mind). We are excited to have in person interviews back, but it will be August, and, well, suffering through a cold or flu or other virus at that time of year, really sucks. And let’s face it, if you are feeling under the weather, wouldn’t you prefer to switch your interview to a virtual one and be able to wear soft pants that day?

• Cover letters which are more than one page don't show off your ability to be succinct, concise and persuasive. Do not simply regurgitate your resume in your cover letter
• Your cover letter should clearly state your interests (if known) and/or why you want to article with us
• Full justify your cover letter
• Ensure your cover letter is signed with either a handwritten signature or an electronic one (but please not just your typed name)
• Try to limit your resume to two (2) pages. In this respect:
  • There is no need to list the high school you attended unless there is something truly outstanding about it
  • There is also no need to include your membership in various organizations unless you are an active member of the organization and participate in meetings or other similar types of work. For example, simply being a member of the CBA is not impressive to us, but being active and holding a position on one of their committees is worth mentioning
  • Some summer or part-time jobs speak for themselves. For example, jobs that consist of bartending, lifeguarding, teaching, shredding documents, etc, don't need more than one descriptive line, if that
• Ensure your cover letter and resume show that you are good at multi-tasking, and have time management, analytical thinking and interpersonal skills. We look for a well-rounded person
• We are no longer accepting hard copy applications. Please see our “Are You Ready To Apply” section for details on submitting applications.
• Font size should be no smaller than 12pt if using Times New Roman, or 11pt if using Arial. Other fonts are acceptable, within reason. Remember that some of us require reading glasses. Don't make us reach for a magnifying glass.
•  Margins should be one inch minimum
• Order your transcripts well in advance of the due date for the application. While we do our best to match up applications that come in bits and pieces, sending your application to us in that manner leaves open the possibility that a proper match up doesn't occur. It also indicates to us that your time management skills may need additional work.
• Ditto for any reference letters you want to include. Ask for them well in advance of the return date for your application. We understand you have less control over the timing of those, but please do your best.
• When you attach your transcripts, your law school transcripts should be first, followed by transcripts for any other graduate school, and then your undergraduate marks, wherever possible.
• Provide your contact information on Call Day, and your contact information for the summer time, if possible
• If you have a telephone number which is long distance from the city you are applying to article in, please ensure this is clear on the face of your resume (pay attention 905ers applying to Toronto, we're never certain as to whether we need a "1" in front). If your telephone number is an international number, please ensure we have all digits necessary to call you from Ontario.

First and foremost, we adhere to the Law Society's guidelines with respect to procedures, timing and deadlines.

Law students often ask us if they can come and meet with us prior to the interview process. Sometimes even if they have been granted an interview, applicants will ask us to meet for an informal meeting before their interview. On other occasions, if they haven't been granted an interview, some candidates call asking to schedule a meeting to find out why they weren't chosen for an interview.

In these and other types of situations, our lawyers decline the students' requests. We have to balance our desire to provide all students with as much information as possible about our firm, with the goal of treating everyone fairly and in accordance with the Law Society's guidelines.

However, throughout the year, our current articling students are able to respond to telephone calls and inquiries with respect to the articling process. We only ask that these inquiries are curtailed between Call Day and Interview Week. This usually isn't much of a problem for us, as our Articling students usually start their 10 month articling stint with us in early August and complete their articles in the beginning of June.

When we schedule an interview in Toronto, we usually ask that the candidate make themselves available to us for about 90 minutes. Upon arrival, the candidate will be taken to our main boardroom where they will be greeted by a small team of individuals and some refreshments. The interviewing lawyer will be called to come and meet the candidate and "take them away" to be interviewed in another boardroom or their own office (that is, if they have had the chance to clean it up before the interview).

After about 25 to 30 minutes, give or take some time, this interview will end, and you will be taken to a second interview, lasting somewhere between 25 to 30 minutes again, time permitting.

Once that stress is over with, you will be brought back to the lobby or boardroom, depending on the time of day and your schedule, to say good-bye or ask some final questions before heading off.

We do all of our interviews on Monday and Tuesday. Does it matter to us whether you are interviewed on one or the other of those days? Absolutely not. Monday interviews are no more or less important than Tuesday interviews. However, we do like to ensure that our interviews are spread out evenly so we can give each candidate an equal amount of time and attention.

The interview team meets at the end of each interview day to review the candidates we have met up until that point. Sometimes we set up return interviews on Wednesday morning to help us make the decisions we have to make. If we arrange Wednesday morning interviews, it is to have some candidates meet with more or different lawyers on our interview team. Wednesday interviews are generally much shorter, and are as much about more of us getting to know you as they are about you getting to know more of us.

Interviewing for a position in Windsor is slightly different. See the Windsor Applicants section for details.

No problem. If we've hired you, then you will have skills and talents that we think will make you a good lawyer.

The rest is mostly nurture. We provide our students with professional development and training. The front end of each articling year is always loaded with mandatory and comprehensive computer training, Westlaw training (sorry, Quicklaw fans, we just switched), internal and external, electronic and hard copy, library orientation, docketing and associated accounting training.

Don't worry, once you start working for lawyers, you will look fondly back on those first few weeks of training (and wish you had paid more attention).

As the year progresses, we hold Lunch & Learn seminars conducted in house by our lawyers (recently they have been virtual so they are BYOL events). Students' attendance at external seminars or presentations by LSO, CBA, and other institutions is encouraged and, if they fit the budget we have for the students, funded.

We usually hire 1 student for our Windsor office. We will be participating in the hiring process set by the Law Society of Ontario and will be conducting virtual interviews during the designated period for recruitment in the Windsor area.

Please refer to our “Are You Ready to Apply” section for details and a list of FAQs that were asked in respect of virtual interviews for the prior articling year. We think you might have some similar questions!

See our FAQs page for a list of frequently asked quesitons.