Articling Program

We offer our articling students a flexible rotation system. Students do (1) a Transactional rotation (which includes Corporate, Capital Markets, Real Estate, Lending, Tax Planning and Trusts & Estates work, non-litigious IP matters and transactional/solicitor work for the Indigenous Practice Group); (2) an Advocacy rotation (which includes Restructuring & Insolvency, Litigation, Municipal, Land Use Planning & Development, Tax Litigation, Estates Litigation, IP Litigation, Workplace Law and advocacy-related work for the Indigenous Practice Group; and (3) a Flex rotation which they can tailor to reflect their interests. They have a myriad of opportunities to explore different areas of law, including various subspecialties and industry teams in our full-service environment.

Our articling students are matched with a mentor and an articling principal (usually a member of our Student Recruitment Committee). They play a similar role to summer student mentors, assisting with day-to-day advice, goal-setting and career guidance, and helping the students build relationships across the firm.

Like our summer students, our articling students are responsible for managing their own workload. Since our articling student group is typically comprised of students who summered at the firm, the articling students are very well known to our lawyers, and work flows very naturally from those relationships. We encourage our students (with support and guidance from their mentors and articling principals), to be proactive in seeking out work in their primary areas of interest. Our lawyers make a concerted effort to “go deep” with our articling students -- to offer intellectually challenging work, opportunities for meaningful client interaction, and valuable “field experience” at courts or tribunals or on deal teams. At Aird & Berlis, we staff our files leanly, which means that our students work very closely with our lawyers and have a higher level of responsibility. As a consequence, our students are key contributors to our firm’s success. 

We conduct reviews twice during the articling term: in December and April. We ask each reviewing lawyer to provide feedback about the student’s performance, including technical proficiency (such as research, analysis, writing and drafting), practice management skills and client skills. Our lawyers also provide informal feedback throughout the articling term, and we encourage our students to ask for feedback on an ongoing basis.  

We offer a comprehensive professional development program for our articling students, including a week-long orientation as well as bi-weekly seminars throughout the articling term. In addition to courses on fundamentals such as legal research and writing, we offer training on a range of key business law topics, including due diligence, managing a closing, financial statements, transaction opinions and drafting litigation documents. We also offer substantive training in all the firm’s main practice areas.

Our current Toronto articling student salary is $2,000 per week. Our current Vancouver articling student salary is $1,667 per week. Students are also included in our extended health and dental benefits program and receive two weeks paid vacation. We pay lawyer licensing fees for all of our students.

The firm organizes informal social events for our students and lawyers. Every year is different, but past events have included dinners at some of the city’s best restaurants, a private cooking class and a concert. One of the highlights of our social calendar is our end-of-articles celebration – our articling students choose the venue, menu and guest list. And of course, our students are important participants in firm-wide events like our annual Holiday Party. It is tradition that they create a video skit for the party, and it is always a hit.