An article about Avner Levin's new study about young people and technology ran in itWorldCanada yesterday.

The article, and presumably Levin's research, considers ways that today's employers can keep employees happy by resisting the urge to ban instant messaging within the office. I understand the need to ensure that employees don't feel that walking through the office doors equates to a step back in time; however, I remain unsure about the final object here. Are we simply trying to keep the employees happy as they IM with friends and utilize social networking tools at work, or is there a greater, underlying goal here too?

That is, would it be unreasonable to wonder if keeping "young people" and "technology" together will not just be good ER, but good business? Happier employees are likely to stay longer (and thus reduce costly turnover), but will chatting at work, say in the law firm context, add to or detract from client management?

The Canadian Labour Congress announced a "Victory for Workers" on Friday:

Workers finally have new law to protect their wages

OTTAWA – Canadian workers have finally won new legal protection for their wages and their pension contributions when their employer goes bankrupt. Bill C-12, a series of amendments to existing insolvency and wage protection laws, was approved by the Senate last night and received Royal Assent today. This was accomplished after an intensive three-year campaign by the Canadian Labour Congress and its affiliated unions to change bankruptcy laws that unfairly put workers last in line to get paid.

It seems to me the new law accomplishes (at least) three significant improvements for those whom find themselves with a bankrupt employer and unpaid wages and/or pension contributions:

• moves workers up in the creditor line
• protects pension contributions
• limits unilateral changes to collective agreements by bankruptcy judges

Now all that's left is proclamation, and to see how employees and unions fare under the amendments.

This Ottawa Citizen article on the appointment of Kevin Whitaker to review the Ontario ban on unionization of part-time College workers went out on the CAUT Contract Academic Staff wire today.

The past decade has seen great strides in unionization of part-time (aka Sessional or Contract Academic Staff) university teachers. While some full-time faculty associations have acquired rights for these additional units, many are organized by national unions such as CUPE (which tend to hold rights for Teaching Assistant units as well). The article indicates that the "newly formed Organization of Part-time and Sessional Employees of the Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology" is in a drive to pick up workers across the 24 colleges.

A point of interest on this:
Once p-t college workers are under a collective agreement, the laboratory conditions will be complete to compare the trends and settlements of post-secondary sector-wide bargaining (college workers) with those from the university sector where local units negotiate independent of one another. This gets at the tension between general (province-wide) and focused (workplace specific) bargaining.

What a different world law school would be if Jordan Furlong's recent column, Millennial Fever was required reading for current law students. While I hold out hope in the accuracy of Furlong's vision of generational turnover and its resultant culture change in Canadian firms, the balance of power is still largely seen by students to rest in the hands of the employer.

Early November is the time of year when many 2L's from Ontario law schools are off to interviews (the majority of which seem to be in Toronto), with the hopes of winning a job offer for next summer. And believe me, there is a LOT of talk of this in the school today. What I haven't yet heard much about, however, are students — Millennials — expressing awareness of their bargaining strength or assets that employers are seeking (Furlong calls the young lawyers "natural-born sellers," a phrase has seems to have the right mix of flash and certainty that many use to depict the current generation of students). Part of the explanation for this lack, I believe, lies in the over-focus on BigLaw, for whose attention students are told they need to compete.

I think a broader take on the job hunt would benefit today's students. Wouldn't it be terrific if students thought less about going to great lengths to secure a job, any job (in a big firm of course), and instead were more cognizant of what they have to offer and what type of work they would be satisfied doing? But I guess that's the hitch: many of my classmates are (understandably) uncertain about the various fields of law, and look to 2L positions as a sample pack of sorts. The point that goes missed far too often, however, is that students tend to only be sampling the variety of work offered by firms, and appear to be unaware or uninterested in other options that are out there.

The hierarchy that holds firms in a revered position and relegates in-house/NGO/government experiences to secondary spots is still very much in place at law school. It must be the case that the Millennial attributes are sought by these 'alternative' sectors. I've thought about what perpetuates this hierarchalized view of the world within law schools and don't feel as though I've come up with a good answer. Part of me wants to point to the influence firms have over career services and recruitment initiatives within law schools (i.e. money = marketing), but surely this can't be an entirely fair or complete explanation.

While I've decided in this column to talk less about black-letter legal education and/or the tech-side of learning (Slaw seems very well versed in the tools, gadgets, and other resources available to enhance legal skills and knowledge), I'd like to dedicate a bit of space to thinking about the education one receives about the profession itself. In short, there is little active legal education on this subject; the material that is used for learning is that largely accessed by those seeking it out, rather than anything being put forward by schools. In other words, there is a fair degree of self-selection that allows those already interested to develop further their understanding of the wider world of legal employment.

It's undeniable that there is a contingent of students who have been exposed to firm life in some way (a relative or friend most likely, or in some cases firm work as an assistant), and for whom the path to a firm job is the only one of real interest. However, in addition to those who already know they are fit for firms and those who know they want something else, there remains a group of students who are undecided yet get caught-up in the BigLaw bustle.

Surely there is nothing inherently good or evil about firm or non-firm work, but the prospect of students pouring their heart and souls into securing employment in a work world of which they are almost entirely ignorant is downright disheartening. A more robust legal education would be one that did more to introduce first- and second-year students to the various types of work that are possible in this changing, sprawling world of law.

There are, in fact, a few resources out there that provide good information about the full spectrum of legal careers:

• University of Ottawa Common Law Section:
  • Legal Careers in Government
  • Give me the low-down on a career in social justice work
  • Career Options: "What Can I do with my LL.B.?" (provides information on "alternative" careers, including non-legal practice alternative careers, such as consulting, teaching, librarian, and career counselor positions)
• Federal Department of Justice
• Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General: Legal Careers in Social Justice

I wonder how different the Millennial job search would be if law schools made this type of information required reading?

If any of those who work in downtown Toronto, especially in the Bay St. area, happen to notice a surprising number of fresh-faced, full-suited types scurrying about today, there is good reason for this: 8am this Monday morning marks the beginning of Interview Week. T.O. firms have the next three days to interview, wine, and dine 2Ls in order to determine which students will get the nod precisely at 5pm on Wednesday, for summer 2008 positions.

It's perhaps not surprising to know that students stay in touch with each other through the day, both by text message and cell phone calls (mostly to those they know), and also by online discussion boards such as LawBuzz (to carry on anonymous and frank discussions). See especially the "Employment Advice (Students)" to canvass the concerns, excitement, angst, and attitudes of the job-seekings. The "Is this normal? I am freaking out about tomorrow" post is a good one.

Good luck all of you 2Ls; may the conversations be stimulating and the butterflies temporary.

Ontario Law Schools are being introduced to EASElaw, a Career Services software product of eCampusRecruiter.ca. It looks like in addition to EASElaw there is EASEmba (is EASEmd on the horizon?). EASE stands for Electronic Applications for Students and Employers.

The product is being pitched to current law students as an information management tool; just this week Queen's Law launched EASElaw (the Q's log in screen is here: nice crest) in order to bring some order to the On Campus Interview (OCI) process.

Students have been asked to register with EASElaw in order to access their customized schedule of the firms that have granted the much sought after 20-minute date. Apparently one has the ability to register for the interview using the software.

The Director of Career Services did let us know, however, that "the system is not without flaws, and occasionally you will find it slow and sometimes it crashes altogether." Somehow I fear that slow service — or worse a crash — might not go very far to make this anxiety-filled process any EASEier. But one can hope.

For those whose student days are behind them, eCampusRecruiter offers services to employers, including the ability to post job ads.

I think September is the true New Year's. Campus, the city, and life in general feel completely different than they did a few short weeks ago when Simon F. and I chatted about starting a legal education and technology column in Slaw. Since that chat the topic has been on my mind, and as I found myself back in class beginning my second year of the law program at Queen’s, I’ve been noticing that the intersection of these two concepts is a rather large, intriguing, and often humorous one. And that is why I’m kicking off this series with a few observations from my station within the machine.

As Mark Lewis pointed out on Friday, there is “something different” about law students today. While I’m not too sure what law students were like in days of yore, and not too sure either what it’s like to be a living, breathing Millennial (I’m slightly longer in the tooth than that, but not by much), the SSCCTAP diagnosis observed by Simon C. last year sounds about right. The only thing I would add to it is PI: plugged in.

During the first term of my first year at law school I was somewhat puzzled by how uninterested a large number of the students appeared to be in the lectures – between Facebook, MSN Messenger, and text messaging (and sometimes all at the same time) I couldn’t imagine how any of the material was being absorbed. However, what I came to realize is that the extent to which Millennials are plugged in is surpassed only by the extent to which to they multi-task; in addition to finding out what happened at the after-party the night before, scoping out photos of friends of friends online, and organizing the post-lecture meet-up, these students had one ear on the professor the entire time (well, most of them anyway). Mind-boggling, isn’t it?

But what happens when the technology is taken away? Last week during the initial meeting of one of my small seminars the first order of business for the professor was to declare an all-out laptop ban. Yep, that’s right: for 3 hours each and every week between now and November 30th about 10 law students are going unplugged. As the first seminar wrapped up and the professor left the room, those who remained compared anxiety levels in reaction to the news. The general mood seemed to be one of slight-to-moderate discomfort, but I have a hunch that everything will be just fine; even though students can learn a great deal with laptops in front of them, I tend to agree with the instructor that a more immediate learning experience is possible without the Facebook/MSN/email barrier between seminar participants. The ban has the potential to clear the air in a way. I’ll keep you posted on how this goes.

The other note-worthy legal education and tech event from first week was that those enrolled in the Advanced Legal Research course will be tested on – wait for it – print materials. It’s true that in first year we were introduced to the stacks, but this move to evaluate students’ facility with paper sources is bound to garner some attention. (I assume that even in the pre-Millennial period law students cared much about marks; at least that’s what I learned from The Paper Chase). What was explained in the first lecture of this course is that once employed in a firm or other setting, it is entirely possible that graduates will be expected to search both online and print materials, a bold statement that someone from outside academe might care to verify. Again, I’ll be sure to revisit this in a later post.

That’s all for now from the belly of the beast.

The question I’ll consider in my next post is whether the tech environment fostered by law schools today benefits or hinders students once they enter the workplace, and whether law school administrators are even thinking about this. Oh, and I might highlight some of the technology actually used as opposed to focusing as I did today on the back-to-basics trend.