Career Development

The Professional Placement Program is an exciting component of the Lincoln Alexander School of Law’s Integrated Practice Curriculum (IPC), one of three approved Law Society of Ontario’s experiential training pathways for lawyer licensing. As part of the three-year JD program, our students are required to complete a 15-week professional placement in Ontario. The professional placement can take place as part of the spring/summer, fall, or winter term in the third year. The CDPPO supports students through job postings and outreach, education, preparing application materials, conducting mock interviews, and providing one-on-one coaching sessions.

The professional placement is a fantastic opportunity for students to learn in a range of legal career environments. Some examples of student placements have been in large, medium, small, and solo firms; in-house; government; legal clinics; and social justice organizations.

The Lincoln Alexander School of Law awards funding to a number of first and second year students to pursue summer opportunities in areas of law in which they are interested, in collaboration with our funders and partners.  These opportunities typically relate to social justice, equity-oriented, and public interest work, including working with Indigenous and other equity-seeking communities. The law school arranges many of these opportunities for students, and students are also able to secure opportunities independently and apply to the law school for funding.

Below is a list of some of the organizations that awarded students summer project funding to fulfill their positions:

• The Ministry of the Attorney General’s (MAG) Debwewin Summer Program, with students placed at :
  • The Survivor’s Secretariat (external link) 
  • Nishnawbe Aski Legal Services Corporation (external link) 
  • MAG - Indigenous Justice Division
• The Community Justice Collective (external link) 
• Neighbourhood Legal Services (external link) 
• Justice for Children and Youth (external link) 
• Fair Change Community Services (external link) 
• The South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario (external link) 
• The Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic (external link) 

As part of these opportunities, students were able to participate in many experiential aspects of legal work, including preparing memoranda of law to support case work, performing case law and policy research, preparing public legal education materials, working directly with clients, preparing written legal submissions, and attending tribunal hearings.

The CDPPO hosts a number of Professional Development sessions throughout the academic year and over the summer. Our sessions are offered online and in-person depending on the content and timing. Our internal sessions are also recorded and saved in our CDPPO Portal for students to access on-demand.

Our Professional Development programming provides students with information related to career planning; summer job opportunities; clerkships; succeeding in your role and professional placements across various areas of law, including private practice, in-house, small and large firms, boutique practices, government, legal clinics, and public interest generally. Our programming covers both the regulated recruitment processes, non-regulated hiring, and JD advantage roles.

Over the past three years we have shared over 280 events with students. These have included internal professional development sessions hosted by our team as well as external events hosted by employers and law associations.

The CDPPO team works collaboratively with the faculty Clerkship Committee to solicit, review and support Lincoln Alexander law students for judicial clerkships. Students are encouraged to attend clerkships sessions and review the judicial clerkship resources in the CDPPO Portal.

The CDPPO Portal is your one-stop online access point for our services, programming, resources, and job opportunities. Through the CDPPO Portal students are able to access a large array of resources and guides related to: career planning; preparing effective cover letters and resumes; interviewing tips; conducting outreach and networking; clerkships; succeeding in your role, as well as information related to regulated recruitment and general job search strategies. The CDPPO Portal also provides students with the ability to: book one-on-one appointments with members of our team as well as register for our Professional Development sessions and employer events.

The CDPPO Portal also allows students to search for and apply to job opportunities posted by legal employers across a range of areas of practice and industry sectors. These postings include summer jobs, JD advantage roles, clerkships, and professional placement opportunities.

To access the services and resources offered, we encourage you to register on the CDPPO Portal. The Portal will allow you to:

• complete your personal profile
• register for professional development events
• explore career development resources
• review job opportunities
• register for on-campus hiring, and more!

Students are encouraged to visit the CDPPO Portal early and often and to book appointments with our staff for application reviews, one-to-one coaching, and mock interviews.