Structure & Duties

Responsibilities and Opportunities

Cavalluzzo is committed to providing clients with results-based practical legal services, and the articling year provides students with a substantial grounding in this objective. Immediately upon starting articles, students are involved in client meetings and all aspects of case preparation including:

  • direct client contact;
  • preparation of witnesses for hearings;
  • attendance at hearings;
  • drafting correspondence, pleadings, and legal submissions;
  • performing research, frequently on novel points of law; and
  • contact with opposing counsel.

 

Students have opportunities to work in many practice areas. As a firm, our matters primarily arise in a labour or employment context, which can involve a wide range of substantive law. Students will experience and learn about labour arbitrations, civil proceedings, human rights and other administrative proceedings, collective bargaining, Charter and constitutional litigation, professional regulation and discipline practice and much more.

At Cavalluzzo, students do not merely shadow a lawyer, but take on their own responsibilities for file work. We believe that attending hearings with lawyers provides an important learning experience and an opportunity to feel the satisfaction of obtaining positive results for a client. Occasionally, opportunities arise for students to conduct parts of, or entire, hearings.

The Structure of the Articling Programme

At Cavalluzzo, students move through three rotations during their articles.  Our rotation system is not based on practice areas, but rather is designed to give students the opportunity to work with all of the lawyers at the firm, regardless of their area of practice. The final rotation is informal, with students permitted to work with any of the firm’s lawyers.

We offer in-house education and training workshops to students throughout the articling period on a wide variety of topics, including both substantive law and practical issues related to the practice of law.

The articling program is administered by a Student Committee consisting of three of the firm’s lawyers. The Committee is committed to:

  • ensuring that the students’ work load is manageable;
  • ensuring that students are exposed to all of the firm’s lawyers and a broad cross-section of the firm’s work;
  • administering informal and formal evaluations and monitoring progress;
  • coordinating education/training workshops;
  • providing on-going and accessible support for students throughout the articling year;
  • coordinating informal meetings of the articling students to discuss issues of interest or concern to them; and
  • coordinating social events.