Legal Excellence Program Evaluation, Final Report

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1. Introduction

The Legal Excellence Program (LEP) was established in 2001 to meet the growing need of the Department of Justice (DOJ) to have a stable supply of “high-quality” entry-level lawyers. It has been the Department’s principal mechanism of recruiting and retaining articling students.

The pressures and challenges that existed eight years ago still exist today and new challenges have since emerged. Globalization, explosion of information technologies, the economic prosperity of the recent past resulting in increased commercial activities, and concerns of terrorist threats have dramatically increased the demand for legal services across Canada, which has made competition for top law graduates more intense. The Department is now required to increase the proportion of junior lawyers in its legal staff to meet budget cuts but the 2008 Public Service Employee Survey shows that retention of lawyers, especially at junior and middle levels, has become a challenge for the federal government due to significant salary gaps between lawyers in the private and public sectors and between the provincial and federal governments.

Whether the Department can recruit and retain a sufficient number of “high-quality” entry-level lawyers will have an impact on its ability to deliver on its mandate within resource constraints.

The purpose of this evaluation is to examine the rationale and continued relevance of the Program; the extent to which the program design is appropriate to support the objectives of the LEP; and what has happened as a result of the Program.

2. Methodology

Three research methods were used to conduct this evaluation: review of key documents; interviews of 62 key informants (senior managers and Human Resource [HR] managers, LEP coordinators and HR advisors, DOJ lawyers who worked in the private sectors before and Directors of Career Services at universities); and surveys of stakeholder groups (third year law students, DOJ current and former articling students and DOJ managers).

3. Findings and Conclusions

3.1. Role of the LEP in recruiting entry level lawyers

The recent announcement to concentrate external hiring at the LA-01 level and to put a temporary pause on hiring at the LA-02 level and up has sent a strong signal that the Department is moving to change its legal staff complement. This means that there will be an ongoing need to recruit entry-level lawyers.

The Program’s role in recruiting future LA-01s needs to be reviewed in light of the new direction the DOJ is taking. It is important that the role for the LEP (relative to other departmental recruitment mechanisms) be defined on the basis of a clear understanding of the needs of the Department and with consideration given to efficiency and effectiveness, rather than to be determined by the current budget availability or any historical expectation of the Program.

There are considerable advantages to hiring through the LEP, most notably that DOJ articling students have been evaluated by several managers over the course of their articling term and in a sense, they have been already “test driven”; they have learned about the federal government and the role of the Department in supporting it; and they can be hired immediately following the successful completion of their articles as there is no need for a second competitive process. The disadvantages are that it takes time and resources to develop articling students and they are only available for hiring as counsel following the successful completion of their articles and admission to the Bar.

The LEP has largely been managed by very busy people who have many other competing responsibilities. As a result, the Program’s capacity to be proactive or to link hiring priorities to departmental needs has been limited. There is considerable opportunity to improve the Program and to make it more useful to both the Department and to articling students. But in order to do this, it will need dedicated resources, both financial and human.

3.2. Governance structure

The evaluation found that the LEP lacks a clear governance structure. As a national initiative, there are no explicit roles and responsibilities set out for the key departmental stakeholders. Consequently, the Program is comprised of a set of loosely connected and regionally managed operations without having a management framework with clearly defined roles and responsibilities. The evaluation found that this situation has caused confusion, undermined program coherence and cohesiveness, and resulted in lost opportunities for the sharing of information and best practices. There is a need for a strong coordinating function between the National Capital Region (NCR) and the regions that will work to enable LEP teams across the country to establish and achieve common program objectives and ensure that there is more coherence in the way the Program is managed in the Department.

3.3. A common framework for program consistency

There is a need for the LEP to have greater implementation and management consistency across the Department. Because the provincial law societies set rules and regulations pertaining to the recruitment and training of articling students, there is an acknowledged need for certain flexibility in how the LEP is managed from region to region. This flexibility is also important as there are marked differences in the labour markets across the country and the competitive market for lawyers. However, the evaluation identified a number of areas where more consistency is desirable. For example, the DOJ provides varying levels of financial support to students during their Bar Admission Course and bar exams. Other areas where there is need for more consistency include program planning, student training, supervision and performance evaluation.

3.4. LEP national spokesperson and communication strategies

The evaluation found that there is a need for the LEP to have a “champion” or spokesperson as the absence of one has meant that the Program has lost a lot of its visibility both within the Department and externally. The spokesperson should be the main DOJ point of contact responsible for promoting the Program. It is important that there is strong and continuous communication between the Program and its key stakeholders such as, internally, with DOJ management at all levels, relevant ministerial committees and the DOJ Articling Student Alumni, principals and supervisors, and externally, with university Career Services, student bodies, bar associations, law societies and legal career service organizations.

3.5. Sharing of information and best practice

The evaluation found a need for the LEP to have a formal mechanism for exchanging program-related information and sharing of best practices, particularly in the area of marketing and student training. This would help enhance program consistency and cohesion, improve the efficiency and effectiveness of resource use and encourage innovation among LEP teams.

3.6. The name of the Program

The name of the Program does not contain words that reflect either the mandate of the Program, i.e., recruiting and training articling students, or its home organization, i.e., the Department of Justice. Although the LEP is increasingly known among law students as a DOJ articling program, it is advisable to change the name of the Program to one that is more self-evident.