Articling Program
The Student Experience
Articling at the Calgary office of Stikeman Elliott will appeal to students with a desire to practice corporate and commercial law at the highest level. We provide an opportunity to work in an office that is relatively small in numbers, but which enjoys the quality of work and resources of a large, international, full service firm. We service sophisticated business clients and, accordingly, our practice concentrates on complex commercial matters, often with an international dimension. We are fully integrated with our other offices and the firm, as a whole, has expertise in all areas of the law.
The Articling Student Matching Programme
We participate in the Articling Student Matching Programme, which is conducted under the supervision of the Law Society of Alberta. Packages of materials describing the matching program, including a student agreement form to be completed by students for registration in the program, are distributed to law schools throughout Canada. All applicants for articling positions at the Calgary office of Stikeman Elliott must register with the program in order to be eligible to match with our firm. Students who have not obtained the necessary materials, including applicants from outside Alberta, can obtain them directly from National Matching Services Inc., 595 Bay Street, Suite 301, Box 29, Toronto, Ontario, M5G 2C2. Their telephone number for calls from Alberta is 1-800-461-6322 and for calls from other provinces is (416) 977-3431.
Summer Students
Each summer, we hire two law students who have completed their first or second year of law school. As a summer student, you will have an opportunity to work closely with lawyers on a variety of files. The work which a summer student will undertake will be similar to that of the articling students within the office. We make every effort to ensure that the work of our summer students reflects their objectives and interests. In certain situations, our summer students may spend a portion of the summer working in one of our other Canadian offices. Our summer students are paid a salary that is competitive with other major law firms in Calgary.
The Mentor System
Rather than a formal rotation, the Calgary office uses a mentoring system which enables students to work on files from start up to completion. Each student is assigned one partner and one associate lawyer to act as that student's mentors. The mentors assist the student in managing a diverse workload, gaining a well-rounded articling experience and answering the many questions, both professional and personal, that tend to arise over the articling year.
Joining the Firm as an Associate
We recruit our articling students very carefully with the intent that they will remain with the firm upon the completion of their articles. Accordingly, we make every effort to ensure that our articling students become highly competent lawyers. The result of this approach is that, in the last ten years, all of our students have been offered positions as associates.
Salary and Benefits
Our articling students are paid a salary that is competitive with other major law firms in Calgary and receive related employment benefits such as an extended health care and dental plan after three months. In addition, the firm pays the tuition for the Bar Admission Course and pays all articling students their salary during the time that they are attending the Bar Admission Course.
