Information for Law Students Considering Summer or Articling Student positions

The Work

Our practice runs across four connected practice areas.

• Insolvency and Restructuring. Bankruptcy discharge applications, proposals under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, restructurings under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act, and creditor disputes. This is the core of the firm.

• Distressed Real Estate and Enforcement. Foreclosures, receiverships, and the enforcement and defence of secured lending arrangements.

• Fraud and Asset Recovery. Tracing, freezing, and recovering misappropriated assets, often where an insolvency has exposed the underlying conduct. We frequently act on matters at the intersection of fraud and insolvency.

• Insolvent and Contested Estates. Estate litigation and fiduciary disputes where the estate is insolvent or the conduct of a fiduciary is in issue.

What a Student Actually Does Here

We do not have a rotation system, because we do not have departments. Students work directly with the lawyer running the file, on the file that is live that week.

In practice, that means:

• Drafting affidavits, pleadings, chambers briefs, and written submissions. Your work is supervised and revised by the lawyer with carriage.

• Attending chambers and registrar hearings in the Supreme Court of British Columbia and, where appropriate, examinations and mediations.

• Legal research on live questions, frequently on points where the law is unsettled.

• Direct client contact, including on files where the client is in real financial distress.

Being Direct About Fit

Reedman Law is not the right place for every student, and we would rather say so during the recruit than in your third month.

If your goal is a broad general practice across corporate, employment, real estate, and general litigation, a full-service firm will serve you better, and we will say so if we think it during an interview. What we offer instead is depth, early responsibility, and the chance to become very good at a technical area of law and offer the opportunity to develop as a litigator.

Much of our work is litigation and dispute focused. Although we work within insolvency and debt restructuring, we do not offer significant exposure to solicitor or transactional work. You would be better served at a solicitor firm if your goal is to develop as a solicitor.

We are also a small firm. There is no student coordinator, no formal mentorship program, and no cohort to move through the year with. What there is instead is direct and continuous access to the people running the files.

Insolvency work is also, by its nature, work with people at the low points of their financial lives. It requires discretion and steadiness. Students who cannot sit comfortably in that room should tell us early.

What We Look For

• Strong writing. It is the single best predictor of success in this practice, and we weigh a writing sample heavily.

• Comfort with numbers. Not accounting training, but a willingness to work through financial statements, security registers, and cash-flow projections.

• Judgment under uncertainty. Our files rarely have a certain answer, and we need people who can work with our lawyers and assist in designing solutions for clients.

• Interest in insolvency, fraud, or distressed transactions. Curiosity is sufficient and we do not expect expertise or prior experience.

  
  

Grades matter, but they are not the whole profile. We read cover letters carefully and we take non-traditional backgrounds seriously. We especially encourage applications from internationally trained lawyers especially with those with insolvency, restructuring or banking experience. Summer Students

We hire summer students in some years, in both 1L and 2L are considered. Summer students do substantially the same work as articling students, with closer supervision.

A summer position with us is an opportunity to evaluate suitability for articles, and where we can, we prefer to hire our articling students from among people we have already worked with.

That is a preference and not a rule. We hire articling students directly in every cycle where we have positions, and an application from an applicant who has not summered with our firm is not a disadvantage.

Articling and the Admission Program

Articling with us is a nine-month term forming part of the Law Society of British Columbia's admission program.

We cover your Law Society enrolment fee and your PREP tuition in full, and we pay your salary for the time you spend completing the program, whichever delivery option you choose. We also cover reasonable professional development costs during your term.

How to Apply

Send the following to careers@reedmanlaw.com ideally as a single PDF, with the subject line “Articling Application — Your Name” or “Summer Application — Your Name” or [Articling Student Application — Your Name”

1. A cover letter addressed to Cody Reedman.

2. A resume.

3. Complete law school transcripts. Unofficial copies are acceptable. Undergraduate transcripts are optional.

4. A writing sample of no more than five pages. It must be your own unassisted work. Academic writing, a moot factum, or a legal memorandum are all appropriate. Please do not send anything privileged or confidential, and redact identifying details from any work produced in a legal workplace. If the sample was edited by someone else, tell us in a sentence what was yours.

Interviews

In person at our Vancouver office, in a single round of approximately 45 minutes, with the lawyers you would actually work with. We do not host dinners or receptions. We would rather you spent that evening somewhere you chose yourself, and we do not think a reception tells either of us anything useful.

Accommodation

If you need any accommodation for the interview or application process, tell us when you apply or at any point afterward. It will be arranged, and it forms no part of our assessment.