VERMILION, Alta. — Less than three years after graduating from law school, Rebekah Hiebert is a partner in a law firm, makes important legal decisions and has weekends off.
Unlike many of her classmates, Hiebert chose to practise law in a rural community.
Hiebert, who graduated from the University of Victoria, knew competition would be tough for jobs at city law firms, the hours would be long and the work would be specialized.
Hiebert focused on rural and northern regions where lawyers are scarce and the choices greater.
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“It seemed like a better opportunity in terms of career development and an opportunity to work outside an urban centre,” said Hiebert, now a partner in Vermilion River Law in Vermilion.
“I really like that my work schedule is less intense than it would be at a larger centre because our firm has a practice that says we don’t need to be here on the weekend and we don’t need to be here to 7 o’clock at night. That is the workplace culture.”
Instead of spending the weekend working on files, Hiebert hikes trails around Vermilion, or in the winter, skis the scenic river valley.
“I feel like it is a rare opportunity to get that involved in a partnership this early,” she said.
Despite Hiebert’s career choice, a shortage of lawyers outside of larger centres seems to be growing.
In 2014, less than half of Alberta lawyers worked in Calgary, 33 percent in Edmonton and 11 percent in the rest of the province.
In 2003, 49 percent of Alberta lawyers worked in Calgary, 32 percent in Edmonton and 19 percent in the rest of Alberta.
In 2012 in British Columbia, there were 10,760 lawyers in the province and 86 percent worked in Victoria, Vancouver or Westminster.
Lawyers are also getting older.
“There is a severe greying of the rural bar,” said Cyril Gurevitch, a lawyer at Gurevitch Burnham in Grande Prairie and the former president of the Alberta branch of the Canadian Bar Association.
The number of active lawyers older than 60 has tripled in the last 10 years.
In B.C., the average age of a lawyer is 50. In the rural Kootenay region, almost 20 percent of the lawyers are older than 65.
There was a time when every community with 1,000 people had two or three lawyers. Often when the lawyer retires, the firms simply close their doors.
“Young lawyers have a reluctance to escape outside Edmonton and Calgary,” said Gurevitch.
When independent law firms closed in Fairview and Beaverlodge, an existing Grande Prairie firm took over the businesses.
“The regional law firms buy them out. That is not the answer to send lawyers out once or twice a week,” he said.
The shortage has serious implications for people who need a lawyer to sell their house, incorporate a farm, divorce or update their will.
Clients wanting to see a family lawyer in Grande Prairie are on a three-month waiting list.
Gurevitch refers clients seeking immigration lawyers to his contacts in Winnipeg or Vancouver.
Criminal lawyers routinely travel to Grande Prairie from Edmonton to cover court cases.
“We just don’t have the bodies,” he said.
If a house sale depends on getting legal papers signed, the buyers and sellers will travel halfway across the province to get it complete.
Few people will go to as much effort to change or update their will.
“That’s a major access to justice issue,” he said.
Gordon Graves of Iron River said there are lawyers in nearby Bonnyville, St. Paul and Cold Lake, but they are busy.
“You make an appointment and hope you don’t need to see them for two weeks,” he said.
One of Gurevitch’s first projects after becoming involved with the Canadian Bar Association was to raise awareness of the shortage of lawyers outside Calgary and Edmonton.
Through the bar associations and the University of Alberta and University of Calgary law schools, he and other lawyers began promoting the benefits of practising law outside the big cities.
“It’s a fear of the unknown. People from the cities don’t know what a rural or small community is,” he said.
Large firms have staff to promote their jobs and recruit students. As well, the job candidate might also have a spouse with an existing job in the city, which makes it difficult for cities like Lethbridge, Grande Prairie and Medicine Hat to recruit law students.
There is also a prestige associated with joining a large city law firm.
“There is a sense in law school that if you are not hired by a big city law firm you just haven’t made it.”
The University of Calgary started a pilot project to focus attention on specific communities, said spokesperson Maryanne Forrayi.
Two years ago, it promoted opportunities in Medicine Hat and brought students and local lawyers together at a barbecue.
Last year, the school worked with Red Deer lawyers.
The Alberta Rural Development Network launched a similar rural placement program a few years ago with money from Justice Canada. That program ended with the funding.
Dee Ann Benard, executive director of the Alberta Rural Development Network, said a similar project has been launched with funds from Justice Canada, and a half dozen law students have been enticed to rural areas.
The project helps rural lawyers understand that they need to set aside time to train young and articling law students.
John Reynolds, a partner in Vermilion River Law, said it takes more than money to attract law students. Students have become accustomed to the big city lifestyle and its amenities.
Reynolds said they worked hard making sure Hiebert felt welcomed into their family and community.
“I knew from experience you had to find that connection,” said Reynolds.
“We don’t insist on 14 hour days. We really emphasize the candidate would have time for family life as well as pursuing their career. People have to have time to recuperate and enjoy the benefits of the lifestyle we can offer.”
In British Columbia, the provincial branch of the Canadian Bar Association has created the Rural Education and Access Program (REAL BC). In the first five years, 69 second year law students worked in rural B.C. through the program, and three-quarters of those students returned to work there after they graduated.
Initially, the bar association put the call out to law firms looking for summer students with moderate success.
The program caught on when the law society analyzed community population statistics, the number of lawyers in an area, the presence of a courthouse and the age of the lawyers and targeted high needs communities.
Using money set aside from the bar association and the Law Foundation, the program helps small rural law firms find students and offsets the cost of taking second year law students for the summer.
“The rural is now becoming a preferred choice,” said Maureen Cameron, communications director with the Canadian Law Society’s B.C. branch.
Together, the students and REAL BC take a close look at the communities where they may like to live.
Law firms must also show a commitment to take on the students during their articling period, with a goal of keeping the students.
Since starting the targeted approach, the number of returning law students jumped, with 80 percent of the students placed in a rural area returning to the rural area.
This year, REAL BC placed five second-year law students in Prince George, who travel to surrounding communities.
Caeli MacPherson, a second year student working at Christopher H. Johnston Law Corp. in Revelstoke, B.C., who is studying law at the University of Saskatchewan, has taken advantage of REAL BC’s program.
“It was the lifestyle I wanted. I don’t want to work at a big law firm in a big city,” she said.
MacPherson was involved in her law school’s Small Urban and Rural Committee, which highlighted working in rural areas.
“It’s more about awareness,” she said.
mary.macarthur@producer.com
- In 2014, there were 8,865 lawyers in Alberta: 4,846 in Calgary, 2,916 in Edmonton and 1,103 in the rest of the province.
- 62 percent of Alberta lawyers are male.
- There are 6,150 lawyers in private practice in Alberta and 2,650 in-house or government lawyers.
- Women make up 33 percent of private practice lawyers and slightly more than 50 percent of in-house or government lawyers.
- Within five years of being called to the bar, 57 percent of women and 49 percent of men have left private practice. Many move to in-house or government positions.
- A shortage of lawyers affects legal aid, criminal, child welfare and low-income family law the most.
- The number of active lawyers older than 60 in Alberta has tripled in the last 10 years.
