Law Clerk – Estates Litigation

Speigel Nichols Fox LLP is a Mississauga-based boutique commercial litigation law firm that has been in business since 1976.

We are currently seeking a skilled, competent, and trustworthy law clerk with estates litigation experience to join our team. The successful candidate will play a crucial role in supporting our estates lawyer in handling a variety of estates, capacity and trust litigation matters. This is an excellent opportunity for an individual with strong organizational skills, attention to detail, and the ability to take initiative in tasks.

The lawyer to whom the candidate would be primarily dedicated works in-office and the expectation would be that the candidate also works in-office.

The candidate would be offered substantial mentoring and increasing variety of work and responsibility, if desired.

Responsibilities:

• Assisting with the preparation, drafting and proofreading of court documents, including pleadings, affidavits, motions, factums, and briefs and trial records, as well as general correspondence and reporting letters.
• Formatting all court documents in accordance with Superior Court of Justice practice directions, including compiling records, bookmarking, hyperlinking, etc.
• Serving, filing online and uploading documents to Case Centres.
• Corresponding with Court staff, and in particular, the Toronto Estates List, as needed to request and confirm scheduling appointments, case conferences, hearing dates, etc.
• Coordinating and scheduling meetings, conferences, cross-examinations, and mediations with counsel and parties.
• Managing the lawyer’s calendar, including diarizing and ensuring deadlines are met.
• Assisting with email review and processing, maintaining and organizing electronic and hard copy files, and ensuring all relevant documents are accurately filed and easily accessible.
• Communicating with clients, opposing counsel, court personnel, and financial institutions professionally and efficiently.
• Staying current on changes in court procedure and practice directions.
• Performing legal administrative tasks including overseeing file openings, preparing draft engagement letters, obtaining retainers, reviewing dockets, preparing accounts and billing.

The ideal candidate will have the following experience and skills:

• Working knowledge of Justice Services Online, Case Centres, PDF editing programs, Zoom, Dropbox, PCLaw and Microsoft Office.
• Understanding of the Rules of Civil Procedure and provincial/regional practice directions.
• Strong written and oral communication skills.
• Strong organizational, multi tasking, and time management skills.
• Attention to detail with excellent proofreading skills.
• Ability to think critically and solve problems as they arise.
• Completion of accredited Law Clerk program or minimum 3 years’ experience working as a law clerk.
• Minimum 1 year experience working in estate litigation.

Job Type: Full-time

Additional pay:

• Overtime pay

Benefits:

• Company events
• Company pension
• On-site parking
• Paid time off

Schedule:

• Day
• Monday to Friday
• No weekends

Experience:

• law clerk/legal assistant: 1 year in estate litigation (required)

Work Location: In person

We appreciate all applications; however, only candidates selected for an interview will be contacted.

Please send your resume and cover letter to:

James Murphy
james@ontlaw.com
Speigel Nichols Fox LLP
Tel: 905.366.9700 ext. 275
Fax: 905.366.9707
1 Robert Speck Parkway, Suite 200
Mississauga, On L4Z 3M3

 

WHY YOU SHOULD CONSIDER US

1. Rewarding Results

We are more interested in what a lawyer accomplishes than the length of time it takes to accomplish it.

2. Flexibility

We know that wanting to work from home on Tuesdays, wanting to work four days a week, or wanting to go to yoga at 3pm on Thursdays, does not mean that we have a bad or unreasonable lawyer. We seek to customize a lawyer’s working experience in a manner that meets the needs of the lawyer and our firm – with a compensation that fairly reflects the lawyer’s work product.

3. A Firm That Encourages Change

We insist on evolving with the times. We are not only open to new ideas, we encourage our lawyers to dream big, think differently, and implement smartly. We really try hard never to say “because that is the way it has always been done.”

4. Enjoying Work and Life

We won’t lie – we work hard, which is why we believe that creating an enjoyable work environment is essential.

We do not believe in bureaucracy and hierarchy just for the sake of it. We do not tolerate big egos who cannot operate in a team environment. We are similarly not interested in having our lawyers undertake make-work projects to increase billable hours.

We believe that trust and loyalty are two of the most important ingredients in a sustainable working relationship. As a result, we do everything that we can to engender those values in our lawyers. We feel that lawyers produce their best work when they like what they are doing and believe that they are being appropriately rewarded for their contributions. We try to create an environment where that is possible.

We also value everything else in life. We know that lawyers who are able to spend quality time outside of work make for better workers.

WHO WE ARE LOOKING FOR

We are looking for Big Law alumni who are interested in challenging the status quo. We want someone who is:

·       Smart & articulate

·       Hard working – life does not owe you a living

·       Hard playing – you still have a life outside work

·       Technically competent

·       An entrepreneur

·       Someone with a sense of humour – when you work with us, it helps

We could compose an even longer list, but very few people are perfect, so why bother?

Your résumé will tell us a lot about you, but it will not tell us about who you are. When you send us a cover letter, do not tell us that you have excellent written and oral communication skills (yawn, do you think we expect an illiterate?) or that you are a team player (does that mean you cannot work independently?).

Do not write your own reference telling us how great you are (getting someone else to do it whom we respect is another matter). Tell us something that will interest us or, alternatively, that will make us laugh.

1. Have you ever dealt with opposing counsel who was older than you, appeared to be more knowledgeable than you about the applicable substantive area of law, and told you that your case was ridiculous, you were an idiot, or your client was a liar? What did you do?

2. Have you ever gotten yourself invited to an invite-only conference that you really wanted to attend? How did you do it?

3. Are you assertive? Tell us about how your assertiveness led you into an extraordinary situation.

4. Have you had dinner with the president of the USA? An MP? A Fortune 500 CEO (who is not your father)? A Muay Thai wrestler? A self-admitted pirate (either high seas or technology)?

Tell us an interesting story about yourself. Then you will be showing, not telling, us how well you write.

To apply, please send a cover letter and résumé to info@ontlaw.com