Ministry of the Attorney General Jobs for LLM Students

OsgoodePD hosted one of the first events of 2024 dedicated to helping Internationally Trained Lawyers in Toronto. On January 11^th 2024, OsgoodePD hosted an insightful panel about how internationally trained lawyers can stand out in the recruitment process for Ministry of the Attorney General jobs. The event was well attended by OsgoodePD’s Professional LLM students going through accreditation and licensing as well as candidates from the Global Professional LLM programs from the University of Toronto, allowing everyone to expand their networks.

The Ministry of the Attorney General is one of the largest employers in Ontario and has always welcomed internationally trained lawyers and NCA candidates, committed to public service, to participate in their job recruitment process. Counsel from the Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development, the Crown Law Office – Civil, and the Ministry of Indigenous Affairs came to network with LLM students in advance of the panel. Over the networking hour we saw internationally trained lawyer candidates go from quiet and tentative to engaged and inspired. Registrants commented on the counsel’s openness and willingness to connect and answer all of their questions, making it possible for them to practice networking in Canada while also learning a great deal about MAG. For many of these internationally trained lawyers, it was their very first opportunity to engage with the legal community since landing in Canada.

The panelists were Anastasia Mandziuk (Counsel at the Ministry of Indigenous Affairs), Yashoda Ranganathan (Counsel at the Constitutional Law Branch), Farzin Yousefian (Deputy Director at the Crown Law Office – Civil), and Amy Alyea (Counsel at the Crown Law Office – Criminal). The panelists generously offered personal insights and shared their experiences of reviewing applications, interviewing candidates, and working with articling students and junior lawyers.

Key takeaways from the panel were:

1. Advocate for yourself. Applicants were encouraged not to assume that the impressive nature of their previous work experience and education will speak for itself. Make it a point to showcase how impressive their experiences in other jurisdictions have been, how highly ranked their law schools were, and how relevant their work has been to what the MAG office does.
2. Make time to meet with lawyers. In the recruitment process and as a student or a junior in the Ministry, it is important that individuals meet with lawyers to express their interest in the work, ask for feedback, and ask for more work that they’re passionate about. It is hard to show a genuine interest in a Ministry if candidates have not made personal connections to the people there. Lawyers and partners will also not know that a student is interested in the work until they ask for more and engage the team.
3. Prepare for the interviews. Unlike many private sector interviews, MAG interviews are substantive in nature. As such, candidates will need to study what the Ministry does, what they’re involved in, look up their cases in reports, and review the legislation and regulations relevant to the Ministry.

The evening ended with lively questions and left panelists and participants excited to work together in the future to serve the needs of Ontario.