An Interview with Uriel, from lawstudents.ca
Introduction
If you were to take a Facebook comment thread, anonymize the users, narrow the subject matter, adopt in-group acronyms, outdate the web design, and convince the users they could improve their prospects of university acceptance or a job by posting vigorously, then you would have something resembling lawstudents.ca.
How did the site become as it is, and why would someone spend a decade moderating it? Obiter sat down to find out.
Opening (or, Tell Us About Yourself)
Why Uriel?
I was a seventeenth-century English scholar, and that was my favourite character in Milton’s Paradise Lost. He’s the dopeyest angel, protector of Earth, and he completely blows it on his first try.
So you picked that name back when you joined lawstudents.ca?
Yes, back in 2007.
You’ve been on lawstudents.ca for over a decade now. How does that feel?
Feels super good. Thanks for reminding me. I remember making the account in the mailroom of my old job, stack of practice LSATs next to the paper cutter…
Why did you join lawstudents.ca?
Same reason as everybody else; I was thinking of applying to law school. No lawyers in the family, no connections, not from this province. I just started Googling answers to find out how to write the LSAT.
My first post was a typical “chances thread”. “Hey, what are my chances at getting U of T or Osgoode?” Things were different then, because the site was almost all law school applicants – not students and certainly not lawyers. There were two sites: lawstudents.ca and lawbuzz.ca. The latter was a wretched hive of scum and villainy. Hmm? Just a Star Wars joke. You kids and your…rapping music. Anyway, Lawbuzz was mostly sock puppet accounts and inside jokes. It was an aggressive and cynical place; that’s where the lawyers, such as they were, hung out. The admins of lawbuzz.ca eventually shut down the site after relentless and vexatious litigation. Doxxing was a big problem.
So at that time, lawstudents.ca was mainly law applicants and students. Occasionally, lawyers came over from the other website, which was a big deal back then. Me, ErinL2, Hegdis, Pyke: we were the first cohort of students who had been on, became lawyers, and stuck around. Jaggers rebranded from lawbuzz.ca and ended up coming over. That’s how it became more of a “law profession” website, and why the website for lawyers is for some reason named “students”. The “Career Services” section either didn’t exist, or mostly sat empty back then.
An Aside on the Lawstudents.ca Culture
You described a toxic culture on lawbuzz.ca, but that’s how some people perceive lawstudents.ca today. Are the moderators doing enough to keep the site civil?
There are different philosophies on how the site should be moderated. I am certainly more of a freedom of speech advocate. Unless people are being abusive, then they should be able to say what they want. We are all going to be lawyers, and we are going to face adversarial communications. We [moderators] can’t be everywhere to correct everything. We respond to reports of abuse. We deal with reports of abuse. Though we wish it were, we don’t undertake to ensure the environment is always positive. Then it would be a blog. And sometimes people say things that should be called out aggressively.
How would you respond to the claim that lawstudents.ca has a negative effect on the mental health of some law students?
It does. If you put enough neurotic, type-A personalities in the room, it looks a lot like law school – and we know what a toxic influence that can be. But, it is impossible to separate that from the issues and topics we deal with on the site. When you have user-generated content, you get the content your users generate.
You help your firm with OCI interviews, so you’ll be used to this question: why law?
I was always interested in law, at least as a top three option. I had finished my MA in English, and was preparing to go out and do a PhD – even got a committee together. Then, the job prospects sunk in. My then-girlfriend, now wife, is also an academic. I realized we would both be working for pennies, in the same field, with huge student debt, probably on opposite sides of the continent. Then there was law, and my [academic] work was at the intersection of politics and literature anyway, so I found the idea of being a legal academic appealing.
Instead, you pursued Bay St.
And ended up at the firm I wanted most.
Compare your perspective on lawstudents.ca when you joined to your perspective now.
As I get older, I post less because the information I have isn’t as responsive to students’ concerns. I don’t know how the LSAT is written anymore, how applications are processed, what TV shows a student is watching. I do a lot more by way of mentoring and coffee meetings, especially with people who are newcomers to Canada, and people from different socioeconomic backgrounds to other law students. I talk to people when they are having a crisis. For a lot of students, they have to put on a show for family and colleagues, and don’t know where they can express weakness or uncertainty or regret. I get a lot of those messages and try to be on top of them as much as I can.
Content (or, Believing Things You Read Online)
Do you have a favourite discussion topic (and is it the “Seven Sisters”)? Why do you think the term is still being used?
The killer is inside the house! Lawstudents.ca is, in large part, I think, where people find out about the “Seven Sisters”. The discussion about the inaccuracy of the information just drives more discussion. It’s like if someone says, “Hey: don’t think about purple penguins.” You can’t help but think about it.
It’s not just us. Media around the legal profession in Canada still cleaves to the notion of the “Seven Sisters”. What drives me crazy is not that people want to rank things, but that it is an irrational ranking. I can see an argument for 4, or for 20, but not for 7.
I think the phrase “Seven Sisters” appeals to people because it has a ring of authenticity to it. You have the “Seven Sisters” waterfall, the “Seven Sisters” (traditionally women’s) liberal arts colleges in the States. The research says that the legal media started using the term in reference to a single quarter of M&A results in the early 2000s.
Here’s what really gets me. These are research-oriented, analytical people making decisions almost exclusively on a rhetorical device. You would think that’s the opposite of who we are as lawyers. And yet, the biggest bet you’ll ever place, the most important business decision you might ever make…you’re basing it on a phrase in a magazine article. You put way less thought into that than the average flame post you stick up any given Thursday.
With that said, why do you think lawstudents.ca is valuable?
One of the things that the site is most useful for is to level the playing field between people who have a lot of access to the legal market, and people who don’t – like me, someone who grew up in a rural setting outside of the province. Learning how lawyers assess candidates and their metrics of evaluating candidates. Deflating the idea that you need to be a Harvey Specter or a polished prep-school kid to get a job. That’s valuable.
More often than not, does the lawstudents.ca hivemind give an accurate answer to questions?
How reliable is it? As reliable as Twitter. Some credible sources, some purportedly credible sources, and trolls. Hopefully people are media savvy enough to do their weeding.
What are your thoughts on LS becoming more like Reddit, with an upvote-downvote system?
I had a thought on that. Not a fan. When you order comments by “merit”, or really, popularity, top-down, it becomes a dunking contest, and not about providing helpful information. This format we have allows new voices to be heard but still allows you to flag useful information. Lawstudents.ca is not an entertainment website; it’s an information website.
How would you respond to the concern that lawstudents.ca is an intimidating place to post an opinion?
It is! There are people on that site with strong rhetorical skills, opinions, and experience. It is daunting. That is part of the reason that we work to moderate comments. For the most part, people are fairly generous. They are generous with the leeway given to new students. Most of us, I hope, are accommodating – but it’s still the internet, so you’re always on eggshells if someone wants to win some imaginary points.
Are complaints from firms, schools or individuals common?
We receive them constantly, but almost 100% of the time it is content they themselves posted! Our policy is that we don’t take content down. You have to get used to being polite on the record. Not only do we not have the resources to police everyone all the time, but also because if you say something stupid, and you subsequently identify yourself, I don’t see why it’s our responsibility to help you pretend that you didn’t do something that hurt someone. Similarly for companies and law schools who post something in the heat of the moment.
There are company accounts?
Oh yeah, and there are users who are schools, or administrators, or service providers, and they generally admit that. While I was at law school, and when lawstudents.ca was still referred to as “the blogs”, admin staff would watch the site like hawks to see how they would be discussed there.
Are there topics where you sense “chilling effects” have affected a discussion?
Topics that I don’t feel comfortable talking about are just not ones I am inclined to comment on. I try not to comment on specific law firms. I hear rumours, and I can generalize, but people are inclined to believe what I say, so I have to be responsible. I try not to refer to specific firms online.
If I meet with someone, I might be able to tell them a bit more about a firm they are considering, but nah, I am not going to try to describe the culture of a firm on lawstudents.ca.
Lawstudents.ca is uniquely positioned to reach a broad group of prospective, current, and former law students. As you said, the opinions of moderators are given significant deference by most users. So moderators have an ability to influence a broad group. Do the moderators have a duty to speak up on social issues affecting the profession?
I don’t know if we have a collective mind on this. We operate collaboratively, not collectively. I think of my role as being primarily to maintain civil order, and to be a resource for students that need help. I’m not sure anyone cares what my opinion on specific legal developments might be. To whatever extent I personally have an opinion, I try to advocate against harmful misconceptions about the legal market. Deflating myths about Bay St., contributing something about what career options look like after law school.
Do you know the other moderators (personally)? Do you get together for beers?
A few of us, very occasionally, yes. A number of us know each other, but we have not had an all-moderators meeting. Some of the moderators are very cautious with their identity. There are quite a few where I still wonder who they could be.
Logistics (or, How Does It Work?)
When did you become a moderator? I don’t remember exactly, but it was around 2009. You were still a student?
There are student moderators.
You work. Why are you still a moderator?
When most people are on Facebook, I’m on lawstudents.ca. Most of my time on the site these days is invisible, though, answering private messages.
What does it take to keep the site running: how many people, each doing what, and what does it cost?
I should just say that I don’t run the site, and don’t take part in the administration. I’m not sure.
Okay, but do you know where lawstudents.ca gets its funding from?
Morgans LLP.
What’s next for lawstudents.ca? Are there future plans or changes coming to the site?
Not that I’m aware of. It was a huge hassle changing format a few years ago. Like buttons are still new to old guys like me. It’s like doubling the Twitter character count; everyone’s furious until they get used to it.
What is the most entertaining way that lawstudents.ca has been misused?
Okay, here’s the quote I want on this: “Most of the misuses of the site are not funny at all.” People would be surprised at the amount of abuse. What’s that Penny Arcade line: opinion + anonymity = dickwad? [Editor’s Note: This is a reference to the “Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory” from the 2004 Penny Arcade Comic “Green Blackboards (And Other Anomalies)”: Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Total Fuckwad ]
A lot of people who want to be lawyers, or are, are highly argumentative and take things personally; they have egos, and they also have a disproportionate sense of their newfound, very modest amount of power. And they don’t have any of the experience to know when to pull the trigger on legal threats and what the practical consequences of that can be. So there are doxxing issues, harassment issues, and threats of litigation, or actual litigation. Those are less funny.
More funny: when corporations try to do the “How do you do, fellow kids? You know what’s great? This line of credit!” We can see who you are.
I take it you can’t arbitrarily ban people from lawstudents.ca, but if you could, what kinds of posts should earn someone the banhammer?
I don’t do that. I’ve never banned or suspended anyone myself. I’ve found private conversations to be much more effective than the exercise of power. Kind of my approach to litigation too, I guess. You have to be mindful of what motivates other people. Just because you can stop something by force, doesn’t mean you should.
On Second Thought (or, A Decade in Review)
It must be exciting that soon enough you’ll be making a partnership bid.
It still is difficult to get out of the student mindset. I tell students during OCIs, don’t think of this as a merit contest: it’s a business decision. The “better” student doesn’t “win” the job. The firm picks the students that will supply the needs it has. And yet here I am, struggling with the idea that it’s a business decision, not just a merit decision. You don’t become a partner just because you’re good at what you do; you have to make a business case for sticking around. Now it is a horse-race as to what will happen first: will I make partner and pay off my student debt?
Speaking about tuition, you’re a U of T grad. At the time, your tuition was around $25K. Now, tuition at U of T is around $40K, and Osgoode’s is around $30K. If you were a prospective law student today, with the financial situation you were in then, what school do you think you would choose?
I could not justify U of T. I can’t recommend it to my mentees anymore, which is awful because I loved my professors. But if I had the knowledge that I have now, then I might go to Osgoode to stay in Toronto, but I would probably go to Western or Queen’s. Even Osgoode is borderline.
You’ve said before that firms often assume that students go to the best law school they can get into. Given the current tuition levels, it may be that students go to the best law school they can afford to. How do you think that will affect recruitment?
It’s a double-edged sword for students. Do we as firms look harder at less expensive places knowing that a lot more exceptional candidates with limited means are now going to go there? Or, do we make a cynical decision and recruit harder out of U of T and Osgoode because that’s where the debt is? It’s one way of guaranteeing loyalty a bit longer.
I see exceptional candidates from all the Ontario schools, and I think it is well known that all of our law schools teach at a very high level. Law school, to me, will continue not to matter all that much compared to a student’s other personal qualities.
But I don’t make the screening decisions. By the time a candidate gets to me, someone else has decided to grant them an interview. The rest is not my decision to make.
When Ryerson Law first came up, you proposed a satirical alternative to a low-cost law school: the Uriel Finch Backyard Faculty of Law. Osgoode is currently shortlisting candidates for Dean. If appointed Dean of Osgoode, what would you do with the school?
I wish I had a better answer for you. The last ten years have taught me that things that seem obvious are always more complicated than they seem. I assume you can’t just look at the law school in isolation. There’s tons of pressure on Deans, not just from students, but also from staff, the faculty, the University. Law schools are insanely profitable, but I don’t know where that money goes or who is relying on it. I don’t have a good appreciation of the pressures the Deans are under. The instinct, of course, is to say: hire a lot more professors – excellent teachers – rather than using sessionals or adjuncts, thus creating more jobs and increasing student support. You can do that instead of paying astronomical rates for superstars – some of whom, of course, you can’t live without.
Lower tuition. I’m not sure if that’s feasible, even though you don’t need many materials to run a law school. You do need professionals though, and top-of-the-line academics. What I can say is that here on Bay St. there is very little appreciable difference between the top candidates at different Ontario law schools. So someone out there is doing a comparable job running a law school with fewer resources.
Did you ever read an issue of Ultra Vires cover-to-cover when you were at U of T?
All of them. I think it was relevant to me to read what my peers were thinking. I wanted to see what my friends thought was important enough to write about.
Speaking about your writing, what’s something you’ve since changed your opinion on?
I am less down on Bay St. than I used to be, as you can tell. Originally, I wanted to maybe a government lawyer, or a sole practitioner. I had no idea how fun this kind of practice could be. I also think since law school I have started to view judges as more of human beings, and less as vaunted fonts of reason. We are very lucky to have an extremely well qualified bench in Canada, something not many countries have, but I now have a better appreciation that they’re human and they want you to get to the point. They don’t have an unusual tolerance for solipsistic 80,000 word essays.
What’s a post you regret?
I don’t know if I regret it, but I posted that I was going to interview a bunch of colleagues that got interesting jobs without going through Bay St. Then, I have been conducting those interviews, but I haven’t had time to transcribe them, so I feel bad for announcing it without having it ready. It’s coming. I promise.
Who’s someone you wish would post more?
A lot of credit should be given to people who have a niche practice, and who pop up from time to time, to answer specific questions. That kind of help is invaluable. As much as we try to give a perspective on the legal market, it is tainted by our own experience. People who didn’t go to Bay St., people who pursued a different path: those stories are lacking. Bay St. is a temporary job for most people for about three years. Given that you’re going to work for 30 or 40, it’s fair to say that the site is really just a radio telescope scanning 1% of the sky out there.
So if there were posts you wish you saw, fewer of, they would be…
Posts about Bay St. They contribute to the outsized view that this is what a successful career looks like, and that’s not a view that’s shared by basically anyone that’s practicing law out in the world. I’m the weirdo that’s still here. Given the opportunity, virtually everyone – all your peers, no matter how gung-ho they are right now – choose to do something else.
The best posts you’ve seen?
I think my favourites tended to be something creative. There were times years ago where people would write fiction. Moderators and articling students doing “choose your own adventure” posts. We’d leave it up to the community to fill in their choices, and in the process, learn something about the practice of law. It was a fun, inside look at a firm or a different kind of practice, and useful.
Closing (or, What Matters)
Suppose lawstudents.ca is about to be deleted, and there are no archives anywhere. What do you save?
I would go back and save this one post that I think is also my most upvoted. It started with how I had had a terrible first term, and ended up with a “big stinking C” as the only grade I had to show for my entire first term. I was completely reconsidering if law was right for me, I felt dumber than all my classmates, it was morale-crushing. I felt like I’d let my tiny little family down, and given up a good job to do it.
The post was about how I’d come through it and ended up at the firm that I wanted. I had gone back to say: “don’t wallow in that vat of despair”. It can actually take some time for things to click for you. Don’t let the first few months of school dictate how you think you’ll be as a lawyer for the next 40 years. I still get private messages on that a dozen times a year.
The sentiment I get in those messages isn’t so much asking for advice as, just, “thank you for this.” I think it’s the kind of thing that people need to hear, especially when there’s no safe place for them to admit failure or doubt at school, or sometimes at home.