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Dentons Canada LLP - Toronto, Ontario
Professional Development
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Training |
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|---|---|
| Coaching/mentoring program? | Yes |
| Details of coaching/mentoring program |
Summer Students: Mentors are assigned to each summer student. Their responsibilities include ensuring that their summer student feels welcomed, acting as their key point of contact for questions that come up over the course of their summer, taking steps to ensure that they are well integrated into the office (i.e. inviting them to events and activities in their local office), and making sure that the students have the opportunity to do a variety of interesting work. Mentors are asked to meet with their summer student on a weekly basis, and encouraged to be a positive role model by demonstrating the specific behaviours and actions required to succeed in private practice. Mentors are also asked to create learning opportunities for their student by doing things like including their student in practice or business development initiatives, or helping them to make connections within the Firm to help them build their network, or including them in a client meeting, lunch or event/inviting them to attend motions, closings, etc. and then talking about it afterwards and inviting their questions.
Articling Students: All Articling students are assigned a Principal. Principals monitor student progress throughout the year and act as a sounding board to them during their articles. Some of our offices will also assign an associate mentor to the student during each rotation. Associates: All of our offices have formal mentorship programs where each associate is assigned a mentor to support their growth and development. Partner mentors guide associates on all areas of practice, including business development and career planning. Both mentors and mentees receive educational programs, resources and guidelines to help the program succeed. |
| Evaluations | Annual |
| Upward reviews? | No |
| Students are interested in specific professional development opportunities you provide. Please provide examples. |
Our law students benefit from our student training programs, which are specially targeted to their career level. Summer and articling students begin their experience with an in-depth orientation to our systems, offices and practice areas.
As part of this orientation, all students receive training in the following areas: • Firm Governance and Professionalism • Professional Responsibility and Managing Risk • Best Practices in Legal Research (including training on legal research technology including WestlawEdge, Practical Law Canada, and Lexis Advance Quicklaw) • Law Firm Technology (including basic IT software programs as well as practice specific tools such as Closing Folders, StructureFlow, DisclosureNet, Luminance, and Contract Companion) Learning opportunities for our students doesn’t stop at legal and business best practices. Other sessions we’ve offered include: • Emotional Wellness for New Professionals • Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility For associates, We strongly support continuing professional development (CPD) activities designed to maintain and enhance all our lawyers’ professional knowledge, skills and professionalism throughout their career, with internal training programs tailored to the stages of a lawyer’s career. We have a dedicated curriculum for newly-admitted lawyers, the Foundations Education Series, which focuses on the development of core competencies across all practice areas. The program starts off with a series of intensive sessions designed to do a deep dive across a variety of topics including habits and goal setting, practice management, client development, and the business of law, followed by a seminar series throughout the first three years of a lawyers’ practice. We also offer ongoing training to all lawyers on the integration of technology into their practices through our Knowledge and Legal Operations team. We have trained lawyers and law students on a number of pieces of new legal technology, which has since been widely adopted by our lawyers to achieve greater efficiency in their practices and helps build client relationships with businesses that are increasingly technology-driven. Lawyers have access to a broad range of professional development tools and resources that support their CPD on the Dentons Canada internal portal (intranet) and through our new Learning Management System. Annually, the Firm offers more than 200 seminars, workshops and training sessions in Canada. Recent areas of focus include virtual work, technology, mental health, and inclusion & diversity. We also offer a number of programs designed to support our mid-level and senior associates as they progress in their careers. This programming focuses on the skills that they’ll need to develop in order to continue to succeed, and include things like leading self, leading others, and leading organizationally. Specific topics include advanced practice management and time management, effective delegation techniques, how to effectively give and receive feedback, and profile and client development. |
| Professional development staff? | Yes |
| Do you offer internal continuous legal education (CLE)? | Yes |
| Do you provide funds to attend external CLE? | Yes |
| Comments | We are committed to providing continued support to our lawyers to help them position them to be the best lawyers they can be at each stage in their careers. Local and national members of our dedicated professional development team oversee our national associate development program, which includes an annual associate goal setting and review process. We offer local, national and North America-wide training programs, and also support associates’ attendance at external CLE courses. Associates are taught practical legal skills and offered career guidance through individual coaching and mentoring, and internal programming. |
