Since coming to law school, I have loved studying law—I just wish I could describe what it is. I will tell you at the start that if you expect me to resolve this quandary in this blog post, you will be disappointed. But I write to tell you a bit about how my internship has deepened my understanding of law, and what that might mean for my future law practice.
I learned on my first day at the Akwesasne Justice Department that I would be the only non-Indigenous staff member and the only one with formal legal education, apart from their in-house lawyer. Suffice to say that in a workplace of dozens, I felt out of place. Using a Canadian state legal framework, everything felt backward; I, the intern, was one of few with the formal qualification necessary to practice law in Canada. Yet, I was certainly the least qualified, and by far had the most to learn.
The narratives of law practice matter because they tell us what the role of a lawyer is. More profoundly, they tell us who can practice law. In some Indigenous narratives of law practice, there are no lawyers; rather, legal conflicts are resolved through processes accessible to all. In Canada, our narrative is that only those with a law degree and a bar membership in good standing can practice as a lawyer in that jurisdiction.
The narratives of law itself matter, too. For example, the Akwesasne Justice Department provides legislative services to the community to support its internal governance. In Canada, we are seeing a shift in legal orders that recognize Indigenous sovereignty over certain areas of law; put another way, Indigenous communities increasingly have the recognized authority to govern themselves using their own legislation and other legal apparati. Prior to these shifts in authority, Indigenous law was perceived as custom, something beneath “law.” Infamously, Canada’s sovereignty was in part founded using a legal narrative supported by the doctrine of discovery and terra nullius. A necessary part of reconciliation is accepting that multiple narratives of law can—and indeed, must—co-exist for legal reconciliation to succeed in the modern era. (The important question of how is something I plan to address in a coming research paper this semester.)
If law can take on multiple narratives, then can law practice, too? On its face, the answer appears to be an obvious yes. Each lawyer can develop their own relationship to their practice, one that is guided by the standards of the professional code of conduct of their jurisdiction. However, the deeper question lies at the boundaries of where legal practice ends and extra-legal practice begins. Guided by a professional code and acting in the interest of your client, is there truly much room for a lawyer to navigate when providing their legal services? I think you can find much purchase in diversifying the narratives of law practice when you reconsider what are legal services.
An important take-away I had from this summer was the breadth of roles a lawyer can fill within an organization. Yes, it is important that a lawyer interpret statutes and caselaw and provide legal advice; but in speaking to other students who did internships this summer, I’ve heard of lawyers acting as media speakers, communication staffers, fundraisers, educators, presenters, and mediators. Depending on a lawyer’s specific client, these roles can become ever more diverse. In my personal developing narrative of law practice, I’ve come to understand the lawyer as the person who brings all the disparate needs of a client together, often articulating their way forward using a legal narrative. To me, I want to be a lawyer who adopts a Swiss Army knife approach to law practice; I want to go beyond only looking at caselaw and statutes and try to understand a client holistically, appreciating the full range of their needs.
This is just my developing narrative to law practice. I encourage you to think of yours.