By: Meruthula Jeevananthan, placement student from the Bora Laskin Faculty of Law at Lakehead University

Pandemic Placement, as you probably read in our previous blog post, is definitely not a situation any law student would want to see themselves in. From learning to transition to the professional world, to networking and building valuable connections, working online has taken a toll on the best of us.

Fortunately, the third-year law students on placement from the Bora Laskin Faculty of Law are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

As of September 2022, we have officially started allowing our first placement student – Meruthula Jeevananthan – to work in-person at our firm (after Covid) making their transition to the professional world that much easier.

What does this mean?

This means that we are now able to create a schedule that best suits our needs as well as that of our students with the skills we learned from working remotely.

Currently, our schedule works on a week-by-week basis where we collectively decide how many days our student attends the firm in-person. This allows us to have the best of both worlds.

We can now have those days where our students work with us side-by-side at the office and where we can later go grab coffee and/or lunch to discuss a case or file. However, we still have those days where our students save some time on commute and work remotely on the tasks assigned to them.

During the pandemic, we were aware of the setbacks students faced from working remotely. However, we are also aware of how overwhelming it can be for individuals to make the necessary adjustments when transitioning back to working in-person.

At our firm, we work effectively to ensure that our students are getting the most out of their experience with us – whether that is remotely or in-person. Nevertheless, we are pleased to finally start seeing our placement students in-person (as opposed to seeing them through a screen).