New U of M program gives law students taste of Steinbach legal firms, rural communities

A new University of Manitoba program seeking to connect law students to rural communities and address lawyer shortages made its inaugural trip to Steinbach. The Prairie Business Law Collaboration Just Grow Here program brought 11 students on the road trip to hear from five local lawyers on Feb. 27, the first program of its kind in Canada.

Laura Reimer, program development director for the University of Manitoba faculty of law and head of the Desautels Business Law Accelerator, kick-started the program when local Steinbach lawyers invited the students to get a taste of rural life.

Reimer hopes the program will help address disparity between legal services in urban and rural communities. Her research revealed 88 percent of Manitoba lawyers are in Winnipeg and 11 percent serve the rest of the province, causing many to not access the resources they need or force others to travel long distances, she said.

“You can have a grandma that lives on a farm a couple of hours outside of Dauphin would have to travel to Dauphin to change her will or break up her farm or that type of thing,” she told The Carillon.

Rural practices have never been part of law school culture, with little information available about working outside of the perimeter highway, Reimer said. Many of the large Winnipeg-based law firms have more resources to recruit students and begin networking with students early in their education, she added.

“The firms can go from downtown (Winnipeg) to the law school to host a wine and cheese or a networking event in 20 minutes. They don’t have to drive a long distance,” Reimer said.

The law school has to do a better job at showing what rural law practice looks like to graduates, and that they can still have a rewarding career in a smaller community, she said. But even if students intern or begin articling in smaller communities, there’s still a risk they’ll return to work in Winnipeg.

When chatting with Steinbach lawyers, she said they were “adamantly against” speaking to students in Winnipeg and instead insisted the students needed to come see what the town was like, Reimer said. She hopes to take students to other communities such as Dauphin, Thompson and Indigenous reserves on future trips. She also wants to develop a course on how to start a professional practice to help spur students in branching outside of Winnipeg.

Anne Barkman a partner for Steinbach firm Loewen Henderson Banman Legault LLP, shared her experience working in Steinbach to the students. She said that trip was a “fantastic” idea to address misconceptions surrounding practicing law in rural communities. There are myths that there isn’t variety in the type of law practiced, there’s a lack of resources or help from senior lawyers and the drive to Winnipeg is too far, Barkman noted.

“Obviously there’s all the usual types (of work), like any small firm practice would be doing real estate and wills and estates. But when you start helping people in the commercial field of agricultural law, it can actually be quite significant legal work with large finances, tax preparations, even some cross border work,” she said.

Barkman illustrated to students how to balance a life outside the typical job, and how a rural practice can offer flexibility compared to working in Winnipeg. She said there are roughly 2,300 individuals per rural lawyer, which adds strain to lawyer workloads and can prevent people from getting legal services quickly due to long waits.

“That’s a really long lineup of people hoping to get access to a lawyer and a lawyer who’s trying to not drive themselves into the ground, working night and day,” she said, noting there’s no shortage of work.

Transportation is often a barrier for rural residents, particularily seniors, when accessing a lawyer and having someone close to their community is essential, Barkman said.

She hopes the trip will help get the word out to students that they can have both a good legal practice and quality of life.

“If we can get that message to people and make this a real option, rather than just being the default option for people who couldn’t get picked up in the city, I think that could help us at least start to bridge the gap,” Barkman said.

First-year law student Grayson Cranney was among the group. The 24-year-old, originally from Chapleau, Ont. located 990 kilometres east of Steinbach, wanted to explore how she could support rural communities.

She said there hasn’t been much exposure to rural law prior to the Steinbach trip, but noted it was helpful to hear from local lawyers.

“It truly is a little mix of everything and anything depending on factors within rural Manitoba,” she said. “You can work in corporate, you can work on wills and estates and you can work on real estate. It’s a little bit of anything, and I think that was nice to see.”

She said rural law appeals to her because the impact from work can be seen more immediately in communities. Cranney also appreciated how lawyers could be more involved in their communities and have a healthy work-life balance. Cranney wants to explore using her future practice to help rural Manitoba and Indigenous communities and pointed to the trip as helping narrow that down.

Vita native Ladina Thiessen, a second year law student, has also seen rural communities underrepresented for both students and legal services. The 24-year-old has memories of driving to Steinbach with her famiy to speak with lawyers or making the 86 km trip to Winnipeg.

She has always wanted to give back to her community in her career, but is still weighing up whether to practice in Winnipeg or in rural Manitoba when she graduates. Thiessen would like to see more summer job opportunities available or more information available for students before the hiring spree begins and students are faced with deciding where they want to work.

“I think understanding that a rural lifestyle is a positive thing, being in the city is not necessarily the best thing for everyone (is helpful),” she said.

The program’s next trips are slated for either August or September.