September 29, 2020
Summer Student Recruitment Dates
The 2021 first year summer student recruitment period will be Tuesday, February 16, 2021 to Friday, February 19, 2021. No offer of employment shall be made before 5 p.m. Friday, February 19, 2021. Such offers must remain open for acceptance for a minimum of 24 hours. An offer of employment may be made at any time after the recruitment period and shall be left open for a reasonable period of time. For further information, please refer to Rule 49.2 and 49.3.
Articling Student Recruitment Dates
The 2021 recruitment period will be from June 7 to June 21, 2021. Employers may only make offers of employment after 8 a.m. on the second Tuesday of the recruitment period (June 15). These offers must remain open for acceptance for 24 hours. For further information, please refer to Rule 49.1 and 49.2. 
Reminder: Justice Digital and Surrogate Reform Committee Seeking Feedback
Justice Digital is collaborating with the Surrogate Reform Committee to produce a significant modernization of court forms and processes. This work is being done to benefit the profession, the public and the court system.

At the Surrogate Town Hall meetings in 2019, the courts and lawyers recognized the need to reform the Surrogate Court Application forms. The current forms are cumbersome, difficult for the public to understand, and include frequent repetition of information.  

The Surrogate Reform Committee is an ad hoc subcommittee of the Surrogate Rules Advisory Committee. The Committee has prepared a Surrogate Reform Consultation Memo with New Forms, Table of Concordance, and Sample Documents for review and comment by the profession and other stakeholders. 

The Justice Digital team and the Surrogate Reform Committee are inviting lawyers, paralegals and legal assistants throughout the province to provide feedback about the design and usability of the new forms and how they will support surrogate estate practices in Alberta. 

Please review the materials listed above and provide comments to SurrogateReform@sagecounsel.com by September 30, 2020.

To learn more about Justice Digital, read this overview. Upcoming opportunities for online and remote feedback over the coming months may include interviews, workshops or usability testing. Provide your contact information to participate.
New Resource - Legal Research: Guidance for Inactive Lawyers
Each year, the Law Society of Alberta receives questions about whether lawyers can provide legal research services under their current membership status.

This article provides guidance to inactive lawyers, who are members of the Law Society, wanting to provide legal research services to active lawyers. To be clear, inactive lawyers must not provide legal research services directly to a client or member of the public.