5.2 The Supervisory Relationship
Gemma Smyth and Sarah Buhler
The Supervisory Relationship
While students may not have previously been supervised by a lawyer, they will certainly be familiar with the relationship between a professor and student. Understandably, many students assume the placement relationship will resemble an academic professor-student relationship. Understanding and adapting to these different contexts is important to learn effectively. This chart sets out some of the primary differences between these two relational contexts.
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Purely Academic Professor-Student Context |
Work-Informed Supervisor-Supervisee Context |
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Information is one-way (professor to student), usually grounded in a text (eg casebook). |
Information is dialectical, uncertain, and usually based on a client or changing legal or policy context. |
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Meetings are usually in groups in pre-determined blocks of time. |
Meetings might be scheduled, but are more typically unscheduled and based on changing events. |
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There is a constrained set of answers to stylized questions. |
There is usually no single right answer or approach, and pathways change over time. |
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There is a single professor teaching and grading. |
There might be one supervisor, or might be many. |
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The power relationship has nuance, but is usually constrained by familiar behavioural expectations. |
The power relationship is often complex and individualized. |
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Both student and professor will be familiar with their expected roles. Both professor and student will have been in many other similar relationships in the past. |
The new student may not understand the boundaries or expectations of a work-informed placement, especially in a legal context. The supervisor may have worked with many students over their career. |
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There are no (or very remote) consequences for clients that flow from classroom activity. |
Student and supervisor actions have immediate implications for clients. |
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In the vast majority of cases, the professor is not held responsible for the actions of their students. |
The supervisor is held responsible for the actions of the student. |
The supervisory relationship is in some ways more consequential than a professor-student relationship, while also being closer and sometimes more informal. This mix of characteristics can be confusing for some students. As one former student noted:
“[T]his relationship is not one of parent and child… [I]t’s perhaps more peer to peer than we are coworkers. But I think it changed the way I guess I interact, or I spoke with him in perhaps a less formal way. And I think it’s been useful in my other interactions too. I don’t know that any of the people I’ve worked under [want] such a formal… principal articling student relationship. And I think that’s what you’re trained to expect through law school. And so maybe it feels awkward when people don’t want that from you, and they’re maybe trying to tell you to just chill out… So I don’t know. I think it’s learning how to have a coworker perhaps.”
Another former student noted differences between a supervisory or work-based relationship and one that is purely academic. Specifically, a placement context required personal initiative and responsibility for their work.
“You have to actually go out and seek [supervision] for yourself… I’m used to more a teacher who is going to come in and tell you how it’s going, but you have to just go into the lawyer’s office and talk to them and ask them stuff and be more bold… [Y]ou should take what the lawyers tell you. They have a lot of interesting and important stuff to tell you, but… you know yourself as well and your own instincts… [T]hat was such a big thing to me is that realization of okay, you are in charge of your files.” (10)
Some students are surprised that supervisors treat them more as colleagues than as students, a professional identity that carries potential for a more mature relationship and more proactive responsibility. As one former student noted:
“I think in the legal profession as a whole, there’s this idea that lawyers aren’t approachable and scary… They’re human beings and they were law students once too. So there was never once that I went and asked a question and they were like, “you’re an idiot.” They’re like, “okay, let me explain it to you.” (9)
Another student recommended trying to establish a genuine relationship with their supervising lawyer, one that is based on mutual trust.
“Just swallow your pride and talk to your review council… [T]ry to establish a relationship with your review council outside of just work… [F]ind some common ground with that person so that you can build up a sense of trust with them…. [T]ry to establish a relationship of trust with that person, even if it’s just find out what their hobbies are and see if there’s something that you and them have in common that you could talk about that has nothing to do with work… If you’re trying to learn something from someone, you have to trust that person and that – but more to the point, the person that you’re learning from needs to be trustworthy.” (24)
Lawyers also have their own unique perspectives on law practice, strategy, and workplace expectations. Indeed, lawyers in the same workplace might think very differently about the same case. This can be both confusing and liberating for students. As one former student noted:
“supervisors each have such different styles as well as different circumstances in terms of their own caseload and their areas of expertise and their own experiences. So it really does help to get to know the supervisors and then you’ll be better situated to both receive and understand their supervision, to understand how to ask questions that will get you the kinds of support and instruction that you need as well as to know who to go to in terms of, for example, areas of expertise.” (17)
In some cases, the student-supervisor relationship just doesn’t work or can be actively harmful. There are cases in which supervisors are abusive, discriminatory, harassing, or otherwise. This is canvassed directly in the later section on “Discrimination and Harassment in the Legal Profession”, and includes advice and avenues for reporting.
