Gunn Law Group is pleased to be welcoming Rodrigo Vela to our team as an articling student for the 2025-26 year!
Rodrigo Vela
A current 3L student at the University of Alberta Faculty of Law, will be joining the Gunn Law team in 2025 as an Articling Student. Rodrigo completed his Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Grant MacEwan University, which allowed him to gain insight into topics related to forensic psychology and the criminal justice system.
His involvement as a volunteer and Dayleader with Student Legal Services’ Criminal Law and Civil and Family Law projects throughout law school demonstrates his commitment to helping individuals navigate complex legal systems. In his second year of law school, Rodrigo represented the University of Alberta as a Researcher at Canada’s premier criminal law appellate moot, the Gale Cup, where the team placed 3rd overall. Rodrigo’s diverse background and experiences provide him a unique perspective and he is eager to assist in criminal and family law matters in English or Spanish.
Summer Students and Shadowing
It is not anticipated that Gunn Law Group will be hiring a summer student in 2024.
Articling Students (Students-at-Law)
Gunn Law Group is pleased to announce that this year we will be looking to hire a student-at-law for a full article for the 2025-2026 year.
What we offer to articling students:
In the past, we have arranged for secondments for our students who are interested in learning more about an area of law that we do not cover.
We offer students a competitive salary, as well as medical and dental benefits. There is free parking at both the Edmonton office and the Hinton office, and we have paid parking spaces at the Courthouse in Edmonton. While the student will not be expected to take shifts at the Hinton office, they will, as a member of the firm, be permitted to use the Hinton lodgings on occasion for personal vacation time.
Gunn Law Group does not believe in students simply doing grunt work and mistakes are treated as learning opportunities. While students will be expected to do docket appearances, they can also expect to: observe and eventually conduct criminal trials, run administrative hearings, act as counsel on traffic matters, assist with appeals (often at very high levels of court), prepare written briefs, meet with clients, prepare divorce documents, attend Collaborative Family Law meetings, as well as many other meaningful, legal tasks.
The PREP program offered by the Law Society of Alberta must be successfully completed by the student. Gunn Law Group ensures that adequate time is allowed for their articling students to devote the time and energy necessary to complete the PREP coursework.
Gunn Law Group moved to a 4.5 day work-week in 2023. Our office is open 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM, Mondays to Thursdays and 8:30 AM to 12:00 PM on Fridays. We recognize that a good work-life balance is important and want to foster a healthy work environment for staff and lawyers.
What we are looking for:
Gunn Law Group is a bilingual firm. We are passionate about both official languages, French and English. If a candidate is fluent in both French and English that will be a significant asset. However, we are willing to overlook the absence of French for the right candidate.
The firm offers services in criminal law, administrative law, and family law. Any students applying must be willing to work in all of those areas, at minimum during the articling year. After articles, if the newly admitted lawyer wishes to concentrate their practice in one area more than another, they may do so. Our preference is, however, that those who apply be truly interested in working in all of our practice areas.
We offer a 24-hour service to people in need of urgent advice. Students, along with the lawyers, are expected to answer calls on a rotation basis.
Please also be advised that we frequently have dogs in the office who may either act as a service dog or as a dog whose purpose is just to bring joy to the rest of us. If you are allergic to dogs or are afraid of dogs, Gunn Law Group might not be the best fit for you.
How to apply
Please be aware that the Law Society of Alberta has specific dates for student recruitment. The Alberta Law Society’s page currently indicates the following:
The 2024 articling student recruitment period will be from Monday, June 3, 2024, to Monday, June 17, 2024. Employers may only make offers of employment after 8 a.m. on the second Tuesday of the recruitment period (June 11, 2024). These offers must remain open for acceptance for 24 hours.
If you have completed the second year in law school and are interested in applying to Gunn Law Group for an articling position which would begin once your studies are completed in 2025, please send your covering letter, resume, copies of university transcripts, as well as a writing sample to info@gunnlawgroup.ca. Please be aware that if you are looking for an article to begin immediately in 2024 that we are not hiring this year.
We thank all candidates for their interest in applying. We try to respond to all students who send a serious application. Interviews will only be offered to select candidates.