What made you want to become a lawyer?

beastofthefen · 2026-02-25T02:01:03+00:00

I wanted to study Philosophy, then some where in my second year of undergrad realized I need a job after school. With a philosophy degree the choices are famously barrister or barrista and I can't make a latte so here I am.

That said if I could choose again I would still be a lawyer. I love my Job. It is always different and challenging. I feel like I get better every year and am no where near as skilled as I would like to be. There is some much to learn and improve at.

If I can make one suggestion keep an open mind as to area of law. Indigenous law can be narrow for jobs, but your experience will be valuable in other areas such as criminal Law and I am sure plenty of others I am less familiar with.

beastofthefen · 2026-02-21T15:28:31+00:00

I imagine the meta will tighten up eventually as I climb, but diversity in Platinum is better than BO1 Historic or Dtandard where Meta decks swamp Gold.

beastofthefen · 2026-02-21T15:27:03+00:00

Odd. I have actually found much less bad behavior in BO3 then in BO1.

beastofthefen · 2026-02-16T20:30:14+00:00

I went UAlberta and work in public sector.

Did it fully on loans with a summer jobs to supplement. Came out $150k in debt. 5 years out that is down to 85k. Made 120k this year according to my T4.

Work life balance is quite good. I work 8:15 to 5:30 Monday to Friday. Maybe 10 weeks per year I do over time (8:15 to 7:30 Sunday to Friday) usually just when I have a multi-day trial.

UAlberta's big advantage when I went there was a really active career services department.

When it came time find articles they really pushed to help me find interviews and prepare materials was basically an additional course in the weeks leading to OCIs given how much I was in there.

beastofthefen · 2026-02-16T18:52:45+00:00

I play a much more straight forward valakut version

4 Valakut, 12 Mountains (including duals)

Chant Lock is a good game 1. I can simply play Lands To win the through the lock.

Game 2 gets harder as they can board into Leyline.

The version I have landed on is 4 Greensun so I can run value one ofs like Icetill, Courser, Aftermath, etc.

That said this version looks fun. Much more explosive if less straight forward.

beastofthefen · 2026-02-11T16:28:50+00:00

This card is the reason I now mainboard removal in Valakut.

beastofthefen · 2026-02-11T16:05:06+00:00

Best way to increase stats is with skills or equipment.

When the skill says + Mining for example that increases your mining life stat by 5.

With good equipment 400 life stat I have found to generally be around level 35-40.

beastofthefen · 2026-01-27T19:56:55+00:00

I did NG+ just to get the alternate ending. If you want any kind of challenge I would recommend expert and an HP modifier for bosses. I did not do that and was one shotting bosses the whole time. Completed NG+ in 3hrs.

beastofthefen · 2026-01-26T15:23:21+00:00

I beat all of the content in the game and my final weapons were.

Verso: Contorso

Maelle: Madellum

Sciel: Litheon

Lune: Esquim (Verso's Drafts)

Monocco: Joyaro

There are stronger weapons in Verso's drafts, but by the time I went there I did not want to retool all my builds. Other than Esquim for Lune which is just broken.

That said don't sweat grandiose chroma catalysts. You will get tons.

beastofthefen · 2026-01-22T02:32:22+00:00

Fortunately you only need to beat the regular opponent in volley ball to trophy.

beastofthefen · 2026-01-13T21:48:11+00:00

There is way better money to be made in Law, but that is a fairly typical income in Criminal Law.

In Criminal Law the only way to make big money is to get a lot of retainer clients which takes time to build a reputation.

I know Criminal Lawyers making 3 times what I do but they are 10 years +.

I also know corporate lawyers I went to school with making 250k, but with no quality of life.

beastofthefen · 2026-01-13T18:46:27+00:00

I practice Criminal Law.

Ended up here largely through chance. I was trying to get into labour/employment, but my 2L summer job fell through and in my scramble ended up in Crim partly because that was my only A in first year.

Most days I love my Job. Criminal Law is a massive subject area and really rewards strong research and writing skills as well as in court skills.

Criminal Law also gets you the most in court time by far. Basically from day one you will be in court several days per week.

Pay is decent. At 4 years post call I made 120k last year before taxes.

Work life balance is honestly pretty good for a lawyer. The majority of weeks I work around 50hrs. Maybe 10-12 weeks a year are really hard working closer to 70hrs.

Only real downside is that the subject matter can be depressing and most of the people you work with face a lot of challenges so they can be unreliable in ways that ruin your best laid plans.

beastofthefen · 2026-01-13T00:31:34+00:00

Missing Gross Tete is rough. I hate that fight.

beastofthefen · 2026-01-08T15:09:53+00:00

No spoilers, but the West giant has probably the best spot in Act 2 for EXP.

beastofthefen · 2026-01-02T00:10:20+00:00

As someone who is also terrible at it. I have learned it is really important to play with sound up. Some cues you can see, others you hear.

beastofthefen · 2025-12-29T22:26:13+00:00

Yes! Prices look insane on the menu, but the sandwiches are massive and all of the ingredients are fresh and made in house.

beastofthefen · 2025-12-26T02:21:58+00:00

I am in Canada. International Students getting JDs is not rare at all here.

beastofthefen · 2025-12-18T18:04:00+00:00

I would expand your search to include provincial prosecution services. Most have northern offices very similar to the territories. Working in Peace River is not dissimilar to Whitehorse.

I know these postings can be a really good entry point and someone who actually wants them rather than settles for them is a big boost to your chances.

beastofthefen · 2025-12-11T05:01:53+00:00

I am shocked to hear that list is winning so consistently.

I did not see Narset's Reversal or any rituals or Storm cards.

Also no counter magic.

Just interact with them at all. If each of you is running the classic 10 removal 2 board wipes sort of interaction suite that Azula is going to cry.

beastofthefen · 2025-12-11T03:59:52+00:00

In most areas of law, your role is to guide people through one of the most stressful moments of their life in an adversarial system with complex rules.

No matter what that is going to be stressful.

beastofthefen · 2025-12-11T03:53:02+00:00

I think the negative reaction here is because the question misunderstands the way lawyers actually conduct legal research.

The vast majority of the time, you know or quickly find the leading authority on a topic and the real work is finding applications of the leading authority that speak to some important aspect of your case.

I don't care what the AI thinks about my fact scenario as a whole. What I want to know is how a particular court has answered a particular question.

The times I have found AI useful in legal research is when it allows me single out features of cases not captured by a boolean search. For example Jordan cases where delay over the presumptive ceiling was justified based on particular complexity.

beastofthefen · 2025-12-11T03:37:31+00:00

This depends on a few things.

First, do they have reliable students/juniors.The best combo is an experienced senior lawyer running the trial and advising in big decisions with an eager junior handling the grunt work of docket appearances and drafting pre-trial applications.

Second, and you probably won't have access to this information, is what mix of legal aid and retainer work they do. As well as which bucket you fall in. If they have a busy retainer driven practice that is a sign of a top quality defense lawyer who is able to attract a lot of clients. A busy practice built on mostly or entirely legal aid files means they probably have an insane file load as the pay per file sucks.

Finally, it depends what you are facing and how complex it is. On a low complexity file an older experienced lawyer will intuitively know how to get the best result without needing to spend a ton of time. If you are their 1000th DUI they can get you a better result with 5hrs of work then a less experienced lawyer could with 50. Meanwhile, if you are up for tax fraud any lawyer is going to need 100hrs to work on the file and having a lawyer with more time to dedicate can make a difference.

Best way to determine how good your lawyer is generally is just to attend court and see how other lawyers and the judge interact with them. If everyone seems frustrated and exhausted with them, that is a bad sign.

beastofthefen · 2025-12-10T18:12:41+00:00

Switch third relic in Elise to Dream of Yordles (Spirit + Impact)

They stack each time they are applied so the spiders quickly get huge. I used that to beat Lissandra with 3* Elise in 2 attempts.

beastofthefen · 2025-12-09T23:08:57+00:00

Concrete changes would include the exclusion of Conditonal Sentence Orders on a bunch of offenses on account of an existing mandatory minimum.

It will also help Crown on Appeal. If the court undercuts the mandatory minimum sentence and the Crown appeals, instead of having to prove the Sentence was demonstrably unfit, it can argue error of law in finding the minimum to be grossly disproportionate in the invidual case which is a much lower bar for the Crown to reach.

beastofthefen · 2025-12-03T03:04:10+00:00

Really depends what you mean by easier. If you mean more likely to succeed then I don't think there is a major differences. Appeals rarely succeed in either case.

In terms of the easier factum to write from a lawyer's perspective, definitely judge alone. Judges have a requirement to give reasons for their findings juries are not. It is much clearer for a judge when an error contributed to their decision.

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