Occupational

Information
Research
ISU: Part 2
Tom Carnegie

CONTENTS Defence Lawyer ......................................................................................................................... 3 Job Description....................................................................................................................... 3 Working Conditions ................................................................................................................ 3 Educational Requirements...................................................................................................... 3 Salary ..................................................................................................................................... 5 Personal Characteristics/Abilities Needed .............................................................................. 5 Advantages of this Career ...................................................................................................... 5 Disadvantages of this Career ................................................................................................. 5 Occupational Outlook ............................................................................................................. 6 High School Teacher.................................................................................................................. 6 Job Description....................................................................................................................... 6 Working Conditions ................................................................................................................ 6 Educational Requirements...................................................................................................... 7 Salary ..................................................................................................................................... 7 Personal Characteristics Needed ........................................................................................... 7 Advantages of this Career ...................................................................................................... 7 Disadvantages of this Career ................................................................................................. 8 Occupational Outlook ............................................................................................................. 8 Politician .................................................................................................................................... 8 Job Description....................................................................................................................... 8 Working Conditions ................................................................................................................ 8

Educational Requirements...................................................................................................... 9 Salary ..................................................................................................................................... 9 Personal Characteristics ......................................................................................................... 9 Advantages of this Career ...................................................................................................... 9 Disadvantages of this career .................................................................................................10 Occupational Outlook ............................................................................................................10

OCCUPATIONAL INFORMATION RESEARCH

ISU: PART TWO

DEFENCE LAWYER JOB DESCRIPTION A defence lawyers job is to defend the people who have been accused of crimes in court and to provide them with legal advice ensuring that their rights are upheld. A lawyer will gather evidence to try and prove that their client is innocent this may include going through crime scene evidence, gathering witnesses, bringing in experts to explain about a subject and finding evidence in many other creative ways. A lawyers job is also to help his or her clients understand the legal system, their rights as well as provide them with legal advice (for example, if the prosecutor offered a plea bargain). WORKING CONDITIONS Lawyers usually work inside in a high-end office setting as well as in courtrooms, courthouses, and jails. They spend the majority of time at their desk researching cases and the other bit of their time meeting with clients and in courtrooms pleading my clients case. Lawyers dont have to do any physical work and all of their work would be mental. Lawyers have to find a way to prove their client innocent and that is all mental with a little bit of physical work (Lifting all of the massive law books). EDUCATIONAL REQUIREMENTS Lawyers need a lot of education in order to become a lawyer. To become a lawyer you must first have at least 3 years of an undergraduate degree (four is preferred). After you get your bachelors degree you must then move on to law school which should take about 3-4 years, after law school you may then begin to study for your bar exam which is required to be a

certified lawyer in Canadas legal system. After all those painful and expensive years of education are finished you may then be a defence lawyer.

SALARY On average defence lawyers make between $80,000 and $120,000 a year according to http://www.payscale.com/research/CA/Job=Attorney_%2F_Lawyer/Salary . PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS/ABILITIES NEEDED In order to be a lawyer I believe that you need to be a naturally argumentative person that has extremely good communication and people relationship skills. I believe that you need to be a good communicator because you need to be able to articulate your points to the judge as well as the crown prosecutor and the jury (the majority of whom have very limited legal knowledge). A lawyer may have a great point but if they cannot communicate that point to the jury well the jury may not understand and that point will not help you. I think that you must be a naturally argumentative person because I feel that if you are not you may just accept the prosecutions points and not be able to passionately defend your case. You must be good developing relationships with people because your client must trust you otherwise they may not disclose a piece of information that could possibly help you win their case. ADVANTAGES OF THIS CAREER In my opinion some of the advantages of being a defence lawyer is that you get to be able to do something different every day, work with other people and try to help them with their problems, and be able to do something that I believe that I would love to do for the rest of my life. To some people doing something different every day would be a disadvantage of a job but to me it is an advantage because I think that I would go crazy if I had a job where I had to do the same thing every day. I want to be able to try and solve a new problem every day and keep myself thinking constantly in my job. I think that being able to help some of the people that I defend is a major advantage of the career. Most people believe that being a defence lawyer means that you are just trying to help get criminals off the hook but being a defence lawyer is so much more than that. Being a defence lawyer means that you also get to find alternatives to jail for your clients such as finding drug rehabilitation centres where they can serve their sentence, have your client who abused his wife go to an anger management class to help him lessen his sentence. These are just some of the perks of being a defence lawyer. DISADVANTAGES OF THIS CAREER

The biggest the disadvantage of being a defence lawyer is having to work with and defend some dangerous and terrible criminals who have committed some terrible crimes. I have thought about what I would do if I were the lawyer for someone who had committed a heinous crime (such as rape, child molestation, and murder) and I have come to the conclusion that if I were the lawyer for one of these criminals I would only try and help them understand the charges against them and about how the legal system works and present the facts as they lie. I wouldnt really defend them even though that is probably not what the criminal is looking for in a lawyer. OCCUPATIONAL OUTLOOK The occupation outlook for lawyers is rated as fair by the Government of Canada. It is estimated that there will be 27,572 job openings between 2009-2018 and there will be approximately 23,360 job seekers for these job openings meaning that there should be a high demand for lawyers. HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER JOB DESCRIPTION A high school teachers job is to educate the youth of the world and guide the students along the path to enlightenment. A high school teacher teaches students aged 13-18 in various subjects in high school. A teachers job is to give these students lessons, assign homework and assignments, as well as grade projects and tests. WORKING CONDITIONS A high school teacher will obviously work at a high school for the majority of the time indoors. A teacher is not usually at a desk all day, a teacher is usually on their feet teaching a lesson to the class or running around the class trying to help students with questions and such. The majority of the work is mental because there is not much that teachers need to do physically (they stopped beating kids with a cane about 80 years ago). The mental work is relaying some of your own knowledge and trying to help the students understand specific concepts and ideas. A teacher must be able to deal with unruly students without using physical force.

EDUCATIONAL REQUIREMENTS In order to become a teacher you must first have a high school diploma, you then use that high school diploma to get into a university. In university you can for the most part take any course that results in a bachelors degree. Once you have a bachelors degree you can then go on to teachers college and after graduating that you receive a diploma you are then able to become a high school teacher. SALARY A high school teacher can earn anything between $35,000 and $80,000 a year with the average teachers salary being $57,000 a year. Your salary depends on where you work, the experience you have and your level of education. PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS NEEDED High school teachers must be able: to communicate well, be patient, and be willing to volunteer your time for school events. A high school teacher must be able to communicate will because if the teacher cannot communicate well then the students may have a difficult time understanding the lessons. A high school teacher must also be patient because some students may struggle in the subject you are teaching and you may need to slow down and try and find a different way of explaining the concept to that student. And finally a high school teacher must be generous and be willing to donate their time to school events like coaching sports teams, organizing clubs and help with school fundraisers etc. ADVANTAGES OF THIS CAREER One of the advantages of being a teacher is getting off work the same time your kids do. This is a great advantage for someone who has kids because you always get to have summers off with your children as well as weekends and holidays. Another advantage of being a teacher is that you get to watch your students learn and develop and it can be very rewarding to know that you helped a student.

DISADVANTAGES OF THIS CAREER One of the disadvantages of this year is that there is not much chance for advancement because the only real promotions you could get are to become a vice principal, or a principal. Another disadvantage is that you may need to deal with unruly students on a daily basis. Other than these there doesnt seem to be many other disadvantages. OCCUPATIONAL OUTLOOK At the moment the outlook for secondary school teachers in Ontario is not looking good. There is currently a slowed rate of retirement among secondary school teachers leaving fewer openings for new graduates. However the national forecast for the future is looking good. The forecast expects baby boomers to begin retiring in approximately two years and it is expected that there will be a large surplus of jobs in the future. POLITICIAN JOB DESCRIPTION The hardest and most important job of a politician is getting elected into office so you can actually begin to do your job of being a politician. In order to be elected into office you must be voted in and to be voted in you must convince people that you are the right person to vote for and that you are the best candidate for them. Once you are voted into office however your job description changes. Once you are voted in you must begin to develop new policies and programs; and introduce, debate, and vote on new legislation. WORKING CONDITIONS When you are campaigning to be voted into office you do a lot of traveling visiting different ridings trying to meet and convince people to vote for you. Once you are voted in however you mainly work indoors in offices, meeting rooms, and legislative chambers. You will live and work wherever the legislative office is for whichever position you received (provincial capitals for provincial positions and Ottawa for federal positions). You may travel to other regions or countries to meet with other political figures. Your working schedule will be irregular and involve evening and weekend work.

EDUCATIONAL REQUIREMENTS In order to be a politician you must have a bachelors degree in some field involving law, politics, history or economics. However in this field education is not the most important quality you need. To be a politician the most important thing is SALARY If you are a local politician you can receive between $25,000 and $100,000 a year. If you are a provincial politician you can receive $65,000-$100,000 a year. And finally as a federal politician you can make between $155,000 and $315,000 a year! PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS Some of the important characteristics that you need to be a politician are: being understanding and respectful, being good with people, being able to be organized and energetic, and being able to communicate well and have fundraising skills. To be a politician you must be understanding and respectful because if people think that you are a big jerk then they will not want you to be the person that represents them in office. You must be good with people again because these people are voting for you and you must be easy to get along with and be able to have people trust you because trust is a big factor when people are thinking of who to vote for. You must be organized and energetic because if you are running for a seat you will need to hold rallies and you must be able to organize those rallies well and also be energetic, getting people excited about your political stance and/or party. And finally you must be able to be able to communicate and have good fundraising skills because much or your salary comes from people who give your party donations and if you are unable to hold successful fundraisers your salary will definitely suffer. ADVANTAGES OF THIS CAREER Some of the advantages of being a politician are that you become somewhat of a local (or possibly national) celebrity, also you are able to be a leader and make decisions and try to help the people your represent, you are able to change the world. If you were a politician you would very quickly become recognizable to the local media and people in your riding, some people would enjoy this, others perhaps not. I believe that I would enjoy being somewhat of a celebrity and embrace the medial. Also if you were to become a politician you would become a

person in a position of power and with that power you could have the potential to change the world. DISADVANTAGES OF THIS CAREER Some of the disadvantages of being a politician are that you may become a target for terrorist organizations and/or hate crimes; also you would have to be dedicated to your job and your job would not end when you got home, you would still always have to be careful of what you say, be polite to other people and make sure that you always keep in mind that you need to be voted in for your next term as a politician. OCCUPATIONAL OUTLOOK The occupation outlook for politicians is very difficult to find, however drawing from my own knowledge I estimate that there will be little increase in the amount of jobs available for politicians because there are a set number of seats in each city, province, and in the federal governments. For each of these seats there are approximately 4 people competing for each one. This means that there will be a lack of jobs for politicians.

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