1. Did you participate in the Match for Calgary? If not, the ship may have sailed on the bigger Calgary firms. That may or may not be a bad thing depending on how you want to start your career. Sounds like you're not interested in it anyway so no worries. You can always join Big Law later in your career.
2. CPLED is teh suck. They've actually changed the schedule since I went through it. I started in the summer right after Stampede and went steady until the week before Christmas. You were done and could totally imbibe in the Christmas cheer. Now, as I understand, they stretched it out over the Christmas break so you've always got that specter looming over your holiday. Aside from the schedule, it's a crummy way to prove your worth as a future lawyer. Just play the game and get it over with.
3. I articled at a firm with 15 lawyers. It's not big by Calgary standards but definitely not small. I had experience in just about every area of practice and was able to learn different things from most of the lawyers in our firm. The partners were big on working as a team but also gave me a lot of freedom to establish my own practice and run things the way I wanted to. It was great experience.
4. I got my article late in the game, literally almost a month or so before I started. I was always told, and so far this has proved to be true based on my friend's experiences, that you can always find an article in Calgary as long as you're patient. Figure out what you want and target some small/medium firms. I'm sure you can find something.
If you have any more specific questions, feel free to PM me.
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