Labour and Employment
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What's Happening
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1L grades + success in landing a job on Bay Street
Thank you both for your candid answers! I appreciate the honesty and encouragement. I know the best course of action to take right now is to leverage other parts of my application and try to stand out since my grades don’t do much for me. My next question is, what makes an “excellent” application? I’m confident in my writing and I’ve written some pretty good cover letters and gotten interviews based off of those. I do need to sharpen my interview skills this summer so I’m more prepared for the 2L recruit, and I’ll also need to make great connections with important people at these firms which will take work but I’m not overly worried about that because I do believe I’m a personable and sociable person that can connect somewhat easily with others (and leave a decent impression for that matter). But does anyone have tips on how I can craft an excellent application given my situation (2 C’s in 1L)? I also understand that luck shouldn’t be understated in these matters - because if it’s meant to happen, it’ll happen. But before I leave things up to the universe, I do want to do my part and my due diligence in attempting to secure a semi-decent chance of succeeding in the recruit. -
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Accepted 2024
Spot 16 posted on discord they just accepted the offer! -
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Dalhousie VS TRU
Usually they say go to the the school in your destination province. However, in this case i would urge you to consider Dal. Dal is a great school and there are so many Dal grads in BC. Premier David Eby is a Dal grad. Dal had the most success as an out-of-province school in the last Vancouver recruit. When I attended a BC MAG articling panel, the crown prosecutor on the panel was a Dal grad and told me that they have no preference for in province schools. Also, look up the tuition for both schools. TRU is surprisingly high given the university does not fund the faculty well. -
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Chance me please! Applying everywhere next cycle with 167 LSAT 91%, cgpa 2.7 l2b2 2.7
Being a mature applicant lowers the weight given to grades, but doesn't eliminate it. Having said that you have a strong LSAT score. Use your application to explain why your GPA was low, use that LSAT score as evidence of your academic ability. Build in how your work experince has shaped you too. All of this, paired with a applying broadly, will give you decent odds of an acceptance somewhere. The better your narrative and experince, the higher those chances go. -
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1L grades + success in landing a job on Bay Street
Be careful of conflating the recurit and biglaw. The vast majority of the recruit is in fact, not big law at all. Your grades, frankly, are going to hurt your odds of landing a bay street firm or some of the pickier botiques. But there are many options avalible to you and the answer to your question is that many people have found success in the recurit with grades much like yours. You can help yourself by crafting excellent application materials and applying broadly. -
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Accepted 2024
nope, I don't think so. Idk why it is taking so long and why this year's cycle is going by so slowly -
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"contribution or indemnity" vs "contribution and indemnity" crossclaim
Ooo, okay, this is very comforting to know. I feel like my law school MC questions were either written as trick questions or mistakes so I have been trained to really pay attention to those details. OH, okay yes this makes sense!! And glad you echo the same advice. I am so used to trickiness in law school it is a bit hard to turn that part of my brain off, but I will do my best to do so. And shoutout to that last bit lol the materials are so long and, I am noticing, a bit repetitive. Thankfully, I have great technology that makes reading more fun (aka Speechify), but it is still an immense amount of work. Thank you both for your help!!!- 1
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Chance me please! Applying everywhere next cycle with 167 LSAT 91%, cgpa 2.7 l2b2 2.7
Applying as a mature student with 5 years work experience. I don't really have the option to retake any more semesters due to full time work, do I have a shot next cycle? -
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1L grades + success in landing a job on Bay Street
Tl;dr: There are former/current students with similar grades that have secured a 2L recruit job, but it is not the norm. Apply anyways because you never know and it's good practice. Consider your motivations for wanting to work on Bay Street and determine if those motivations can be satisfied working in another type of position. If you strike out during the 2L recruit, the "door to Bay Street" is not closed for your career. There absolutely are current/former students "out there" that have landed jobs on Bay Street with similar 1L grades, but it is also important to recognize that they are not the norm. I am an advocate of the "grades aren't everything" perspective when it comes to the 2L recruit, but at the same time, it would be foolish for me to act like grades are not a leading measure that full-service firms use to assess the applications that they receive. If you want to apply to Bay Street firms during the 2L recruit, absolutely do so. You will only ever have no chance of landing on Bay Street if you opt to not apply, and even if nothing materializes, I do believe it is a net positive because it forces you to update your application materials, draft an array of cover letters, and sharpen up your interviewing skills - all of which are beneficial for the subsequent applications that you would have to make. I want to also add that you should consider, if you have not already, the exact reason(s) why you want to work on Bay Street. Perhaps some of those reasons will not be exclusive to this work type, but others will. For example, if you want to make as much money as you can in practice while staying in Canada, working on Bay Street will afford you that outcome short of opening your own firm and it being both busy and profitable, which comes with a myriad of difficulties (especially as a junior). However, if what you are seeking is dynamic and engaging files to work on and you do not necessarily care about your clients' prestige/org size or the worth of the files/deals you are on, you can absolutely find this type of work outside of Bay Street. If you want to end up on Bay Street and you are unable to do so, you can still end up there in your career. The largest firm in my hometown (which is outside of Toronto) has 30-50 lawyers on staff and provides services in 8-10 practice areas. Approximately 75% of the articled students and juniors (i.e., 1-3 years post-call) on staff at the firm that have left in the past ~5 years have left for Bay Street associate positions. This is not abnormal for mid-sized GTA and southern Ontario firms when they have senior associates and partners that are well-connected to, and/or often work on files opposite from, Bay Street lawyers. I am not saying it will be easier to get a Bay Street job if you do not land something in the 2L recruit, but it will absolutely remain as a possibility for you depending on where you work, what your practice area(s) is/are, and what your network looks like.- 1
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"contribution or indemnity" vs "contribution and indemnity" crossclaim
No problem! With regards to you not fully understanding why a defence is not required in these scenarios, it is because it would have already been established in the statement of defence to the main action by the defendant by crossclaim. So, instead of making the co-defendant basically re-write their statement of defence to the main action, the court allows the co-defendant to rely on the facts of their original SoD for efficiency sake. And, yeah, I will echo what @chaboywb said: don't psyche yourself out and think too hard about whether the exam questions are designed to trick you. Unlike the LSAT, this will almost always not be the case for the bar exam. That's why I offered practical advice in my first post to pretty much treat the terms contribution and indemnity as synonymous because, more likely than not, questions on this topic will just be asking you to find the rule/principle for when/why/what is a cross-claim and basically just think of it as situations where there is multiple defendants and one of those defendants is claiming independent relief from another defendant. The materials also mention third-party claims, which is basically the same concept just that the party the defendant is seeking relief from is not a co-defendant, but someone not a party to the main action. Best of luck with your prep! These materials stink to read through lol.- 1
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"contribution or indemnity" vs "contribution and indemnity" crossclaim
@loonie's explanation looks right to me. But I just want to chime in that, as much as possible, you should try not to overthink your answers on the Ontario bar exam. The most obvious answer is almost always the correct one (ie. if "consult your client for instructions" is an answer, it's probably right). You seem to have interpreted this as a trick question but trick questions (at least when I wrote it) are extremely uncommon. Edit: To be clear, I know this is easier said than done. But seriously, this is an exam where going with your gut will take you far.- 1
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"contribution or indemnity" vs "contribution and indemnity" crossclaim
Okay this is quite helpful, I think it's just not obvious to me when something is logically or not logically 'and/or' within civil law because I have no practical experience to draw from. I was getting caught up because these are distinct claims on paper so, to me, claiming both would make the crossclaim more complex (even if only marginally) and thus might require a defence if the purpose of not requiring a defence here is because the crossclaim is simple. I think I also don't totally understand why a defence is not required here, and the materials do not explain the why so I might do some more research into this if I find that this question appears frequently in other practice exams. Thank you so much for your help!! -
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"contribution or indemnity" vs "contribution and indemnity" crossclaim
Maybe I am not fully understanding your question, but I believe the terms contribution and indemnity here are pretty much interchangeable. I would not try too hard to distinguish them and, instead, think of questions that refer to these terms as the same where a co-defendant in the main action is simply crossclaiming another co-defendant for contribution. But, if you're asking whether it should be read as "and/or" or strictly "or", then the answer to that would be "and/or" due to the nature of the terms. If you are concerned about this for future questions as well, then remember that the term "or" must, logically, mean "and/or". Therefore, for r 28.05(2) to apply here, there has to be: (i) either a claim for contribution "and/or" indemnity under the NA by a co-defendant making the crossclaim and (ii) the defendant by crossclaim has already delivered a defence in the main action setting forth all the facts on which they intend to rely on in defence of the cross-claim. If both of these factors are satisfied, then the exception kicks in and the defendant by crossclaim does not need to deliver a defence to the crossclaim itself.- 1
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1L grades + success in landing a job on Bay Street
Hi everyone, Just got my final grades back for second semester of 1L. I already had a C+ from first semester, and my goal was to get at least a couple A's this semester to offset that C+. I started off the semester strong and honestly had decent marks going into the exams - only to get B's and B+'s in everything....and a second C+. I'm so disheartened, I don't have any words for myself and I can't even convince myself that I'll be okay during the recruit coming up in 2L. Really need some positive encouragement right now - is there anyone who had my stats and was still successful during the recruit? I really do want to land something on Bay street, but I know better than to have tunnel vision and put all my eggs in this basket. I know Bay Street isn't the end all be all, but I just want to know if there's anyone out there who did well during the recruit with more than one C in their 1L transcript. TIA! -
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Binding Bar Exam Materials?
I am planning on spiral-binding each section individually, as well as creating two spiral bound books (one for barrister, one for solicitor) which includes table of contents and indices. Anyone with experience think that this is a good way to do it? Or have any other suggestions?
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