Better Late Than Never – 2021 1L Recruit Results

[SlytherinLLP]

Didn't Dentons make offers during a 1L recruit a while back and then rescind the offers the next day after the hiring/student committee realized they hired too many? 

Just one of many reasons Dentons is shit and deserves its reputation.

[Summertimesadness]

23 hours ago, SlytherinLLP said:

Didn't Dentons make offers during a 1L recruit a while back and then rescind the offers the next day after the hiring/student committee realized they hired too many? 

Just one of many reasons Dentons is shit and deserves its reputation.

If you don't mind, can you delve into some of the other reasons Dentons is "shit"? I thought it would be seen as one of the most reputable as it's the largest law firm in the world 

[Grey]

12 minutes ago, Summertimesadness said:

If you don't mind, can you delve into some of the other reasons Dentons is "shit"? I thought it would be seen as one of the most reputable as it's the largest law firm in the world 

Size by headcount of lawyers doesn't necessarily equal quality or reputation. None of the huge international conglomerate firms like Dentons, DLA, Baker McKenzie, etc. are really that good compared to the domestic firms in Canada (or in the US, the UK, etc.). They're just big. They aren't even really cohesive firms either, more just franchises operating in different countries under the same brand name but with varying levels of quality. BLG is the biggest firm in Canada by headcount and it's not really a top tier firm either. I think when a firm focuses on expansion for expansion's sake it becomes much more difficult to retain a cohesive culture, standards re: quality, client base, etc. In Dentons case, the fact that it has offices in Romania or Kenya has literally zero impact on the quality of its Canadian practice, so law firms may be the one case where size doesn't matter.

[CleanHands]

I love how @BlockedQuebecois is singlehandedly destroying Dentons' reputation among applicants and students through shitposting on this site.

Now I need to get to work ensuring that my takes on Blakes are taken equally seriously.

[tails]

15 minutes ago, CleanHands said:

I love how @BlockedQuebecois is singlehandedly destroying Dentons' reputation among applicants and students through shitposting on this site.

Now I need to get to work ensuring that my takes on Blakes are taken equally seriously.

Should we each just raise our hand for one of the Big Law firms and collectively take down the entire system? 😂

[Summertimesadness]

2 hours ago, Grey said:

 In Dentons case, the fact that it has offices in Romania or Kenya has literally zero impact on the quality of its Canadian practice, so law firms may be the one case where size doesn't matter.

But wouldn't clients especially international ones be intrigued by larger firms? 

[QMT20]

27 minutes ago, CleanHands said:

I love how @BlockedQuebecois is singlehandedly destroying Dentons' reputation among applicants and students through shitposting on this site.

Now I need to get to work ensuring that my takes on Blakes are taken equally seriously.

Everyone is still going to apply to Dentons because ultimately, they're a big fish in the small pond of the 1L recruit. I think BlockedQuebecois' comments will only make their 1L summer students think more closely about re-entering the 2L recruit or applying to New York. But once you get to a firm, inertia sets in, and people can be averse to the risk of going through another recruit so who knows if reputational damage on this site really makes any difference. 

I've always taken your comments about Blakes to be directed to big law firms in general. I never thought they made Blakes out to be worse than any of the other big firms, even if that was your intention. 

The problem I have with firms exclusively targeting the 1L recruit is it deprives applicants of the chance to prove themselves in 1L. I think for a lot of students, law school is a fresh start from a less than stellar undergrad and their hard-work in law school becomes less meaningful if firms just decide to target 1Ls instead. On the flip-side, I'm sure many law students did really well in undergrad and don't want the risk of a mediocre 1L to affect their chances to secure employment. I'm sympathetic to that view as well. However, to the extent law school is an opportunity for students to build a better future for themselves, I think that opportunity is diminished by firms who do their hiring before students have had a chance to prove themselves in law school. 

5 minutes ago, Summertimesadness said:

But wouldn't clients especially international ones be intrigued by larger firms? 

Some probably are. The internationals have their own internal referral networks. But if you're part of Dentons in Canada, your referrals may be limited to other Denton's branches and you might not get a referral from Freshfields (for example) because Freshfields and Dentons are competitors in the UK. 

On the flip side, one of the seven sister firms would be well positioned to get a referral from a firm like Freshfields which doesn't have a physical presence in Canada and doesn't compete with them in the UK. They probably also view each other as roughly equal in their home markets so it makes sense for them to do business with each other, instead of with an international firm like Dentons. 

Edited November 5, 2021 by QMT20

[123]

2 minutes ago, Summertimesadness said:

But wouldn't clients especially international ones be intrigued by larger firms? 

Will international clients' sense of intrigue materially impact your experience putting together materials during the summers and writing memos during articling?

[MapleLeafs]

I remember someone sharing a tiers list for the Bay St firms on the old forum, by any chance does someone have it saved? 

[tails]

4 minutes ago, MapleLeafs said:

I remember someone sharing a tiers list for the Bay St firms on the old forum, by any chance does someone have it saved? 

I don’t have them saved, so no help there. But as everyone notes every time this question is asked… Tier rankings are going to be mostly subjective. There is some clear distinctions, but for the most part it is peoples own opinions. 

[CleanHands]

8 minutes ago, QMT20 said:

I've always taken your comments about Blakes to be directed to big law firms in general. I never thought they made Blakes out to be worse than any of the other big firms, even if that was your intention. 

No, you're right, as far as I can tell BigLaw is all one indistinguishable spinless, supine mass and every firm and lawyer are interchangeable. I just have a hardon for Blakes for hiring a bunch of my friends (thus depriving them of putting their talents to use doing something productive and socially beneficial instead) and also for the inexplicable perception they've been able to cultivate among students of being an elite top firm despite hiring lots of basically dead average students (they do manage to get the odd SCC clerk or whathaveyou for some bizarre reason, but so does Dentons).

[Grey]

21 minutes ago, Summertimesadness said:

But wouldn't clients especially international ones be intrigued by larger firms? 

In my experience it seems like sophisticated clients with global offices would rather just use better firms in each country they do business in rather than use Dentons (or another international firm) for everything. Like I said before, there is nothing inherent about a firm being large by headcount that results in high quality service. I also suspect that executive leadership of a multinational client is not directly telling their regional offices which firms to use. The Canadian office of a multinational will most likely be making the decision on what counsel to retain in Canada on their own, and so again, a firm having a bunch of international offices really has no impact on the level of service the client is looking for in Canada. 

Edited November 5, 2021 by Grey

[Jaggers]

There is a benefit, if you want to push out a policy into a bunch of popular places to do business, to have one firm with offices everywhere that can coordinate that. But yeah, for my Canadian-specific matters, I couldn't care less about whether a firm is a global behemoth, or even a Canadian behemoth. We just find the good lawyers.

[OnlyResident]

I'm pretty sure @BlockedQuebecois bought Ryerson Law stock or something. 

[Jaggers]

He shorted Dentons years ago.

[Rashabon]

1 hour ago, QMT20 said:

The problem I have with firms exclusively targeting the 1L recruit is it deprives applicants of the chance to prove themselves in 1L. I think for a lot of students, law school is a fresh start from a less than stellar undergrad and their hard-work in law school becomes less meaningful if firms just decide to target 1Ls instead. On the flip-side, I'm sure many law students did really well in undergrad and don't want the risk of a mediocre 1L to affect their chances to secure employment. I'm sympathetic to that view as well. However, to the extent law school is an opportunity for students to build a better future for themselves, I think that opportunity is diminished by firms who do their hiring before students have had a chance to prove themselves in law school. 

Some probably are. The internationals have their own internal referral networks. But if you're part of Dentons in Canada, your referrals may be limited to other Denton's branches and you might not get a referral from Freshfields (for example) because Freshfields and Dentons are competitors in the UK. 

On the flip side, one of the seven sister firms would be well positioned to get a referral from a firm like Freshfields which doesn't have a physical presence in Canada and doesn't compete with them in the UK. They probably also view each other as roughly equal in their home markets so it makes sense for them to do business with each other, instead of with an international firm like Dentons. 

The referral point is correct and it hampered Torys a bit for a while because they lost out on some New York work by trying to directly compete.

Your 1L comments only apply to Calgary (and I guess Ottawa IP) which are the markets that hire off undergrad grades. Toronto's 1L recruit is based off a semester of 1L grades (so the OCI recruit is only one extra semester difference) and I don't think Vancouver does formal 1L recruiting.

[ccq35]

We really need a Knott Reel LLP-style review of major firms akin to their survey of Canadian law schools… just sayin’

[QMT20]

5 minutes ago, Rashabon said:

The referral point is correct and it hampered Torys a bit for a while because they lost out on some New York work by trying to directly compete.

Your 1L comments only apply to Calgary (and I guess Ottawa IP) which are the markets that hire off undergrad grades. Toronto's 1L recruit is based off a semester of 1L grades (so the OCI recruit is only one extra semester difference) and I don't think Vancouver does formal 1L recruiting.

At Queen's we only have 1 grade after 1st semester. The rest of our grades were mid-term marks which we submit as an addendum instead of through our transcripts. It seemed from the people around me, that there was more of a focus on the successful applicants' undergraduate grades than the single law school grade/reported midterm grades. But I'll defer to your opinion on that, since you'd have a clearer view of what's important from the firm's perspective than I did from an applicant's perspective. 

I do generally think that it's better to give students more time to do well in law school than hire based on a smaller sample of their performance. I've heard some lawyers at my firm talk about how they preferred the old days when half the class was hired through the articling recruit, because it gave late bloomers a chance to prove themselves in 2L. But I admit my perspective comes from someone who didn't work hard and didn't do well in undergrad, and then got my shit together in law school, so I'm biased towards giving people in my own position a better shot. Other people will have their own views which are different from mine. 

[tails]

13 minutes ago, ccq35 said:

We really need a Knott Reel LLP-style review of major firms akin to their survey of Canadian law schools… just sayin’

I beg someone to do this. 

[Rashabon]

25 minutes ago, QMT20 said:

At Queen's we only have 1 grade after 1st semester. The rest of our grades were mid-term marks which we submit as an addendum instead of through our transcripts. It seemed from the people around me, that there was more of a focus on the successful applicants' undergraduate grades than the single law school grade/reported midterm grades. But I'll defer to your opinion on that, since you'd have a clearer view of what's important from the firm's perspective than I did from an applicant's perspective. 

I do generally think that it's better to give students more time to do well in law school than hire based on a smaller sample of their performance. I've heard some lawyers at my firm talk about how they preferred the old days when half the class was hired through the articling recruit, because it gave late bloomers a chance to prove themselves in 2L. But I admit my perspective comes from someone who didn't work hard and didn't do well in undergrad, and then got my shit together in law school, so I'm biased towards giving people in my own position a better shot. Other people will have their own views which are different from mine. 

Yeah there's definitely an argument there, but other than Dentons (and maybe Davies just given proportions), most firms hire the bulk of their class from the 2L recruit anyway so by and large people get the full 1L year to prove themselves. Now, query whether 1L is truly the answer - it's likely not, and people can and do slip through the cracks, but it is what it is. The last couple years have certainly expanded the pool of candidates firms might consider, because the top firms have had to hire laterals that they missed on the first time around and a lot of those laterals are doing great work. I've been very impressed with some of the laterals I now work with who came from shops that barely do what I do at a high level. And it's because a lot of law is just having drive and initiative and being willing to learn, which a lot of candidates can manage even if they didn't kill it in law school.

That being said, firms aren't going to cut out the 1L recruit any time soon because it's rare to whiff on 1L candidates. A lot of 1Ls used to end up leaving for New York or wherever because they remained top tier candidates throughout.

Others like me are just really good at their jobs 😀.

[Rashabon]

21 minutes ago, tails said:

I beg someone to do this. 

The problem with firm rankings is that it's not just subjective, but varies from practice area to practice area.

Goodmans isn't known for its litigation practice, nor is Davies. McCarthys and boutiques like Lenczner gap them. But Goodmans has a top tier insolvency and REIT practice. Davies is an M&A boutique almost, and their capital markets work isn't nearly as deep as Blakes, Stikeman, Torys, etc.

Torys PE is top of the market, and they act for behemoths like Brookfield which leads to its own specializations.

The best ranking you'll get is the Seven Sister moniker and checking the league tables/rankings - it is not a great proxy for litigation, but is otherwise a good proxy, because these are the firms with some of the largest mandates and cash flows, which allows them to do top tier work in other areas.

[tails]

12 minutes ago, Rashabon said:

The problem with firm rankings is that it's not just subjective, but varies from practice area to practice area.

Goodmans isn't known for its litigation practice, nor is Davies. McCarthys and boutiques like Lenczner gap them. But Goodmans has a top tier insolvency and REIT practice. Davies is an M&A boutique almost, and their capital markets work isn't nearly as deep as Blakes, Stikeman, Torys, etc.

Torys PE is top of the market, and they act for behemoths like Brookfield which leads to its own specializations.

The best ranking you'll get is the Seven Sister moniker and checking the league tables/rankings - it is not a great proxy for litigation, but is otherwise a good proxy, because these are the firms with some of the largest mandates and cash flows, which allows them to do top tier work in other areas.

Totally agree. Context for Knot Reel style:

https://twitter.com/knottreelllp/status/1285028848388706305?s=21

[Pantalaimon]

1 hour ago, Rashabon said:

Your 1L comments only apply to Calgary (and I guess Ottawa IP) which are the markets that hire off undergrad grades. Toronto's 1L recruit is based off a semester of 1L grades (so the OCI recruit is only one extra semester difference) and I don't think Vancouver does formal 1L recruiting.

Calgary's 1L recruit is in February, so we have the same grades that @QMT20described for Queens. One real grade and midterm grades for all our full-year black letter law courses. It's something, I guess. I got the impression that the midterm law school grades counted for more than undergrad grades.

[ccq35]

2 hours ago, tails said:

Totally agree. Context for Knot Reel style:

https://twitter.com/knottreelllp/status/1285028848388706305?s=21

Yep this is what I was thinking, rather than a serious ranking of firms!