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Overperformed on the LSAT. Should I look at HYS? Am I competitive there? [175, 3.91 cGPA, 3.93 L2, 3.94 B3]


Marco

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Marco
  • Law School Admit

I took my first LSAT in Nov while looking to apply next cycle. I was PTing high 160s but somehow managed to snag a 175 ... going in I aspired to attend UofT or Osgoode but with this score I think my options have expanded and I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I guess I still have a year to explore them, but a few other points:

- 5 years work experience, but nothing noteworthy. Administrative / managerial roles in small companies

- No ECs, volunteering etc.

- Made no effort to have a relationship with my professors during undergrad. I doubt any of them remembers me.

Given my applicant profile, what do you guy's think? Can I get into HYS, and how difficult would it be for me to practice in Canada with a degree from one of these institutions?

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Rubber.Ducky
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You have a good shot at both uoft and oz. If you’re planning on practicing in Canada, I would stick with a Canadian school. I considered applying to American schools at one point, but the hassle of the NCA requirements/exams to come back and practice in Canada didn’t seem worth it.

Another big consideration, if money matters, is that HYS have very high tuition and a scholarship is not guaranteed. Again this echos off the point that if you plan to practice in Canada, I don’t see it as particularly worth it when uoft and oz will give you good career prospects if you do well in LS. It may not be worth the extra debt to come back to Canada. 

Take my advice with a grain of salt… I am also merely an applicant but, like I mentioned above, looked into the American school route. 

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HammurabiTime
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I don't know enough about American admissions to say whether stats alone will get you in for HYS so I'll leave that for someone more knowledgeable. The primary difficult with practicing again in Canada is going to be your crippling debt versus the significantly lower salary from Canadian law firms. Tuition at Harvard this year is $67,720, up about $2,000 from last year. Assuming that trend continues your tuition expense will be about $207,160. Add in books, living expenses, etc. and you're easily looking at $250,000 American, which is about $318,000 Canadian. If you wanted to come straight back to Canada you'd also need to take a year to do the NCAs (which also cost money) and then article at which point you can in your most likely best case scenario expect to earn about $130,000 Canadian per year with a 10-30% bonus. Assuming a 15% bonus this will leave you with an after tax income of about $105,000 to tackle your debt, keep yourself alive, somehow plan for retirement, and hopefully squeeze some modicum of enjoyment out of your free time.

Now, there are also scholarships and I understand these schools provide financial aid (no clue how it works for international students) so those numbers are going to change, perhaps significantly. What won't change is if you want to practice in Canada you will have a much heavier debt burden to contend with, in the vast majority of scenarios, from having gone to one of those schools than if you had attended a Canadian school. This analysis changes entirely if you are open to permanently, or even temporarily, re-locating to the US. 

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Marco
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8 minutes ago, HammurabiTime said:

I don't know enough about American admissions to say whether stats alone will get you in for HYS so I'll leave that for someone more knowledgeable. The primary difficult with practicing again in Canada is going to be your crippling debt versus the significantly lower salary from Canadian law firms. Tuition at Harvard this year is $67,720, up about $2,000 from last year. Assuming that trend continues your tuition expense will be about $207,160. Add in books, living expenses, etc. and you're easily looking at $250,000 American, which is about $318,000 Canadian. If you wanted to come straight back to Canada you'd also need to take a year to do the NCAs (which also cost money) and then article at which point you can in your most likely best case scenario expect to earn about $130,000 Canadian per year with a 10-30% bonus. Assuming a 15% bonus this will leave you with an after tax income of about $105,000 to tackle your debt, keep yourself alive, somehow plan for retirement, and hopefully squeeze some modicum of enjoyment out of your free time.

Now, there are also scholarships and I understand these schools provide financial aid (no clue how it works for international students) so those numbers are going to change, perhaps significantly. What won't change is if you want to practice in Canada you will have a much heavier debt burden to contend with, in the vast majority of scenarios, from having gone to one of those schools than if you had attended a Canadian school. This analysis changes entirely if you are open to permanently, or even temporarily, re-locating to the US. 

Thanks.

I was aiming for Canadian biglaw in the first place and frankly hadn't looked at any American options until my LSAT score release. My understanding is that American biglaw involves a similar about of work for considerably greater salaries, so I was just rethinking my options. If I were to practice for some years in America, I could payoff that loan before returning to Canada, right?

How would the Canadian legal market perceive, for example, a Harvard lawyer with some years of experience returning to Canada? Would the "prestige" carryover?

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HammurabiTime
  • Lawyer
3 minutes ago, Marco said:

Thanks.

I was aiming for Canadian biglaw in the first place and frankly hadn't looked at any American options until my LSAT score release. My understanding is that American biglaw involves a similar about of work for considerably greater salaries, so I was just rethinking my options. If I were to practice for some years in America, I could payoff that loan before returning to Canada, right?

How would the Canadian legal market perceive, for example, a Harvard lawyer with some years of experience returning to Canada? Would the "prestige" carryover?

Some people do what you're describing. Whenever you return you will need to take time to complete the NCAs and most likely article (although you may be able to get an abridgement for part of this). I think a lot of people have a hard time swallowing a pretty huge pay cut once they get accustomed to US pay, though. I don't think you're going to get any meaningful career bump from having a HYS degree when you return from Canadian legal employers. If you've worked for a few years they're mostly going to look at what your experience is rather than where you went to school. If you have any interest in being an academic HYS may open more doors.

You can also, of course, manage to land a US big law job from a Canadian school although this is going to be significantly more difficult. Right now the US hiring trends from Canada are up significantly but who knows what the world will look like in four years when you'd be looking for a permanent position.

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easttowest
  • Lawyer

If I were you, I’d definitely apply and see what kind of scholarships might be on offer before closing that door. 
 

 

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Kobe
  • Law Student

Yes you are competitive at all 3 HYS, though even with a 4.0 180 Yale is still kind of iffy but you certainly have a shot at all 3. You also likely could get full scholarships in the t-14. I have seen someone with similar stats get full scholarships plus living stipend at Michigan. 

Congrats on a great score!

Here are some numbers with people with similar stats. Check through LSData for schools you may be interested in to get an idea of the kind of money you may get and where you may be accepted.

https://www.lsd.law/search/2X9F3

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Marco
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3 hours ago, Kobe said:

Yes you are competitive at all 3 HYS, though even with a 4.0 180 Yale is still kind of iffy but you certainly have a shot at all 3. You also likely could get full scholarships in the t-14. I have seen someone with similar stats get full scholarships plus living stipend at Michigan. 

Congrats on a great score!

Here are some numbers with people with similar stats. Check through LSData for schools you may be interested in to get an idea of the kind of money you may get and where you may be accepted.

https://www.lsd.law/search/2X9F3

Thanks for this. I'll be looking into this more deeply but my current inclination is to remain in Canada unless I get into HYS which seems more remote a possibility than I initially entertained. Basically, I don't have confidence in the non-statistical aspects of my profile to feel I have a solid chance of admittance. Especially for Yale it seems they require the candidate to be 'interesting' in ways I'm just not. And it sounds like LORs are given greater weight in the US than here, and since I'm a nobody to every one of my profs I doubt I can secure a good letter.

I'm not sure about trying for the other T-14's. Aren't they similar caliber schools to UofT? The chance of scholarships is tempting though!

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HammurabiTime
  • Lawyer
18 minutes ago, Marco said:

Thanks for this. I'll be looking into this more deeply but my current inclination is to remain in Canada unless I get into HYS which seems more remote a possibility than I initially entertained. Basically, I don't have confidence in the non-statistical aspects of my profile to feel I have a solid chance of admittance. Especially for Yale it seems they require the candidate to be 'interesting' in ways I'm just not. And it sounds like LORs are given greater weight in the US than here, and since I'm a nobody to every one of my profs I doubt I can secure a good letter.

I'm not sure about trying for the other T-14's. Aren't they similar caliber schools to UofT? The chance of scholarships is tempting though!

I don't know enough to say if the above poster was right about you possibly getting a full ride to a T14, but if that's the case and you're open to spending time in the US that seems like a financially better outcome than anything you could hope for from a Canadian school. I'd spend some time rooting around TLS and see what kinds of money people with similar stats get and it might be worth applying to a chunk of those schools to see what you get.

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Marco
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3 minutes ago, HammurabiTime said:

I don't know enough to say if the above poster was right about you possibly getting a full ride to a T14, but if that's the case and you're open to spending time in the US that seems like a financially better outcome than anything you could hope for from a Canadian school. I'd spend some time rooting around TLS and see what kinds of money people with similar stats get and it might be worth applying to a chunk of those schools to see what you get.

True. I'd rather remain in Canada honestly. I have personal ties that are fairly binding. I guess it was just the boyish allure of studying at Harvard or Yale that made them seem so attractive at first blush. Places I dreamed of attending growing up but never seemed attainable suddenly became a possibility today. The working in the US would have just been a necessity I bore to enjoy that privilege before returning to Canada. I expect I'll be clear-headed about this in a short order.

Still, I have almost a year to contemplate my options. Will do a lot of soul searching, heh.

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Kobe
  • Law Student
1 minute ago, Marco said:

Thanks for this. I'll be looking into this more deeply but my current inclination is to remain in Canada unless I get into HYS which seems more remote a possibility than I initially entertained. Basically, I don't have confidence in the non-statistical aspects of my profile to feel I have a solid chance of admittance. Especially for Yale it seems they require the candidate to be 'interesting' in ways I'm just not. And it sounds like LORs are given greater weight in the US than here, and since I'm a nobody to every one of my profs I doubt I can secure a good letter.

I'm not sure about trying for the other T-14's. Aren't they similar caliber schools to UofT? The chance of scholarships is tempting though!

I think for Yale you may be right but it's worth a shot depending on your career goals, you do stand a solid chance there. I don't agree with softs mattering more in the US, don't forget these schools are competing for top scorers and GPAs as that determines US news ranking. I'd say the schools here are much more holistic than in the US because they are not beholden to rankings. So I'd say letters carry more weight here if anything, to the extent they matter at all. A 175 and 3.91 (which may even convert more favourably than that on LSAC) will make you a hot commodity even if you are the least interesting person in the world. 

And yes in general the t-14 are just as high caliber with schools at the top arguably being even higher caliber. Cornell is an Ivy league school ranked 13, I'd say it is at least the same caliber as UofT. It really depends on your career goals, if you want to work in Canada just go to U of T. If you want biglaw and are looking to maximize chances you can't really compete with the t-14 but that's if you don't mind living in the US. U of T will put approx 50% of the class into biglaw, Cornell will put 70%. 

There's no right answer just whatever works for you. If you would rather work in Canada no school will compete with U of T for that. If you don't mind the US then HYS obviously opens a ton of doors. Also outside of HYS you would likely get a full ride somewhere, look at Penn for example people with similar numbers got a full ride. Most Canadians don't realize the type of money you can get from these schools. 

You need to look into what tradeoffs you want to make and decide from there. There's no wrong or right answer. 

 

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Marco
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20 minutes ago, Kobe said:

I think for Yale you may be right but it's worth a shot depending on your career goals, you do stand a solid chance there. I don't agree with softs mattering more in the US, don't forget these schools are competing for top scorers and GPAs as that determines US news ranking. I'd say the schools here are much more holistic than in the US because they are not beholden to rankings. So I'd say letters carry more weight here if anything, to the extent they matter at all. A 175 and 3.91 (which may even convert more favourably than that on LSAC) will make you a hot commodity even if you are the least interesting person in the world. 

And yes in general the t-14 are just as high caliber with schools at the top arguably being even higher caliber. Cornell is an Ivy league school ranked 13, I'd say it is at least the same caliber as UofT. It really depends on your career goals, if you want to work in Canada just go to U of T. If you want biglaw and are looking to maximize chances you can't really compete with the t-14 but that's if you don't mind living in the US. U of T will put approx 50% of the class into biglaw, Cornell will put 70%. 

There's no right answer just whatever works for you. If you would rather work in Canada no school will compete with U of T for that. If you don't mind the US then HYS obviously opens a ton of doors. Also outside of HYS you would likely get a full ride somewhere, look at Penn for example people with similar numbers got a full ride. Most Canadians don't realize the type of money you can get from these schools. 

You need to look into what tradeoffs you want to make and decide from there. There's no wrong or right answer. 

 

Yeah, the full-ride option is what makes this really difficult for me. But in my situation that advantage is diminished because I live with my parent and they won't accept any payment from me, an arrangement that can persist during and after law school for as long as I desire. Moving to the US would involve incurring those costs which I imagine offsets the advantage of studying there on a full-ride quite a bit.

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Kobe
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1 minute ago, Marco said:

Yeah, the full-ride option is what makes this really difficult for me. But in my situation that advantage is diminished because I live with my parent and they won't accept any payment from me, an arrangement that can persist during and after law school for as long as I desire. Moving to the US would involve incurring those costs which I imagine offsets the advantage of studying there on a full-ride quite a bit.

Yes certainly trade offs, but a great problem to have. 

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Avatar Aang
  • Lawyer

You got a lot of good responses but I'm going to mention the most important thing you need to look at. And that is the employment statistics for each of these schools. 

The employment prospects out of the T14 are vastly identical to the employment prospects out of top Canadian law schools. People who tell you otherwise are blinded by the reputation of these schools and don't know what they are talking about. I have many peers in the US now and know a number of former US Big law lawyers that returned to Canada. They work alongside Canadian law school graduates from every school.

https://hls.harvard.edu/dept/ocs/recent-employment-data/ 

Take Harvard law school's employment stats for example. This shows that the vast majority of the class ends up in US Big law. 

If you look at the top Canadian law schools, you will see that a significant portion of the class also ends up in Big law. 

After Big law, you will see that a small number of graduates end up in business and industry. Well, that is the case for many graduates from Canadian law schools as well, especially the JD/MBAs.

Then you have a small number of graduates going into government and public interest, which is also the same in Canada.

Now, this is the largest difference between Canadian and US law schools - the judicial clerkship placements. In Canada, you will typically only see 1 or 2 students per law school doing a federal clerkship. A lot more students do it in the US. These clerkships are great for people that want to pursue government, litigation, and academic jobs. They won't matter to Big law firms as much. 

So, that is the gist of it. Pull up the employment stats for the US schools and you will see that the placement rates are virtually similar to Canada. If you plan to practice in Canada in the long-term, going to a top US law school will only give you bragging rights and that is about it. US Big law careers are short-term gigs for most people. The lawyers I know that went to HYS did US Big law for a few years to pay off their loans, then came to Canada to work in litigation boutiques, in-house, mid-sized firms, and government jobs with the rest of their Canadian peers. I know Harvard law grads working with Windsor grads in Canada.

My advice to you is to figure out where you want to practice long-term. If that is in Canada, then there is absolutely nothing wrong with going to law school here to get the exact same job that you can in the US. 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/joannadafoe - See this Yale JD/MBA working in the Canadian government. 

https://ca.linkedin.com/in/arashghiassi - See this Yale grad working as a criminal lawyer in Canada.

https://ca.linkedin.com/in/tasha-manoranjan-32652189 - See this Yale grad working as an indigeneous lawyer in Canada (after 6 years at Sidley Austin). 

https://www.bygravelaw.com/about - See this Harvard grad working as a criminal lawyer in Canada.

I obtained my law degree from HARVARD LAW SCHOOL in 2000. Thereafter I worked for a Federal District Judge in Detroit, Michigan, and then onto a big corporate law firm in Washington, DC, where I practiced in the litigation department.  I left the law firm in 2002 to pursue my passion and my life’s work as a defender of the liberties of every day citizens...

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Marco
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22 minutes ago, Avatar Aang said:

You got a lot of good responses but I'm going to mention the most important thing you need to look at. And that is the employment statistics for each of these schools. 

The employment prospects out of the T14 are vastly identical to the employment prospects out of top Canadian law schools. People who tell you otherwise are blinded by the reputation of these schools and don't know what they are talking about. I have many peers in the US now and know a number of former US Big law lawyers that returned to Canada. They work alongside Canadian law school graduates from every school.

https://hls.harvard.edu/dept/ocs/recent-employment-data/ 

Take Harvard law school's employment stats for example. This shows that the vast majority of the class ends up in US Big law. 

If you look at the top Canadian law schools, you will see that a significant portion of the class also ends up in Big law. 

After Big law, you will see that a small number of graduates end up in business and industry. Well, that is the case for many graduates from Canadian law schools as well, especially the JD/MBAs.

Then you have a small number of graduates going into government and public interest, which is also the same in Canada.

Now, this is the largest difference between Canadian and US law schools - the judicial clerkship placements. In Canada, you will typically only see 1 or 2 students per law school doing a federal clerkship. A lot more students do it in the US. These clerkships are great for people that want to pursue government, litigation, and academic jobs. They won't matter to Big law firms as much. 

So, that is the gist of it. Pull up the employment stats for the US schools and you will see that the placement rates are virtually similar to Canada. If you plan to practice in Canada in the long-term, going to a top US law school will only give you bragging rights and that is about it. US Big law careers are short-term gigs for most people. The lawyers I know that went to HYS did US Big law for a few years to pay off their loans, then came to Canada to work in litigation boutiques, in-house, mid-sized firms, and government jobs with the rest of their Canadian peers. I know Harvard law grads working with Windsor grads in Canada.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/joannadafoe - See this Yale JD/MBA working in the Canadian government. 

https://ca.linkedin.com/in/arashghiassi - See this Yale grad working as a criminal lawyer in Canada.

https://www.bygravelaw.com/about - See this Harvard grad working as a criminal lawyer in Canada.

My advice to you is to figure out where you want to practice long-term. If that is in Canada, then there is absolutely nothing wrong with going to law school here to get the exact same job that you can in the US. 

 

I almost hope I strike out at HYS precisely because I fear I'll make a bad decision for some petty reason like 'bragging rights' 😅

Thanks for the info!

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Avatar Aang
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3 minutes ago, Marco said:

I almost hope I strike out at HYS precisely because I fear I'll make a bad decision for some petty reason like 'bragging rights' 😅

Thanks for the info!

I added some edits to my post. Check out the profiles I shared as examples. If you want to work in Canada, it really makes no difference to employers here whether you went to U of T/Osgoode or T6. The T6 only offer you a significant advantage for certain careers in the US, and I'm not even talking about US Big law, because that is not that difficult to obtain if you land a seven sister job (or equally as reputed) in Canada. People work at the sisters and lateral into US/international Big law all the time, even before the pandemic.

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Kobe
  • Law Student
8 minutes ago, Avatar Aang said:

I added some edits to my post. Check out the profiles I shared as examples. If you want to work in Canada, it really makes no difference to employers here whether you went to U of T/Osgoode or T6. The T6 only offer you a significant advantage for certain careers in the US, and I'm not even talking about US Big law, because that is not that difficult to obtain if you land a seven sister job (or equally as reputed) in Canada. People work at the sisters and lateral into US/international Big law all the time, even before the pandemic.

Does being in the bottom 30% at UofT or Osgoode really give you a big law type job because those schools are putting 70%+ into those jobs. I hope the answer is yes but this is a legitimate question, I saw the value in those schools being how far down in the class employers went not that the jobs themselves change. 

I would like to go to one of UofT or Osgoode, god willing, so that would be welcomed news. 

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Avatar Aang
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Just now, Kobe said:

Does being in the bottom 30% at UofT or Osgoode really give you a big law type job because those schools are putting 70%+ into those jobs. I hope the answer is yes but this is a legitimate question, I saw the value in those schools being how far down in the class employers went not that the jobs themselves change. 

I would like to go to one of UofT or Osgoode, god willing, so that would be welcomed news. 

One thing you want to note is that, at least at Osgoode, not everyone wants to work in Big law. Osgoode's holistic admissions process ensures that it's not all corporate gunners at the school. There are a lot of people there that go for jobs in other fields like criminal, indigenous, labour and employment, social justice, etc. Many of these people will be high achievers with strong grades as well. So, it's not as black and white as saying that being in the bottom 30% of the class will not land you Big law. Maybe a few people with grades like this will land jobs, because they have other things on their application that make them attractive to Big law employers. I certainly know people in the bottom 30% who worked in non-Big law corporate jobs before lateraling into Big law as Associates. Your work experience matters more than your grades once you are called to the bar. Truth be told, getting a Big law job is not insanely difficult that you need to go into 200k+ at a US law school to do it. If you miss the student recruitment boat, there are lots of lateral opportunities after when you are an Associate. And what's your end goal with Big law? Most people leverage it for in-house jobs and other attractive exit-options. You can get these same positions without working in Big law. 

As for U of T, personally know people that were bottom of their class there that landed Big law jobs, including seven sisters. It places better than Osgoode in Big law, so if you know for sure this is what you want, then just go there. Osgoode, Western, and Queen's have similar placement rates. Ottawa places well in the Ottawa market. Most Canadian law schools place well in Big law in their own respective regions. You don't need to go to HYS for a Big law job, including US Big law. Get into a seven sister firm and lateral. 

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Kobe
  • Law Student
3 minutes ago, Avatar Aang said:

One thing you want to note is that, at least at Osgoode, not everyone wants to work in Big law. Osgoode's holistic admissions process ensures that it's not all corporate gunners at the school. There are a lot of people there that go for jobs in other fields like criminal, indigenous, labour and employment, social justice, etc. Many of these people will be high achievers with strong grades as well. So, it's not as black and white as saying that being in the bottom 30% of the class will not land you Big law. Maybe a few people with grades like this will land jobs, because they have other things on their application that make them attractive to Big law employers. I certainly know people in the bottom 30% who worked in non-Big law corporate jobs before lateraling into Big law as Associates. Your work experience matters more than your grades once you are called to the bar. Truth be told, getting a Big law job is not insanely difficult that you need to go into 200k+ at a US law school to do it. If you miss the student recruitment boat, there are lots of lateral opportunities after when you are an Associate. And what's your end goal with Big law? Most people leverage it for in-house jobs and other attractive exit-options. You can get these same positions without working in Big law. 

As for U of T, personally know people that were bottom of their class there that landed Big law jobs, including seven sisters. It places better than Osgoode in Big law, so if you know for sure this is what you want, then just go there. Osgoode, Western, and Queen's have similar placement rates. Ottawa places well in the Ottawa market. Most Canadian law schools place well in Big law in their own respective regions. You don't need to go to HYS for a Big law job, including US Big law. Get into a seven sister firm and lateral. 

That was a very helpful answer, thank you. My goal is in house counsel so this is good to know there's multiple paths to get there. 

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Avatar Aang
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2 minutes ago, Kobe said:

That was a very helpful answer, thank you. My goal is in house counsel so this is good to know there's multiple paths to get there. 

You most definitely don't need to sweat it. In-house employers don't exclusively hire Big law lawyers. I know lots of corporate lawyers that did not work in Big law that went in-house, including foreign trained lawyers with Bond and Leiecester degrees that worked in small corporate shops, before moving to a mid-sized firm, and then eventually landing some pristine in-house counsel jobs. If they can do it, you can certainly do it out of U of T or Osgoode or "insert another Canadian law school here". 

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MapleLeafs
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19 minutes ago, Avatar Aang said:

You most definitely don't need to sweat it. In-house employers don't exclusively hire Big law lawyers. I know lots of corporate lawyers that did not work in Big law that went in-house, including foreign trained lawyers with Bond and Leiecester degrees that worked in small corporate shops, before moving to a mid-sized firm, and then eventually landing some pristine in-house counsel jobs. If they can do it, you can certainly do it out of U of T or Osgoode or "insert another Canadian law school here". 

Do litigation associates in big law have similar in-house opportunities as corporate associates? I like litigation better, but I'm worried I might be closing doors by not pursuing corporate law. 

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Avatar Aang
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17 minutes ago, MapleLeafs said:

Do litigation associates in big law have similar in-house opportunities as corporate associates? I like litigation better, but I'm worried I might be closing doors by not pursuing corporate law. 

Unfortunately, no. Most in-house corporate jobs want corporate generalists with transactional experience. There are some litigation jobs that come up here and there though, especially with government employers. But if your main goal is in-house corporate, then I do not advise pursuing litigation. 

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HammurabiTime
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1 hour ago, Kobe said:

Does being in the bottom 30% at UofT or Osgoode really give you a big law type job because those schools are putting 70%+ into those jobs. I hope the answer is yes but this is a legitimate question, I saw the value in those schools being how far down in the class employers went not that the jobs themselves change. 

I would like to go to one of UofT or Osgoode, god willing, so that would be welcomed news. 

You can check the ultra vires numbers for this. My recollection is that UofT places around half its class (45-60% depending on year) in an OCI position in Ontario. Two important caveats. First, OCI does not strictly equate to 'big law', it includes a lot of government positions as well. Second, the geographic limitation of ultra vires reporting must be kept in mind, it only reports on the Ontario market.

Canadian schools don't report on employment numbers like US schools so the numbers are murkier. I don't think any Canadian school has as good numbers for the Canadian market as HYS do for the US market if you want to be at a full service firm.

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Pendragon
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1 hour ago, HammurabiTime said:

You can check the ultra vires numbers for this. My recollection is that UofT places around half its class (45-60% depending on year) in an OCI position in Ontario. Two important caveats. First, OCI does not strictly equate to 'big law', it includes a lot of government positions as well. Second, the geographic limitation of ultra vires reporting must be kept in mind, it only reports on the Ontario market.

Canadian schools don't report on employment numbers like US schools so the numbers are murkier. I don't think any Canadian school has as good numbers for the Canadian market as HYS do for the US market if you want to be at a full service firm.

The market here is dwarfed in comparison to the US, which has hundreds of Big law firms. These firms are also much larger, with the largest firms having over a thousand lawyers. Canadian law school classes have increased in enrollment, but they are still much smaller than in the US, and there are fewer law schools here.

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BlockedQuebecois
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“Hundreds” is a bit of an overstatement. Most people would say the V100 are big law firms, and you can make the argument for some number of the AM200 to be included as well. I don’t think many people would consider all AM200 firms to be big law, and certainly nobody thinks all the NLJ250 are big law. 

100-200 is certainly better than in Canada, though, where you’re looking at maybe twenty big law firms in the country. 

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