Differences in the ‘Biglaw’ experience: Toronto vs. NYC

[Marco]

I was wondering if anyone has any insight into the major differences between practicing ‘biglaw’ in these locations, with respect to things like:

• workload, amount of time expected to be billed
• cultural differences between America / Canada (work life balance? attitude of superiors? etc.)
• difference in salaries and perquisites
  • take home pay after taxes & cost of living factored in?
• nature of the work performed (same? or more variety, intellectually stimulating etc. in NYC?)
• any other salient differences

I understand that differences along these dimensions will probably vary from firm to firm, but insofar as any global differences exist between the countries I’m interested to learn of them.

Thanks!

[habsfan93]

I'll bite.  I'm in biglaw litigation in NYC, and have never practiced in Canada (but can compare to some extent based on experiences of friends who do).  

Workload/billing.  Billable hours and workload definitely trend overall higher in NYC, but I think this gets overstated a bit in discussions on this forum.  My workload isn't much different than friends in private practice in Toronto or elsewhere in Canada, and probably average around 2000 docketed hours a year (including billables, pro bono, CLE, admin work, etc). The NYC firms that have annual billable targets usually set them a few hundred hours higher than Canadian firms, but the better NYC firms often don't have billable targets (which doesn't necessarily mean people are billing less, but bonuses are guaranteed no matter what).  

Cultural differences.  Not really a "cultural" thing, but US biglaw firms are an order of magnitude larger so there is generally more of a feel of being a cog in a large corporation.  One corollary to this on the litigation side is that the cases are much larger dollar value and it's not unusual to have teams of 15-20 associates and multiple partners on the same file.  This means US associates generally have less individual responsibility earlier on and are much slower to get "substantive" experience like leading depositions, making arguments in court, etc than associates in Canada.  On the flip side, "pro bono" work is a huge thing in US firms compared to Canada, and there's an expectation that US litigation associates will get a lot of their substantive experience from running pro bono matters.  

Differences in salaries.  US salaries are publically available and obviously significantly higher and allow you to bank more money, even in NYC which has comparable taxes to Canada and much higher COL.  Junior associates in NYC can easily save $100k+ per year without being particularly frugal.  

Nature of work.   At least in litigation, there are some kinds of work available in NYC that a Canadian firm likely wouldn't see.  One example is the government investigations space, where the US is pretty unique in having various government agencies that have the authority and are aggressive in investigating/prosecuting white collar crime around the world if they can construe some nexus to the US.    

 

[WilliamMoore]

I'm a corporate associate in NYC that semi-recently lateraled from a Toronto firm. I can add a few points from a transactional perspective:

• Workload - There are higher expectations in general in NY - however I think the deal flow insanity of the past year has closed this gap a bit (at least for now). I was averaging around 200 billable hours/month in Toronto prior to lateraling and it's been more or less the same in NY so far. Prior to the pandemic, I was averaging closer to 160 hours/month in Toronto with no issues. From talking to others at my current firm, I understand that the expectation has always been around 200 hours a month.
• Culture - It's hard to generalize since culture is so heavily dependant on individual firms (and groups within firms). In my experience, there haven't been many noticeable differences. There are plenty of great people and plenty of awful people at every firm on both sides of the border.
• Compensation - You can make a lot of money in the U.S. Even factoring in cost of living, the difference moving from Bay Street is substantial. This is all public information. There are also more "perks" (gifts, expensive dinners/retreats, etc.) but nothing materially different than the perks offered in Toronto during normal times.
• Nature of Work - The work itself is similar in many ways but the deal values are obviously higher in NY. Depending on your firm and practice area, you'll likely get significant exposure to some of the largest transactions in the world involving novel issues for very well-known, sophisticated clients. The experience you'll get is unmatched and provides an extensive range of potential exit opportunities. This was one of the biggest draws of NY big law for me. 
• Other Differences
  • If you come over from Toronto as a lateral, the learning curve can be steep. This is partially due to the fact that NY associates don't have an articling year, so I find firms generally expect more from juniors/mid-levels of the same class year compared to Canadian firms.
  • I didn't enjoy cross-border work as much on the Canadian side, because you're often acting in a narrow support role on U.S.-focused transactions. On the U.S. side, you're more commonly running the deal, which allows you to get more involved in bigger picture matters and naturally leads to more interesting work.