Ask me questions!

[Yogurt Baron]

Interesting. Yeah, I 100% don't blame students for going that way and just saying the first word, but I do wonder if the school will eventually start branding itself as the Alexander School of Law. It feels weird to me to be on a first-name relationship with Lincoln Alexander when you don't see that at other law schools. Nobody who gets into the law school at York, named after William Osgoode, is saying, "Oh, yeah, I go to Bill."

[Piffle]

3 hours ago, Yogurt Baron said:

Interesting. Yeah, I 100% don't blame students for going that way and just saying the first word, but I do wonder if the school will eventually start branding itself as the Alexander School of Law. It feels weird to me to be on a first-name relationship with Lincoln Alexander when you don't see that at other law schools. Nobody who gets into the law school at York, named after William Osgoode, is saying, "Oh, yeah, I go to Bill."

I feel like that wierdness would be diluted a bit since Lincoln is also a last name, but then again, what do I know... I'm also not a student at that law school who'd, as a consequence, have to constantly refer to it by some name, whatever it may be.
 

Edited September 23, 2021 by Piffle

[mistertubby]

On 9/23/2021 at 2:18 PM, Yogurt Baron said:

It feels weird to me to be on a first-name relationship with Lincoln Alexander when you don't see that at other law schools.

how about “Antonin Scalia Law School” 

[Yogurt Baron]

1 hour ago, mistertubby said:

how about “Antonin Scalia Law School” 

I mean, his first name is the title, but if you look at the website, it's referred to as "Scalia Law", not "Antonin". (I don't know what students call it informally. Maybe they call it "Antonin".)

Edited September 27, 2021 by Yogurt Baron

[mimi]

hi! 

I am writing my personal statements for ryerson and I am having trouble keeping my word count down. Part B asks us to talk about our experience and qualities in 2,500 characters and I'm at 4,000 and I don't know what else I can take out :(

[abogada]

On 9/27/2021 at 9:27 AM, Yogurt Baron said:

I mean, his first name is the title, but if you look at the website, it's referred to as "Scalia Law", not "Antonin". (I don't know what students call it informally. Maybe they call it "Antonin".)

Better than the originally planned Antonin Scalia School of Law #ASSLaw 

For the uninitiated: https://abovethelaw.com/2021/09/ken-jennings-asked-about-one-of-above-the-laws-greatest-law-school-moments/

Could Lincoln Alexander School of Law be L.A. Law? (props if you get that reference. I'm old.). 

[toby1994]

5 hours ago, mimi said:

hi! 

I am writing my personal statements for ryerson and I am having trouble keeping my word count down. Part B asks us to talk about our experience and qualities in 2,500 characters and I'm at 4,000 and I don't know what else I can take out 😞

Rather than removing a section, go through the entire thing and see if each point could be made quicker or with less words. In doing this process, you might even reconsider certain sections and find that you want to cut them as well! 

[BoiledPotatoes]

Kinda off topic but does anyone know where I can find the 1L and 2L recruitment stats? (Has 2L happened yet?)

[BoiledPotatoes]

Is anyone here aiming for biglaw? Do you think Ryerson does a good job preparing you to work in biglaw? That's my end goal (extremely difficult goal, I know, but still) and I wanna get current students' take on it.

[CleanHands]

Just now, BoiledPotatoes said:

extremely difficult goal, I know

I've said it before, but it's silly that applicants and 1Ls think this when at least a third of the class lands BigLaw jobs from decent Canadian law schools.

[Pendragon]

52 minutes ago, BoiledPotatoes said:

Is anyone here aiming for biglaw? Do you think Ryerson does a good job preparing you to work in biglaw? That's my end goal (extremely difficult goal, I know, but still) and I wanna get current students' take on it.

70% of my class are currently working in corporate with more than half of them in Big law or reputable boutiques and mid-sized firms. These jobs are some of the easiest you can get in this field as a lawyer. Note, I said lawyer. Big law firms actively recruit a lot of junior associates who didn't make the cut in law school, because they have many spots to fill for the spaces that open up when the people they did hire in law school leave their firms.

http://ultravires.ca/2021/05/toronto-summer-2021-2l-recruit-numbers/

There are over 400 Big law jobs in Toronto alone. There are also Big law jobs in other markets like Ottawa, Vancouver, Calgary, Halifax, Montreal, etc. So, given that there are ~2000 law students per year in Canadian law schools, and not everyone wants to work in Big law, how hard do you think landing these jobs are?

A more important question you should ask yourself is, how long do you think you'll last in Big law and is being a corporate stooge really your career goals in first year university? What meaning are you going to derive from this work?

Also, Ryerson Law is only in its second year of operation. How is this your dream school? Aim higher.

[BlockedQuebecois]

It's a bit bizarre to define all of the 2L recruit as "big law", considering a huge portion of the 2L recruit isn't anything close to big law. 

Also a bit weird to say there are ~2000 law students in Canada when there are ~1600 in Ontario alone and there are 15 non-Ontario law schools in Canada. 

I'm all for saying that big law isn't that hard to get into—all you need to do is be mildly smart—but lets not exaggerate to the point that we're calling Kim Spencer McPhee Barristers P.C a "big law" firm or pretending only 400 students graduate from non-Ontario law schools.

Edited October 10, 2021 by BlockedQuebecois

[Pendragon]

11 minutes ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

It's a bit bizarre to define all of the 2L recruit as "big law", considering a huge portion of the 2L recruit isn't anything close to big law. 

Also a bit weird to say there are ~2000 law students in Canada when there are ~1600 in Ontario alone and there are 15 non-Ontario law schools in Canada. 

I'm all for saying that big law isn't that hard to get into—all you need to do is be mildly smart—but lets not exaggerate to the point that we're calling Kim Spencer McPhee Barristers P.C a "big law" firm or pretending only 400 students graduate from non-Ontario law schools.

Yea that's fair haha. I was too lazy to break down the litigation firms, regional firms, some government offices, and mid-sized firms for the OP. Typically when someone not in law school refers to Big law, you assume that they just mean a reputable corporate firm in general. After all, when OCIs roll around, law students tend to apply to anything and not just the full-service firms. 

I didn't do the math there but I recall reading that number in previous posts. I may have been mistaken though with recent increases in class sizes. 

The main point is that these jobs are not as difficult to get as a lot of people think. I also thought they were very difficult jobs to get when I was a student, until I saw who was landing them in law school. Now that I'm out of law school, I see mediocre classmates working in Big law firms. Some firms are more competitive to get into than others, but Big law in general is not difficult to get into in my opinion. 

Also, you said it perfectly..."be mildly smart." This isn't a high bar to reach lol.

Edited October 10, 2021 by Pendragon

[BlockedQuebecois]

1 minute ago, Pendragon said:

The main point is that these jobs are not as difficult to get as a lot of people think. I also thought they were very difficult jobs to get when I was a student, until I saw who was landing them in law school. Now that I'm out of law school, I see mediocre classmates working in Big law firms. Some firms are more competitive to get into than others, but Big law in general is not difficult to get into in my opinion. 

Sure, roughly one in five—maybe one in four—law students will work in what I consider to be big law out of law school. Those aren't bad odds, though they're not particularly good ones, either.

I don't think we're doing anyone any favours by suggesting the average mediocre law student ends up on Bay Street. The average mediocre student doesn't even get OCIs.

I also think perspective is important here. If you think more than 50% of your class is in big law or reputable mid size firms that's fine, but I think about 15% of my class is in a role I would even consider applying to, let alone accepting. Most lawyers I know work in positions I have no desire to fill, even if I were interested in their practice area. 

[CleanHands]

Getting a BigLaw job generally just involves getting admitted to a Canadian law school, performing at least around average there, and not behaving like a spastic in interviews.

And having enough luck to not be in the minority of people who check those boxes but still strike out because they are every firm's runner-up choice instead of ranking a little higher for at least one of them. I'm not going to claim that good candidates don't fall through the cracks. But getting a BigLaw job as a JD student is easier than almost any professional career path I can think of in other fields.

I will note that the poster who characterized getting a BigLaw job as "extremely difficult" is a first-year undergraduate student so I'll forgive their naivety, but it goes to show that applicants often have skewed perspectives that deserve to be corrected.

2 minutes ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

I think about 15% of my class is in a role I would even consider applying to, let alone accepting.

You were almost a medalist and you secured an appellate level clerkship and interviewed with the SCC (not doxxing you as this is all info you have stated publicly on the forums). You can afford to be choosier than the vast majority of us and the standard you are referencing here is far more elite and competitive than what most would consider "BigLaw."

[Pendragon]

5 minutes ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

Sure, roughly one in five—maybe one in four—law students will work in what I consider to be big law out of law school. Those aren't bad odds, though they're not particularly good ones, either.

I don't think we're doing anyone any favours by suggesting the average mediocre law student ends up on Bay Street. The average mediocre student doesn't even get OCIs.

I also think perspective is important here. If you think more than 50% of your class is in big law or reputable mid size firms that's fine, but I think about 15% of my class is in a role I would even consider applying to, let alone accepting. Most lawyers I know work in positions I have no desire to fill, even if I were interested in their practice area. 

Maybe it depends on the law school you went to, but plenty of B average students get OCI jobs. More importantly, as I said, there are a TON of Associate opportunities out there. I have a friend that articled in personal injury, worked for a year in a mid-sized firm, and is now at a Big law firm. This is a normal example of someone making such a move. Big law firms don't just mean McCarthys, Blakes, and Davies. There are many firms out there that go lower in the grades pools, and even lower in the Associate hiring pools. 

Also, damn man, congrats on the academic achievements! Big stuff. 

[BlockedQuebecois]

You can think I have an elitist view, for sure. That’s true. But my numbers (being roughly one in five) are a lot closer to the true value than the 70% or “more than half” numbers floated above.

To be honest, there’s enough data about this that this type of hyperbole is really unwarranted. 

It’s not hard to figure out that there are far more than 2000 law grads across Canada. Back of napkin math would suffice for that. 

It’s also not that hard to look up some stats on lawyer employment. More than 20% of lawyers in Ontario practice as sole practitioners and more than 40% practice in firms of less than 10 lawyers and employees (inclusive of soles). Less than 30% of lawyers in Ontario practice as members of a firm with more than 100 lawyers and employees, which is the most generous definition of big law conceivable. 

The suggestion that 70% of lawyers work in corporate law is clearly wrong. The suggestion that more than half work in big law or reputable midsize/boutique firms is also clearly wrong.

It’s possible to make the point you two are trying to make—which is that big law, defined (in my opinion too) broadly is not that hard to get into—without just… making stuff up? 

[Rashabon]

That’s mostly because the market is red hot. When I was hired most of my fellow articling students and those that made Associates were stars. The vast majority were above average students and the few that I guess were more middling academically (though I don’t know for sure) were charismatic or impressive in other ways.

Let’s also not warp the statistics here. Getting a big law job however you want to define it is relatively easy at U of T. It scales down from there. Ottawa and Windsor place less than 20% in those jobs, and that’s skewed by a bunch of the jobs those folks got hired at not being big law. Like 3 of the 5 DOJ hired being Windsor.

[CleanHands]

2 minutes ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

-Snip-

I actually wrote that more than a third of students at decent Canadian law schools land BigLaw jobs. I stand by that. And if you're going to cite statistics about practicing lawyers that includes people who went the NCA route, almost none of whom land BigLaw jobs.

I do like you, but I didn't write what you're suggesting and I don't understand your "lots of those jobs aren't good enough for me personally so they aren't real BigLaw jobs by that standard" implication.

[BlockedQuebecois]

1 minute ago, CleanHands said:

I actually wrote that more than a third of students at decent Canadian law schools land BigLaw jobs. I stand by that. And if you're going to cite statistics about practicing lawyers that includes people who went the NCA route, almost none of whom land BigLaw jobs.

I do like you, but I didn't write what you're suggesting and I don't understand your "lots of those jobs aren't good enough for me personally so they aren't real BigLaw jobs by that standard" implication.

I didn’t say you wrote those figures. For the avoidance of doubt, those were Pendragon’s.

Your figures are still too high, though. The only school landing a third of their students in big law jobs is U of T. UBC, McGill, and Osgoode are all landing less than that, and then maybe 20% of students from Queens/Western get big law jobs and it’s downhill from there. 

And all of that is giving you a very generous definition of big law. 

I would stand by my initial estimate—roughly 20-25% of students will get big law jobs. That’s a pretty fair estimate, and I think it makes the point that big law jobs aren’t that hard to get without resorting to the hyperbole of Pendragon’s “more than half”. 

 

[Pendragon]

43 minutes ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

You can think I have an elitist view, for sure. That’s true. But my numbers (being roughly one in five) are a lot closer to the true value than the 70% or “more than half” numbers floated above.

To be honest, there’s enough data about this that this type of hyperbole is really unwarranted. 

It’s not hard to figure out that there are far more than 2000 law grads across Canada. Back of napkin math would suffice for that. 

It’s also not that hard to look up some stats on lawyer employment. More than 20% of lawyers in Ontario practice as sole practitioners and more than 40% practice in firms of less than 10 lawyers and employees (inclusive of soles). Less than 30% of lawyers in Ontario practice as members of a firm with more than 100 lawyers and employees, which is the most generous definition of big law conceivable. 

The suggestion that 70% of lawyers work in corporate law is clearly wrong. The suggestion that more than half work in big law or reputable midsize/boutique firms is also clearly wrong.

It’s possible to make the point you two are trying to make—which is that big law, defined (in my opinion too) broadly is not that hard to get into—without just… making stuff up? 

I think you misread my initial post as I said "70% of my class are currently working in corporate with more than half of them in Big law or reputable boutiques and mid-sized firms." I was strictly referring to my law school class here and not the legal profession as a whole. 

Edited October 10, 2021 by Pendragon
And I am not just talking about student placements here. Many of the people I graduated with that did not land Big law jobs are now currently working in Big law as Associates, if by Big law we are referring to large, full-service firms with 200+ lawyers.

[Rashabon]

70% in corporate is an insane number. I don't think even my U of T class was that high. 30% encompasses every criminal lawyer, retail lawyer, civil litigator that isn't at a big firm, government lawyer and in-house lawyer from your class?

[Pendragon]

1 hour ago, Rashabon said:

70% in corporate is an insane number. I don't think even my U of T class was that high. 30% encompasses every criminal lawyer, retail lawyer, civil litigator that isn't at a big firm, government lawyer and in-house lawyer from your class?

Note, this is what my peers are currently doing a few years out of law school and not law student placement stats. The school is Osgoode.

~150 are currently working in the corporate field (which includes non-practicing business roles, in-house counsel, and small/mid-sized/large firms). This includes practice areas I would categorize as falling within the "corporate" field like real estate, construction, tax, IP, securities, M&A, financial services, information technology, etc. 

~10-15 are in labour law, ~15 in management-side employment, ~20 in insurance defence, ~5 in personal injury, ~20 in criminal, ~18 in family, ~6 in environmental, ~11 in indigenous, ~3 in municipal, ~10 in immigration, and ~10 in wills and estates.

Most people are working in the private sector, with ~15% of the class in the public sector (government, non-profits, regulatory agencies, and legal aid). 

U of T's placement rates in Big law is fairly high, and if we look at all the people that probably lateraled in their first few years, the numbers would probably be higher. There has also been a lot of movement to the US and internationally recently. 

Coming back to my point, even if you strike out during OCIs, it is not difficult landing a decent corporate job coming out of law school even if you have to start off in a small or mid-sized firm. Some of my peers who did that are now working in Big law or in-house counsel roles. This is what I meant by most of my class is now in the corporate field. I should have clarified that this did not just mean Big law. 

Edited October 10, 2021 by Pendragon

[Tomatoes]

2 hours ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

Your figures are still too high, though. The only school landing a third of their students in big law jobs is U of T. UBC, McGill, and Osgoode are all landing less than that, and then maybe 20% of students from Queens/Western get big law jobs and it’s downhill from there. 

 

U of T is definitely sending more than a third of their class to biglaw. So is McGill. 

[Rashabon]

We have very different definitions of corporate law then. A residential real estate lawyer is not practicing corporate law. Most construction lawyers aren't really practicing corporate law either. I'll give you the ones practicing at big law firms given who their clientele likely are. A construction lawyer at Glaholt Bowles is not a corporate lawyer either.

So yeah, if you define almost every area of private practice outside of a small handful of retail lawyers as corporate, then sure 70% is realistic. It's just meaningless at that point.

18 minutes ago, Tomatoes said:

U of T is definitely sending more than a third of their class to biglaw. So is McGill. 

He didn't say "only a third". A third was the floor in his example, not the ceiling.

Edited October 10, 2021 by Rashabon