Ask me questions!

[Pendragon]

12 minutes ago, Rashabon said:

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.

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

To break that down further, real estate is ~20, ~10 in IP, ~8 in tax, ~7 in construction, and ~3 in privacy. The rest, from what I can see in my data, are doing what you would probably categorize as corporate/commercial. 

Edited October 10, 2021 by Pendragon

[BlockedQuebecois]

4 hours ago, Tomatoes said:

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

See Rashabon’s response re: U of T. I’ve never seen good stats for McGill’s Montréal big law placement rate. If you can show me twenty plus percent of their class ends up working in big law in Montréal, I’ll happily admit I’m wrong.

But most people tend to overestimate the number of big law jobs in non-Toronto cities—people on the old forum would pretty routinely say UBC was as good as U of T at placing students in big law, but it only places about a quarter of its students during the Vancouver 2L recruit. That’s not because UBC isn’t a great school (it clearly is), it’s because UBC students would need to get essentially every available 2L job in Vancouver in order match U of T’s 2L recruit success. In comparison, U of T only needs to get about a fifth of the market. 

I expect McGill is in a similar place, but again, I’m happy to be proven wrong. 

[Tomatoes]

My information comes from their CDO; it suggests they place well over a third in biglaw across their various recruits. If you have any McGill friends, ask them if they're willing to share the document with you.

 

[BlockedQuebecois]

4 hours ago, Tomatoes said:

My information comes from their CDO; it suggests they place well over a third in biglaw across their various recruits. If you have any McGill friends, ask them if they're willing to share the document with you.

I'm not really sure why I would go bother my friends about this—I don't particularly care if McGill places over a third of its students in big law or not. If you have the data and you're correct, feel free to post a PDF of it here. I've already said I'm happy to be proven wrong, and it would be useful information for students considering what school to attend. 

Regardless, whether or not McGill places a third of its students into big law is inconsequential for the discussion we were having. 

[Avatar Aang]

4 hours ago, Tomatoes said:

My information comes from their CDO; it suggests they place well over a third in biglaw across their various recruits. If you have any McGill friends, ask them if they're willing to share the document with you.

 

I believe other McGill students on the old forum like Pzabbythesecond had mentioned the same about McGill's Big law placement rates from what I vaguely recall. They at least seem to place very well in Montreal, though I don't know how big the market there is.

[BlockedQuebecois]

17 minutes ago, Avatar Aang said:

I believe other McGill students on the old forum like Pzabbythesecond had mentioned the same about McGill's Big law placement rates from what I vaguely recall. They at least seem to place very well in Montreal, though I don't know how big the market there is.

Pzabby was also always (a bit maddeningly) vague about this, though. I’ve never understood the aversion to posting the data, considering pzabby also alluded to having the data as well. 

McGill definitely places well in Montréal, though. It also places decently well in Toronto (considering the presumed lack of interest in that market on the whole). The real question is precisely how well does it place in Montréal and Ottawa, and what proportion of those jobs are big law vs boutiques or government.

Nearly a quarter of the Toronto OCI jobs McGill students grabbed last year, for instance, were government jobs, and another chunk were not big law firms (off the top of my head, they had one at Siskinds, one at Torkin Manes, and three at McLeish Orlando). So while 13% of the class got a 2L Toronto job, roughly half of those were not in big law. 

Edited October 10, 2021 by BlockedQuebecois

[CleanHands]

I don't care about the exactitude of the placement stats.

The key takeaway here is that we agree that BigLaw jobs aren't "extremely difficult" to get. And 0L worship of BigLaw is irritating, as is all the law school sponsorship, paid placement in "best lawyers"/"best firms" lists, and other forms of general self-congratulatory masturbation from BigLaw firms.

Nobody who isn't an idiot is impressed that anyone works at Blakes.

[Rashabon]

16 minutes ago, CleanHands said:

 

Nobody who isn't an idiot is impressed that anyone works at Blakes.

You seem to really hate Blakes since they're your quintessential go to. In any event, while you may think so, I think the majority of lawyers and law adjacent people tend to disagree to be quite honest.

[Tomatoes]

29 minutes ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

Nearly a quarter of the Toronto OCI jobs McGill students grabbed last year, for instance, were government jobs, and another chunk were not big law firms (off the top of my head, they had one at Siskinds, one at Torkin Manes, and three at McLeish Orlando). So while 13% of the class got a 2L Toronto job, roughly half of those were not in big law. 

Not sure where you get your information from but this is quite wrong according to http://ultravires.ca/2021/05/toronto-summer-2021-2l-recruit-numbers/. It seems that well over half the McGill placements in Toronto are in biglaw. 

Edited October 10, 2021 by Tomatoes

[Avatar Aang]

7 minutes ago, Tomatoes said:

Not sure where you get your information from but this is quite wrong according to http://ultravires.ca/2021/05/toronto-summer-2021-2l-recruit-numbers/. It seems that well over half the McGill placements in Toronto are in biglaw. 

Damn...478 OCI jobs last year? Is there a PDF version of this chart? I like how there is a year with 375 then it increases a lot each year. 

[BlockedQuebecois]

47 minutes ago, Tomatoes said:

Not sure where you get your information from but this is quite wrong according to http://ultravires.ca/2021/05/toronto-summer-2021-2l-recruit-numbers/. It seems that well over half the McGill placements in Toronto are in biglaw. 

You’re right, I miscounted the government jobs by one. They only landed four government spots, to go along with five non-big law ones (or six, depending on whether or not you think Dickinson Wright is a big law job with its 25-lawyer Toronto office). So either 39% or 43% of their Toronto jobs aren’t big law. I’d say 43%, and I’d say that’s “roughly half” in the context of a 23 person sample size, but you’re free to disagree. 

I’m not really sure why you want to nitpick my posts rather than just post the data you say supports your point, though. 

Edited October 10, 2021 by BlockedQuebecois

[Avatar Aang]

I would also like to see McGill's employment stats so we can compare them with the other schools. 

https://www.law.utoronto.ca/student-life/career-development-office/career-statistics 

https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1017&context=annual_reports (p.6)

https://allard.ubc.ca/career-services-office/student-career-resources/career-outcomes 

https://law.uwo.ca/current_students/careers/where_do_western_law_graduates_work.html 

https://law.queensu.ca/programs/jd/student-development/employment-data 

[QMT20]

1 hour ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

Pzabby was also always (a bit maddeningly) vague about this, though. I’ve never understood the aversion to posting the data, considering pzabby also alluded to having the data as well. 

McGill definitely places well in Montréal, though. It also places decently well in Toronto (considering the presumed lack of interest in that market on the whole). The real question is precisely how well does it place in Montréal and Ottawa, and what proportion of those jobs are big law vs boutiques or government.

Nearly a quarter of the Toronto OCI jobs McGill students grabbed last year, for instance, were government jobs, and another chunk were not big law firms (off the top of my head, they had one at Siskinds, one at Torkin Manes, and three at McLeish Orlando). So while 13% of the class got a 2L Toronto job, roughly half of those were not in big law. 

https://inter-alia.ca/2017/06/15/ottawa-2l-summer-recruit-statistics/

This is a few years old, but if it's anything to go buy it doesn't seem like McGill is dominating the Ottawa market. 

[Avatar Aang]

1 minute ago, QMT20 said:

https://inter-alia.ca/2017/06/15/ottawa-2l-summer-recruit-statistics/

This is a few years old, but if it's anything to go buy it doesn't seem like McGill is dominating the Ottawa market. 

Those are all the jobs available in Ottawa during the 2L recruit? Very small market indeed compared to the class size of Ottawa's law school. Anecdotally, I've noticed that most hires tend to be Ottawa grads as well.

[Rashabon]

43 minutes ago, Avatar Aang said:

Those are all the jobs available in Ottawa during the 2L recruit? Very small market indeed compared to the class size of Ottawa's law school. Anecdotally, I've noticed that most hires tend to be Ottawa grads as well.

It doesn't include the 1L IP recruit as far as I can tell. Also could be plenty of articling positions as well (so while the 2L recruit is small, it's not a perfect proxy for market size as there may be other factors at play).

[BoiledPotatoes]

@Pendragon First off, thanks for the reply. I've been checking whatever websites I can find that have info on biglaw and most of them emphasized the high difficulty. It may have been talking about the American legal market so perhaps that's why my perception was so skewed. I've heard getting jobs there is much more competitive.

Second, I'm aware of how young Ryerson is as a law school. It's not so much a dream school as it is an option. A dream school for me would be one like Osgoode or the one at the University of Toronto. I'm trying to see which law schools will prepare me best for the practice of law. Whether that is or isn't Ryerson remains to be seen.

Third, I'm curious. Is it specifically because Ryerson's law school is young that you think it's a bad choice or is it because of their curriculum? Or is it some other factor? I'd like to know so that when I do write the LSATs and begin applications, i know what makes a good law school.

I thought all Ontario law school curriculums are overseen by the LSO. Doesn't that mean the quality of education wouldn't vary that much from law school to law school? I saw another person here say that there aren't really any 'bad' law schools in Canada per se, more that some have better industry connections than others.

[CleanHands]

5 minutes ago, BoiledPotatoes said:

I'm trying to see which law schools will prepare me best for the practice of law. 

Generally no law school in the country does much to "prepare you for the practice of law." If that is your concern, just sign up for as many clinics as possible and take advantage of practical volunteering opportunities while in law school (and availability of these opportunities at various schools is what matters where practical knowledge is concerned, not course selection or delivery or whatever). Learning the practice of law is what articling is for though.

8 minutes ago, BoiledPotatoes said:

I thought all Ontario law school curriculums are overseen by the LSO. Doesn't that mean the quality of education wouldn't vary that much from law school to law school? I saw another person here say that there aren't really any 'bad' law schools in Canada per se, more that some have better industry connections than others.

Quality of education varies little between schools but placement rates in various kinds of employment varies significantly. This has little to do with perceived quality of education and more to do with perceived quality of the student bodies at various schools. Canada isn't as tiered as the US but admission standards across institutions still vary significantly. "Better industry connections" is the kind of line that people who go to a program like Windsor dual say to attempt to dismiss the fact that these differences exist and that employers know and care.

[GreyDude]

On 9/27/2021 at 12:27 PM, 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".)

"Tony"

Edited October 11, 2021 by GreyDude
Yeah, yeah. I replied three weeks later. Always late to the party.

[Avatar Aang]

1 hour ago, BoiledPotatoes said:

@Pendragon First off, thanks for the reply. I've been checking whatever websites I can find that have info on biglaw and most of them emphasized the high difficulty. It may have been talking about the American legal market so perhaps that's why my perception was so skewed. I've heard getting jobs there is much more competitive.

Second, I'm aware of how young Ryerson is as a law school. It's not so much a dream school as it is an option. A dream school for me would be one like Osgoode or the one at the University of Toronto. I'm trying to see which law schools will prepare me best for the practice of law. Whether that is or isn't Ryerson remains to be seen.

Third, I'm curious. Is it specifically because Ryerson's law school is young that you think it's a bad choice or is it because of their curriculum? Or is it some other factor? I'd like to know so that when I do write the LSATs and begin applications, i know what makes a good law school.

I thought all Ontario law school curriculums are overseen by the LSO. Doesn't that mean the quality of education wouldn't vary that much from law school to law school? I saw another person here say that there aren't really any 'bad' law schools in Canada per se, more that some have better industry connections than others.

Aren't high schoolers and undergrad the ones all gung-ho about university reputation? You can't be that naive to think that just because a school is publicly funded and standardized that no one will care where you went and the employment prospects and opportunities would be similar. 

To give you a good example of this - just look at the reputation of business schools. If you want to work in investment banking or management consulting, you need to be going to a school like Ivey or Queen's commerce, not Ryerson or Guelph. It doesn't matter if you take the same courses in both programs and the education itself is similar. You're not going to be at the same playing field when it comes time to applying for jobs and talking to recruiters. 

The quality of education in Canadian law schools is pretty similar, but the employment prospects, recognition, and opportunities are not all going to be the same. A school that is only 2 years old does not have established alumni, reputation, and networks to help get you the same opportunities as other schools that have been operating for 50+ years. 

Although, this does not apply to all practice areas and you may very well land a Bay Street job from Ryerson. People have done so in this past year. But why put yourself in a disadvantageous position to begin with, if you can just work harder in university and on the LSAT to get into better schools? You're in first year undergrad. Work hard to get into the best law schools we have here.

[BoiledPotatoes]

@Cookies1598 Do you have a Discord or WhatsApp or anything I could talk to you over? Would you be okay with that?

[IllegalBeagle]

On 10/10/2021 at 9:44 PM, CleanHands said:

Generally no law school in the country does much to "prepare you for the practice of law." If that is your concern, just sign up for as many clinics as possible and take advantage of practical volunteering opportunities while in law school (and availability of these opportunities at various schools is what matters where practical knowledge is concerned, not course selection or delivery or whatever). Learning the practice of law is what articling is for though

To clarify, the point of Lincoln Alexander and Bora Laskin is to prepare students for practice during lawschool, hence why both schools have an Integrated Practice Curriculum overseen by the LSO. Both programs incorporate practical work into the curriculum, and include a mandatory 1 semester professional placement. 

Bora Laskin doesn't place students on Bay St, I would imagine because it's anti-thetical to their main goal of producing lawyers to fill a specific gap in the market. Lincoln was intended to serve a similar purpose, from my understanding, but due to provincial politics has had to pivot somewhat.

We don't know yet how many Lincoln Students will ultimately end up on Bay but so far the firms seem interested in our students. As was mentioned, we do have students that succeeded during the 1L recruit. I'm not participating in the 2L recruit so I don't really have much information beyond the fancy firms in tall buildings did OCIs with our students, and are doing in-firms.

That being said I don't *think* any of our students expect to forgo articling at Davies of that's where they end up. 

On 10/10/2021 at 10:52 PM, Avatar Aang said:

You're in the first year of undergrad.

@BoiledPotatoes there are a lot of things to consider when you think about going to law school. But if you're a first-year in undergrad you ought to just focus on your grades. That's the most important part of the puzzle that is in your hands right now. School rankings and/or your interests may shift by the time you graduate.

For instance, Lincoln will have a graduating class or two by then, an alumni network, a (more) established clinical program, and stats to base your choice on.

People change their minds about careers and practice areas of interest up until 3L. That's ok. Try not to tunnel vision on something so early on, when there are so many possibilities to explore. 

18 hours ago, BoiledPotatoes said:

Do you have a Discord or WhatsApp or anything I could talk to you over? Would you be okay with that?

I'm deathly allergic to networking, so I'll have to pass.

Look into your school's Law/Poli sci club. You'll usually find students with similar goals in those spaces from my experience.

[BlockedQuebecois]

44 minutes ago, Cookies1598 said:

To clarify, the point of Lincoln Alexander and Bora Laskin is to prepare students for practice during lawschool, hence why both schools have an Integrated Practice Curriculum overseen by the LSO. Both programs incorporate practical work into the curriculum, and include a mandatory 1 semester professional placement. 

That might be the point, but you’re kidding yourself if you think fresh graduates from Lakehead are “prepared” to practice law and similarly kidding yourself if you think Ryerson grads will be. Most students who have finished articles aren’t actually prepared to practice, and they’ve had the benefit of far more practical training. 

46 minutes ago, Cookies1598 said:

Bora Laskin doesn't place students on Bay St, I would imagine because it's anti-thetical to their main goal of producing lawyers to fill a specific gap in the market

Bora Larkin doesn't place students on Bay St because their students are, by and large, not good enough to land OCI gigs. Every year students from that school would apply to my old firm, and they’d get turned down because they weren’t impressive. 

Ryerson has done better because Ryerson has better students than Lakehead, largely because Ryerson is located in Toronto and Lakehead is located in the arctic circle. 

[CleanHands]

@BlockedQuebecois beat me to addressing the two specific things I wanted to address, and said basically what I wanted to say about them. But at the risk of beating a dead horse I'd still like to expand a bit.

1 hour ago, Cookies1598 said:

To clarify, the point of Lincoln Alexander and Bora Laskin is to prepare students for practice during lawschool, hence why both schools have an Integrated Practice Curriculum overseen by the LSO. Both programs incorporate practical work into the curriculum, and include a mandatory 1 semester professional placement. 

This profession is incredibly humbling to anyone who has a modicum of sense about the seriousness of the responsibilities entailed by it, and the breadth and depth of knowledge there is to be acquired, and how little relative knowledge a fresh grad has. I work with people who have been practicing for decades and they will all say they never stopped learning and learn new things every day.

Anyone who plays up how a JD program supposedly gets grads "practice ready" is demonstrating a serious case of Dunning-Kruger. This sentiment is not just something that I strongly disagree with; it's something that I think demonstrates extreme naivety when coming from an applicant and outright stupidity when coming from a law student or lawyer.

The practical experience I gained before graduating from law school shits on what Ryerson offers. I loaded up on practical clinics, did volunteering involving actual court experience, had 1L and 2L jobs in my practice area, had further work experience in my field during law school, etc. All this taught me was how relatively little I knew, how much I had to learn, and how big the gaps were in my understanding of practical matters relating to court appearances and processes, etc. Oh and I did the factum and moot etc in law school and I'm going through the bar course now and drafting fake affidavits and contracts etc and all any of those exercises have done for me is further emphasize that when it comes to training there's no substitute for the real thing.

The Law Society decision to grant Ryerson students the articling exemption is absurd and I'm sure it was driven more by concerns about there being more students than placements than it was by some appraisal of Ryerson's program supposedly rendering it unnecessary.

1 hour ago, Cookies1598 said:

Bora Laskin doesn't place students on Bay St, I would imagine because it's anti-thetical to their main goal of producing lawyers to fill a specific gap in the market. Lincoln was intended to serve a similar purpose, from my understanding, but due to provincial politics has had to pivot somewhat.

Again BQ beat me to this but come on. You can't actually be stupid enough to think that it just happens to be a coincidence that the schools with lower Bay Street placement have lower admission standards, so you have to be being disingenuous. Bora Laskin's stated mandate isn't a niche they have chosen to fill so much as the only line they could sell credibly enough for someone like you to even try to repeat it. Because they couldn't claim with a straight face that they were looking to compete with UofT and Oz for Bay Street placements. But that doesn't stop their students from trying to apply to those jobs and by and large not having great odds of landing them.

[IllegalBeagle]

 

1 hour ago, CleanHands said:

You can't actually be stupid enough

Seems uncalled for but I'll bite.

No, I don't think Bora Laskin doesn't place students on Bay SIMPLY because they don't want to.  I'm a student, I don't have the experience either you nor @BlockedQuebecois has to offer on who applies to what firms, nor who they are perceived when they do apply.

I do think the Bora Laskin admissions process is likely informed by their mandate. It wouldn't make a lot of sense for that school to target the sort of students that would be hyper competitive in the Toronto recruit when they clearly train students to serve a different part of the legal market. Probably wouldn't be great strategy for addressing the general access to justice issues across the country either, but I could be wrong. I just don't think ones needs the same type of lawyer to handle a family matter in Wawa Ontario and major M&A transactions between multi-million-dollar international conglomerates.

That definitely won't stop some Bora Laskin students from shooting their shot, but c'est la vie.

As far as the adequacy of the ICP, I'm going to hazard a guess and say that the depth and robust nature of the articling experiences one would find at the large Bay St firms, probably can't be easily replicated by a smaller firm that serve entirely different markets.

While I appreciate both your (prickly) insights, I do wonder I said that seems to have hit a nerve? I don't think there's something lesser about your legal education, or that as a 2L I'm somehow qualified to do your work because of the ICP. I'm sure you are both very smart and very accomplished in your respective fields; and that you have something better to do then insult students on a forum for having the audacity to *checks notes* believe in the school they currently attend.

It's a nice day, the sun is shining, it feels like 8 Celsius outside but there's still plenty of green grass you can touch. Enjoy your weekends! ❤️

[CleanHands]

12 minutes ago, Cookies1598 said:

-Snip-

I have to give you credit for being able to handle banter and for your sense of humour. I kind of like you.

I just firmly believe that ultimately, the vast majority of applicants will attend the most competitive schools that they can. In my experience almost nobody has a 3.9 GPA and 170 LSAT but decides to attend Bora Laskin over UofT. Even if they have no interest in BigLaw and would rather do rural retail law. These students aren't applying to Bora Laskin in significant numbers and if they did Bora Laskin wouldn't be rejecting them for "not fitting their mandate." The overwhelming majority of the time, the competitiveness of the profile of the student is dictating where they go to school, and talk about mandates and placing students in underserved areas is just a rationalization to avoid having to acknowledge this.

Considerations such as debt and location do often play a role but ultimately going to UofT, McGill, UBC or Oz is not going to shut students out of the opportunities provided by Bora Laskin, Windsor, etc, but the same is not true the other way around. This is why I consider it bad advice to tell students to base decisions of what schools to attend on such things, as if going to Oz would be a worse idea than Bora Laskin if one wanted to work out in the boonies serving "real people."

Cheers and have a nice weekend. It's 0 and raining out here so I guess I have more of an excuse to be cooped up and arguing on the Internet at the moment. 😛

Edited October 23, 2021 by CleanHands