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Does level of prestige in university really matter when it comes to a career in law?


JudgingJudy

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JudgingJudy
  • Law School Admit

I am a law admit for Lincoln Alexander School of Law, and I am so excited and thrilled to even be accepted. I acknowledge how competitive the legal field is. But I am unsure of how difficult it can get later on in life. 

I know that any law school in Ontario is amazing, and that even getting into a law school here is something ppl work hard for, compared to other countries like the USA where there are multiple schools. With that being said, does going to LASL over Oz or Queens will make it harder for me to get jobs in good law firms or to climb up the ladder of opportunities? 

 

Will I encounter setbacks for not being admitted to other law schools in Ontario? Or will I get a fair chance? 

 

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BlockedQuebecois
  • Lawyer
20 minutes ago, JudgingJudy said:

With that being said, does going to LASL over Oz or Queens will make it harder for me to get jobs in good law firms or to climb up the ladder of opportunities? 

All else being equal, yes.

A top student at Osgoode is going to be much more competitive for certain positions than a top student at Ryerson. The same will be true to a lesser extent for Queens. And the same holds true as you go down the class rankings—the outcome for a median student at Oz is likely to be better, and ditto for bottom quartile students. 

I also say that as someone who has long supported Ryerson’s school and continue to think it will quickly join the middle tier of Ontario law schools. So I’m not just dismissing the school out of prejudice. 

As to whether you get a “fair chance”, that’s a harder question. Will you have the same opportunities as an Osgoode student with your grades? Almost certainly not. Will you have the same opportunities as if you had gone to Osgoode and gotten lower grades (because you’ll be in a more competitive environment with, on average, smarter folks)? It’s probably pretty close to “fair”.

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Darth Vader
  • Lawyer
52 minutes ago, JudgingJudy said:

I am a law admit for Lincoln Alexander School of Law, and I am so excited and thrilled to even be accepted. I acknowledge how competitive the legal field is. But I am unsure of how difficult it can get later on in life. 

I know that any law school in Ontario is amazing, and that even getting into a law school here is something ppl work hard for, compared to other countries like the USA where there are multiple schools. With that being said, does going to LASL over Oz or Queens will make it harder for me to get jobs in good law firms or to climb up the ladder of opportunities? 

 

Will I encounter setbacks for not being admitted to other law schools in Ontario? Or will I get a fair chance? 

 

Do you have the option of attending a better school? If not, is this question going to be that relevant for you? 

What kind of opportunities are you specifically referring to? In the Toronto Summer 2022 2L Recruit, 38% of Osgoode students, 25% of Queen's students, and 18% of Ryerson students landed jobs. This doesn't tell us how many people applied to OCI jobs from these schools, nor how many people wanted to specifically work in Toronto; I would imagine that more students want to work in Toronto from Ryerson than they do from Queen's. If you are looking at clerkships, no one has ever clerked from Ryerson yet. I imagine some top students will get clerkships, but it won't be close to the numbers at Queen's and Osgoode. If you are referring to experiential education programs, Queen's and Osgoode have established clinics and community partnerships that Ryerson is just now in the process of developing. These experiential programs are important to employers outside of business law, as they show interest and experience in their line of work. 

All in all, you will certainly encounter setbacks and should not operate under the assumption that Ryerson is anywhere near Osgoode and Queen's. This may or may not impact your career prospects, but at the end of the day, you can only accept the offer you are given. 

If you want more exact advice, you should clarify as to what your goals are. There are good law firms everywhere. Where, and in which practice areas, are you looking to work in?

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JudgingJudy
  • Law School Admit
15 minutes ago, Darth Vader said:

Do you have the option of attending a better school? If not, is this question going to be that relevant for you? 

What kind of opportunities are you specifically referring to? In the Toronto Summer 2022 2L Recruit, 38% of Osgoode students, 25% of Queen's students, and 18% of Ryerson students landed jobs. This doesn't tell us how many people applied to OCI jobs from these schools, nor how many people wanted to specifically work in Toronto; I would imagine that more students want to work in Toronto from Ryerson than they do from Queen's. If you are looking at clerkships, no one has ever clerked from Ryerson yet. I imagine some top students will get clerkships, but it won't be close to the numbers at Queen's and Osgoode. If you are referring to experiential education programs, Queen's and Osgoode have established clinics and community partnerships that Ryerson is just now in the process of developing. These experiential programs are important to employers outside of business law, as they show interest and experience in their line of work. 

All in all, you will certainly encounter setbacks and should not operate under the assumption that Ryerson is anywhere near Osgoode and Queen's. This may or may not impact your career prospects, but at the end of the day, you can only accept the offer you are given. 

If you want more exact advice, you should clarify as to what your goals are. There are good law firms everywhere. Where, and in which practice areas, are you looking to work in?

My apologies. I agree, I am unsure yet as I want to educate myself on the opportunities that are possible with a career in law. I just wanted to gain some perspective from seniority students and lawyers as you all have a better sense of what the legal field looks like compared to me because I am freshly walking in. As of right now, no I dont have other schools in my pocket. I was considering retaking the lsat in January to boost my score but I dont know if I should even bother with that. 

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Darth Vader
  • Lawyer
Just now, JudgingJudy said:

My apologies. I agree, I am unsure yet as I want to educate myself on the opportunities that are possible with a career in law. I just wanted to gain some perspective from seniority students and lawyers as you all have a better sense of what the legal field looks like compared to me because I am freshly walking in. As of right now, no I dont have other schools in my pocket. I was considering retaking the lsat in January to boost my score but I dont know if I should even bother with that. 

A law degree is a law degree at the end of the day. For the purposes of being a lawyer in Canada, Ryerson does the job fine. You'll have access to most of the same opportunities as you would at any other law school. The main difference is that you might need an A average at Ryerson to interview with an employer that takes B students from U of T and Osgoode. If you are in the top ~10% of your class at Ryerson, you probably don't need to worry about job prospects or getting a job with a great employer. If you are an average or mediocre student at Ryerson, then your job prospects would look different in comparison to the average students at Osgoode and Queen's. 

Ryerson seems to be doing fine for big law jobs. We have to wait and see where the rest of the class ends up. As of now, we do not know how boutiques, mid-sized firms, small firms, and public sector employers view Ryerson students. Most of the employment data we have seen so far have mainly been about big law placement rates. 

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tiktok
  • Law Student

yes... certain opportunities--such as working in New York big law--just won't be available to you. however, i know that some ryerson law students got big law jobs as a 1L last summer. 

Edited by tiktok
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JudgingJudy
  • Law School Admit
11 minutes ago, Darth Vader said:

A law degree is a law degree at the end of the day. For the purposes of being a lawyer in Canada, Ryerson does the job fine. You'll have access to most of the same opportunities as you would at any other law school. The main difference is that you might need an A average at Ryerson to interview with an employer that takes B students from U of T and Osgoode. If you are in the top ~10% of your class at Ryerson, you probably don't need to worry about job prospects or getting a job with a great employer. If you are an average or mediocre student at Ryerson, then your job prospects would look different in comparison to the average students at Osgoode and Queen's. 

Ryerson seems to be doing fine for big law jobs. We have to wait and see where the rest of the class ends up. As of now, we do not know how boutiques, mid-sized firms, small firms, and public sector employers view Ryerson students. Most of the employment data we have seen so far have mainly been about big law placement rates. 

Thank you, this really helps with me being anxious. I appreciate the honesty and the input!

9 minutes ago, tiktok said:

yes... certain opportunities--such as working in New York big law--just won't be available to you. however, i know that some ryerson law students got big law jobs as a 1L last summer. 

Fair, I completely understand that. I want to stay in Toronto and work downtown. 

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brokenegg
  • Law School Admit
14 hours ago, tiktok said:

certain opportunities--such as working in New York big law--just won't be available to you.

Why is that?

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BlockedQuebecois
  • Lawyer
20 minutes ago, brokenegg said:

Why is that?

New York firms generally only recruit from two of the Ontario schools—Toronto and Osgoode. Even with the recent rise in hiring, NY firms generally want to launder grads from other Ontario schools through the big Canadian firms rather than hiring directly from them. 

Edited by BlockedQuebecois
Worth clarifying they also recruit from McGill.
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GreyDude
  • Law Student
On 12/26/2021 at 8:40 PM, Kurrika said:

Morgans LLP only hires the most prestigious students so there is that.

Buncha elitists, is what they are.

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Arrowtotheny
  • Law School Admit
On 12/26/2021 at 5:25 PM, BlockedQuebecois said:

All else being equal, yes.

A top student at Osgoode is going to be much more competitive for certain positions than a top student at Ryerson. The same will be true to a lesser extent for Queens. And the same holds true as you go down the class rankings—the outcome for a median student at Oz is likely to be better, and ditto for bottom quartile students. 

I also say that as someone who has long supported Ryerson’s school and continue to think it will quickly join the middle tier of Ontario law schools. So I’m not just dismissing the school out of prejudice. 

As to whether you get a “fair chance”, that’s a harder question. Will you have the same opportunities as an Osgoode student with your grades? Almost certainly not. Will you have the same opportunities as if you had gone to Osgoode and gotten lower grades (because you’ll be in a more competitive environment with, on average, smarter folks)? It’s probably pretty close to “fair”.

Thank you so much for your reply to the OP. I have been wondering exactly the same question. 

So would you say that is is always encouraged to choose the more prestigious school if I have the options? 

I am currently sitting on offers from UofT and Uvic. I understand going to UofT would afford me a better employment prospect, but I am unsure if that outweighs the  higher cost and other considerations. I am from BC and very much intend on staying here. I also have little interest in big law at the moment (applied for law schools with almost the exclusive desire to do social work or related jobs).

In short, I am unsure if I need the additional opportunities UofT would unlock for me. It seems to me that if I just go to Uvic and grind, I will be able to do exactly what I want to do. However, I do wish to land a clerkship. I also suppose the option to work at more lucrative fields would be nice if my dreams crash and burn ... 

Anyone wants to chime in and help me out? 

 

Edited by Arrowtotheny
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Renerik
  • Law Student

@Arrowtotheny if you want to stay in BC and don't want to do big law, don't go to UofT. Going to UVic won't stop you from getting a clerkship, but I wouldn't pick a school just to maximize chances at a clerkship since there's no way to tell how you'll fare in LS.

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Darth Vader
  • Lawyer
13 hours ago, Arrowtotheny said:

Thank you so much for your reply to the OP. I have been wondering exactly the same question. 

So would you say that is is always encouraged to choose the more prestigious school if I have the options? 

I am currently sitting on offers from UofT and Uvic. I understand going to UofT would afford me a better employment prospect, but I am unsure if that outweighs the  higher cost and other considerations. I am from BC and very much intend on staying here. I also have little interest in big law at the moment (applied for law schools with almost the exclusive desire to do social work or related jobs).

In short, I am unsure if I need the additional opportunities UofT would unlock for me. It seems to me that if I just go to Uvic and grind, I will be able to do exactly what I want to do. However, I do wish to land a clerkship. I also suppose the option to work at more lucrative fields would be nice if my dreams crash and burn ... 

Anyone wants to chime in and help me out? 

 

U of T's primary advantage is in big law. They publish their career stats which shows that more than half the class are working in full-service law firms. I mean, I guess you could still go there and just pursue corporate law since a lot of people that say they want to do social justice change their minds anyways. If you think you're going to pursue a social justice career after taking on U of T levels of debt then you're just kidding yourself. 

Even in Ontario, U of T isn't a great choice for people wanting to pursue social justice careers. Osgoode, Ottawa, and Windsor have more opportunities in this field. Heck, any cheaper law school is a better alternative considering there is very little money in social justice lawyering. I can't think of a single reason why someone that wants to be a social justice lawyer in Vancouver would go to U of T law, besides just being able to tell people that they went to U of T law. 

Getting a clerkship depends on your grades in law school. Are you presuming that you will be a high performer at U of T, but not UVic?

There is a very informative public sector thread created by @ZineZyou should read through carefully. If you're serious about pursuing social justice work, these are the threads you should be reading; not asking big law folks which prestigious law school you should attend. There are some public sector and social justice lawyers here. Message them. 

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BlockedQuebecois
  • Lawyer
51 minutes ago, Darth Vader said:

Getting a clerkship depends on your grades in law school. Are you presuming that you will be a high performer at U of T, but not UVic?

U of T has very strong clerkship numbers, and they are much stronger than UVic's. Upwards of 5% of their students get clerkships in any given year, and a large number of those are at appellate courts.

There are currently nine U of T grads at ONCA right now and had three at the BCCA last year (their 2020 annual report appears to have duplicated the 2019 figures). There are also at least three U of T grads at the SCC this year. In contrast, UVic has 0 at both courts and, I believe, 0 at the SCC this year. Since 2015, UVic has only once placed more students at the BCCA than U of T while U of T has beaten out UVic four times. 

The figures for the BCCA are particularly surprising given UVic had a large number of applicants to that court, second only to UBC (whose students secured five clerkships last year).

UVic is a great school, but it's going to be easier to get an appellate clerkship (and to be honest, likely easier to get a BCCA clerkship) from U of T. Particularly given both schools have similar admissions stats and therefore, presumably, a roughly equally competitive class. 

Edited by BlockedQuebecois
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hopeforthebest
  • Law School Admit

Some of the replies in this thread are so depressing (but probably accurate 😢 ) 

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CleanHands
  • Lawyer
4 minutes ago, hopeforthebest said:

Some of the replies in this thread are so depressing (but probably accurate 😢 ) 

How so? Why is it surprising or unreasonable to anyone that UofT law grads have better outcomes in general than Ryerson law grads?

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hopeforthebest
  • Law School Admit
2 minutes ago, CleanHands said:

How so? Why is it surprising or unreasonable to anyone that UofT law grads have better outcomes in general than Ryerson law grads?

It's not surprising at all. It's just depressing to be reminded when I'm almost certain I don't have the grades to get into the higher ranked schools. 

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BlockedQuebecois
  • Lawyer
19 minutes ago, hopeforthebest said:

It's not surprising at all. It's just depressing to be reminded when I'm almost certain I don't have the grades to get into the higher ranked schools. 

For what it's worth, most opportunities in Canada are available from any school, it will just be harder. It's not like the US or the UK where if you attend a school other than HYS/T6/T14 or Oxbridge, many places will just automatically trash your resume. Your chances at some jobs might decrease pretty significantly, but it's unlikely you'll be entirely shut out of them.

Windsor is easily in the bottom tier of Ontario law schools, but they still placed a clerk at the Ontario Court of Appeal this year. She just likely had to work harder to get there—the current clerk launched a blog called Little Legal Summaries in 2019 where she summarized leading criminal law decisions from ONCA and the SCC. I imagine that blog was pretty important in her ultimately securing a clerkship when she was interviewing in February 2020. 

1 hour ago, Darth Vader said:

@BlockedQuebecois you are correct. What are the grades requirements like for appellate clerkships from U of T?

Anecdotally, I've heard top 20% is fairly competitive for appellate clerkships. Students are aided by the fact that U of T's made up grading system obscures class rankings pretty well. Although I also heard U of T got in trouble from the SCC for recommending too many of its students every year, so for the SCC you might have to be a bit higher to get the Dean's rec. 

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CleanHands
  • Lawyer
2 minutes ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

Students are aided by the fact that U of T's made up grading system obscures class rankings pretty well. Although I also heard U of T got in trouble from the SCC for recommending too many of its students every year, so for the SCC you might have to be a bit higher to get the Dean's rec. 

I'm surprised UofT doesn't give medals to every student.

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99problems
  • Lawyer
25 minutes ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

U of T's made up grading system obscures class rankings pretty well.

Other schools should implement a similar grading system.

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BlockedQuebecois
  • Lawyer

Why? It would only serve to make the various recruits less meritocratic and harm marginalized folks. 

Law students are adults, they can handle knowing they aren't all gold-star-getters and I find U of T's attempt to obscure that needlessly paternalistic. 

ETA: It's probably worth noting such a change would also likely be ineffective at best and harmful at worst. If you have the choice between hiring a generic Osgoode or U of T student and you can't differentiate them based on their grades, you'll likely favour the U of T grad because on average you know their input stats were higher. 

Edited by BlockedQuebecois
Disclaimer: Cleanhands liked my post before I edited it, so they might disagree with my ETA.
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QueensGrad
  • Lawyer

As a comparison, Queen's Law traditionally only sends 1 clerk to ONCA every year - usually a medalist. The ONCA judges definitely prefer grads from U of T, McGill, and Oz. 

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