Osgoode vs McGill

[Totally_Bucked]

If this topic already exists and my Luddism is showing, please delete this threat. If not, let's get into the nitty gritty of the two schools most often compared to UofT. 

Personally, I'm mostly looking for student experience, course quality, and hands on opportunities but any input comparing the two would be appreciated. The tuition is an obvious advantage for McGill if you're a Quebec resident, but beyond that I don't have much sense of what each school is "best" for. 

[BlockedQuebecois]

In terms of hands on opportunities, Osgoode is going to be better. It has the most clinical opportunities of any school in the country, and you're comparing it to a jurisdiction where law students are not permitted to give legal advice* and are restricted to providing legal information. 

Otherwise, I wouldn't expected meaningful differences in course quality or career outcomes.

For course quality, both schools are top notch with many respected academics. Osgoode has more courses, but that's really just a function of a larger class size. 

The dual degree part of McGill probably makes it marginally easier to practice somewhere in continental Europe, but you can end up there from Osgoode, particularly if you take advantage of the dual degree option with U de M. I recently had an offer to practice in Paris, for example. McGill does very well with clerkships, but for the non-Québec courts that's mainly a function of the fact their students are bijural and bilingual, which makes them attractive to the FC/FCA and SCC. A fully bilingual Osgoode student would likely be about as attractive. McGill does seem to dominate the QC courts in a way Osgoode doesn't dominate Ontario courts, though. 

For Canadian big law, until McGill starts releasing its employment stats or someone does an Ultra Vires style survey of Montréal big law, it's impossible to tell which school is better. I'd expect them to be pretty similar. 

From a student experience standpoint, I would rather live near McGill's campus than Osgoode's (obviously), but you'll have a great time at either school. Whether a particular individual would prefer Osgoode or McGill likely comes down to whether that individual prefers Toronto or Montréal as a city. 

 

ETA: *It looks like the National Assembly passed a law last year that would allow the Barreau du Québec to permit law students to provide some legal advice, which is a significant shift. I can't tell if the Barreau has implemented those changes, but in any event the clinical structure will take time to build up and simply isn't comparable to Osgoode currently. Good for Québec, though.

Edited January 17, 2022 by BlockedQuebecois

[Darth Vader]

I hear McGill is a very corporate school. I expect the career outcomes to be very similar to UBC. The lower tuition will allow you to easily practice in non-corporate areas, but the school and most of the student body will likely be gunning for corporate jobs. U of T and Osgoode has strong placement rates in Toronto. Some Osgoode students land in NY. As @BlockedQuebecois mentioned, until we see an employment report from McGill with regards to its big law placement rates in Canada and abroad, all we have is hearsay/anecdotes. 

Course selection and hands on opportunities is definitely better at Osgoode than McGill. I've heard this straight from McGill students. McGill has a great course selection for business law but is lacking in many other areas. No doubt Osgoode has the better and more diverse clinical programs. 

McGill's primary advantage is its tuition. If money is a major concern, you might want to just go to McGill. Also factor in where and what you want to practice in. 

[ccq35]

As a current McGill student, I can assure you that it is anything but very corporate. I wouldn't call our business law course selection particularly well-developed (admittedly, I have no idea what course selection is like at other schools, but we don't seem to have a whole lot of them), and we have a noticeably left-leaning student body, with a decent amount of anti-corporate sentiment. Lots of participation in student-led initiatives for corporate accountability and the like as well. Business law courses don't seem to fill up nearly as quickly as social justice-oriented courses (based solely on my limited experience and observations from our student Facebook group; registration panic is a huge thing at McGill, albeit mostly for non-business law courses). If the majority of our student body is gunning for corporate jobs, I imagine it's driven in large part by the allure of corporate salaries. 

That said, McGill's student body is very diverse, and the corporate types certainly exist. I just wouldn't characterize McGill as a "very corporate school."

[PzabbytheLawyer]

On 1/17/2022 at 10:51 AM, ccq35 said:

As a current McGill student, I can assure you that it is anything but very corporate. I wouldn't call our business law course selection particularly well-developed (admittedly, I have no idea what course selection is like at other schools, but we don't seem to have a whole lot of them), and we have a noticeably left-leaning student body, with a decent amount of anti-corporate sentiment. Lots of participation in student-led initiatives for corporate accountability and the like as well. Business law courses don't seem to fill up nearly as quickly as social justice-oriented courses (based solely on my limited experience and observations from our student Facebook group; registration panic is a huge thing at McGill, albeit mostly for non-business law courses). If the majority of our student body is gunning for corporate jobs, I imagine it's driven in large part by the allure of corporate salaries. 

That said, McGill's student body is very diverse, and the corporate types certainly exist. I just wouldn't characterize McGill as a "very corporate school."

I would concur with this. 

But I also think a lot of "anti corporate" students end up settling for golden handcuffs by the time 2L rolls around.

That's probably true at Osgoode and other schools too, but I'm just guessing.

[PzabbytheLawyer]

On 1/17/2022 at 8:10 AM, BlockedQuebecois said:

The dual degree part of McGill probably makes it marginally easier to practice somewhere in continental Europe, but you can end up there from Osgoode, particularly if you take advantage of the dual degree option with U de M.

We probably disagree on marginally, but I'd agree that it's not impossible to do it from Osgoode, and it's certainly not "likely" from McGill.

I wouldn't say doing the dual with u de m would equalize the disparity. Unfortunately, school brand is definitely still a thing. So is the alumni network. McGill had a fairly expansive alumni network in Europe. I don't know though to what extent Osgoode does, so you can speak to that.

As for tuition, if you do McGill in 3.5 years, which is the normal course, you end up roughly equal when taking into account opportunity cost of forgoing one year of associate pay in your career.

But you have to care about that opportunity cost (some do, some don't). So keep that in mind (opening poster).