UBC vs UofT for PI/Social Justice

[Orenjio]

Hi everyone, I'm an international student and did my undergrad in the State, so I don't know a lot about Canada and would appreciate some input! Not interseted in corplaw at all. Also not planning to go the criminal law route. Rough goal would be doing some transactional/compliance work for nonprofits. 

As I don't have any connections in Vancouver or Toronto, I really don't have a preference for where to practice in the future. (My undergrad is also in a very cold place so the Toronto weather wouldn't bother me too much, though Vancouver weather could be nice.) Cost difference is also fortunately not a concern for me. I've heard people say that the Toronto market is bigger but I guess that's talking about biglaw and not PI opportunities. So I guess main criteria would be which has a better institutional support and local market for PI students.

Thank you all in advance : ) Maybe I'll see some of you on campus this fall! 

[Pendragon]

https://canlawforum.com/topic/1704-how-difficult-is-it-to-get-a-job-in-toronto-from-an-out-of-province-school/?do=findComment&comment=17442

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

U of T placed 11% in Government and Public Interest and UBC placed 1.11% in Public Interest / Social Justice/ Human Rights. Many of these jobs were likely with the crown prosecutor offices. 

I'm not sure what you mean by transactional/compliance work for nonprofits since that sounds like corporate law to me, but I wouldn't base this decision strictly on PI and social justice careers. Most people from both these schools don't go into that. And it's probably not because they don't want to. 

[Orenjio]

1 hour ago, Pendragon said:

https://canlawforum.com/topic/1704-how-difficult-is-it-to-get-a-job-in-toronto-from-an-out-of-province-school/?do=findComment&comment=17442

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

U of T placed 11% in Government and Public Interest and UBC placed 1.11% in Public Interest / Social Justice/ Human Rights. Many of these jobs were likely with the crown prosecutor offices. 

I'm not sure what you mean by transactional/compliance work for nonprofits since that sounds like corporate law to me, but I wouldn't base this decision strictly on PI and social justice careers. Most people from both these schools don't go into that. And it's probably not because they don't want to. 

Thanks for the links! Those are definitely useful. However I do see UofT grouping government and Pi jobs together. 

Oof I guess I should've said that I'm not interested in "biglaw" instead of "corplaw." 

I realized that these two schools aren't the best for PI a little too late. They are the only ones I applied to. What criteria would you suggest for making the decision then? 

[Peculiar Frond]

5 hours ago, Orenjio said:

Rough goal would be doing some transactional/compliance work for nonprofits.

I’m imagining some small Vancouver arts non-profit doing a leveraged buyout of a Moscow art gallery owned by an oligarch’s wife.  (I joke, but I’d think carefully about how attainable this kind of practice is.)

Anyway, if cost is no object, I’d go to Toronto if only because it’s a bigger market and you seem to have niche goals. Both great schools. Congrats.

 

[BlockedQuebecois]

It's worth mentioning a lot of charitable organizations rely on big law firms for their legal work. A lot of that work tends to be pro-bono work off the side of someone's desk, but some firms try to make it more of a "independent" practice area. 

Of the three nation-wide Band 1 firms in Chambers' Charities & Non-Profit Work ranking, for example, two are "big law" (Miller Thomson and BLG) while the third is a regional "full-service" firm. Both of the Band 2 firms are "big law" as well (NRF and Gowling), while both of the Band 3 firms are boutiques focusing on non-profit work.

Given that, if cost is truly no object I think U of T is the best option. The school keeps a lot of doors open within Canada and internationally, so long as you are not going into debt to get the education. It will also make it easier to break into one of those large firms that has a good amount of non-profit work. 

But I agree with @Peculiar Frond that you should reflect on how attainable this goal really is, particularly early on in your career, and particularly if you are not interested in working at a big firm. 

[CleanHands]

3 hours ago, Orenjio said:

I realized that these two schools aren't the best for PI a little too late. They are the only ones I applied to.

It's not so much that these are bad schools for public interest work so much that not a lot of public interest legal jobs exist.

In my experience with public interest law work, they tend to be really lean organizations with few paid staff lawyer jobs and to rely on volunteer lawyers (not BigLaw but rather private lawyers in the cases of the orgs I worked with just given the subject matter, but otherwise echoing the points above).

The staff lawyers tend to have developed their careers and skillsets outside what could narrowly be defined as public interest roles before founding or getting on with their organizations, because these organizations also don't tend to have the resources to invest in and train articling students or new calls who don't really know what they are doing. This will further make the graduate stats seem low. But anyways it's highly likely someone will need to put in their dues and develop skills and a CV elsewhere before they are considered for a public interest staff job.

[Ghalm]

Building off on the above, I recall one guest speaker at a law school event who had a big law corp. to in house international non-profit career trajectory. He basically said that when he was in law school he built a connection with the non-profit in question through volunteer work and other means of being involved as a law student. Then, he went the big law route and built some technical expertise in transactional work. After that, an opportunity arose for him to jump to the non-profit org. as in-house counsel. His law student connections were key in helping him get that role, as the relatively small org. all knew him and knew his passion for the org.'s mission. I recall that he said that his big law experience was directly applicable to his work at the non-profit, save for the fact that he also added employment law to his in-house practice, and that this employment law element was international in scope (as the non profit employed individuals in other parts of the world).

All that to say, I think you should be open to starting your career off in a big law like firm, as they tend to be excellent places to build your technical expertise in transactional work, with the goal of moving in house to a non-profit to do transactional work as their in-house counsel. But, the key wisdom from the speaker's talk was that he had an existing relationship with the non-profit that assisted him, so perhaps that can inform what you choose to do with your time at law school. 

Edited March 2, 2022 by Ghalm

[Orenjio]

Wow didn’t expect to get so many great responses. I wasn’t aware that there are private firms doing PI work. I’m definitely thinking about opening up to more possibilities now. Thank you all again for the generous amount of information! 

Edited March 2, 2022 by Orenjio

[Pendragon]

https://www.linkedin.com/in/linda-cinanni-aaa99513a/

This person's profile sounds similar to what you described. 

- Summered and Articled at BLG (a big law firm)

- Legal and Policy Counsel at the Canadian Internet Registration Authority 

- Legal Counsel at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (a non-profit corporation)

- Commercial Counsel at the Department of Justice

Edited March 3, 2022 by Pendragon

[CleanHands]

26 minutes ago, Pendragon said:

-Snip-

She has LinkedIn premium so she's going to be wondering why all of these people suddenly looked at her profile. lol