Windsor (Single JD) vs. Ryerson

[LMP]

1 hour ago, y2199 said:

Ryerson is a new law school, of course they don't have a law-specific building yet. It is currently in the process of being designed and they're planning construction. 

There is a law library too. 

So they don't have a law specific building. 

[y2199]

21 minutes ago, CleanHands said:

@y2199Okay look, I wrote above in this thread "at every step of the way so far Ryerson has been proving the naysayers wrong" and I stand by that. But Ryerson students/admits like you aren't really doing the school any favours with these cringeworthy defences.

This is true of every Canadian law school. Law professors across the country are more often than not some combination of JD gold medalist/SCC clerk/HYS or Oxbridge grad degree holder/etc. Put simply, there are more people with amazing profiles like than there are law professor jobs in Canada, so any new school that opens is going to be able to hire very impressive people.

So I fully agree with you about Ryerson's faculty, but that's not unique or a selling point and you're implicitly not giving other Canadian law schools enough credit when you emphasize this.

Trying to spin admitting students with mediocre GPAs and LSATs into a *positive* thing with some nonsense about how they are able to see past that determine who is *really* a meritorious candidate is just silly. Ryerson hasn't figured out some magic formula that allows them to see something in candidates that no other school in the country is tuned into. Weak admission stats is not a plus. This is something the Ryerson groupies on the old forum kept asserting before they got scared off, and it's just as embarrassing a thing to write now as it was then.

Again, I say all of this as someone who encouraged the OP to attend Ryerson and who doesn't think it's a worse option than Windsor.

I did not say admitting students with medicore GPAs and LSATs is a positive thing. They have admitted students with high LSATS and GPAs as well as students with less impressive stats. I'm saying that the interview can be beneficial in seeing someone's true personality, ambition, and other traits that can't always be seen in a number. 

I never said that the points I mentioned put Ryerson above other Canadian law schools. I am emphasizing that for a brand new school, I feel that they deserve more credit than they've been getting. It is worth pointing out their strong points for this reason. 

[QMT20]

I agree with pretty much everything @CleanHands already said in response to your post but I feel like there's additional things that need to be addressed. I've never bashed on Ryerson either, and I think students that do well from Ryerson deserve any opportunities they're given. But some of this post is pretty objectionable. 

1 hour ago, y2199 said:

- Ryerson Law placed first at the Canadian Client Consultation Competition which was won by a 1L team competing against upper years from Canadian law schools. They went on to represent Canada at the International competition in April.

I've never heard of this competition until you just mentioned it. It's not a huge deal to most law students and citing this as a reason one law school is better than another is like citing one school winning a national moot as a reason for being better than another school. There's lots of competitions for law students and it's a huge accomplishment for any student who wins one of them but it's not reflective of the school. I'm pretty sure Ryerson participated in the immigration moot and didn't win a prize there. Is that a reason to say Ryerson sucks? Because the converse of that, which is if Ryerson had won the moot then it's reflective of the quality of the law school is basically what you're claiming. 

1 hour ago, y2199 said:

- As has been previously mentioned, they did amazing for an inaugural year in the 1L summer recruit, and if you go to their LinkedIn and click "alumni" you'll be able to see the summer jobs that current students have landed. It is incredibly impressive.

Ryerson did well in the 1L recruit and anyone who thought employers wouldn't hire a student because they go to Ryerson is proven wrong by this. However, the 1L recruit is an incredibly small sample size. We'll see how Ryerson does in the 2L recruit this year. I think a lot of firms do want to support the new law school so students from Ryerson will definitely land positions this year, and next year. But where Ryerson will stand in the eyes of employers long-term is still to be determined, and will come down to how the students who are getting these jobs right now progress in their careers. 

1 hour ago, y2199 said:

- The professors there are EXTREMELY accomplished, with one of them recently just being appointed to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.

This is impressive but like @CleanHands said it's basically the norm for Canadian law school professors. Nicolas Kasirer was a professor at McGill when he was appointed directly to the SCC. Bill Flanagan from Queen's was appointed be president of the University of Alberta. Lorne Sossin from Osgoode was appointed to ONCA last year. The list goes on. 

1 hour ago, y2199 said:

- They have been sponsored and/or supported by numerous toronto-based law firms and lawyers 

Every law school in Ontario (except maybe Lakehead but I wouldn't know about them) is sponsored and supported by basically all the full service Toronto law firms. Every law school has some version of Osler Biz Basics, McCarthy Tetrault's ethics prize, Blakes scholars etc. etc. Every law school has classrooms that are named after the big law firms. I'm sure the fact that Ryerson got to start a new law school means they had some very influential supporters but those same supporters have been working with the other Ontario law schools for decades and those relationships continue. 

1 hour ago, y2199 said:

- Going to a new law school gives you the opportunity to become the founder of a club, society, council with greater ease; lots of chances for resume boosters

At Queen's you can basically start any club you want, submit a form to the LSS and they'll approve it and give you funding. I'm pretty sure it's a similar deal at other law schools. Everyone applying in the recruit is president or founder or VP of a handful of clubs, that's basically the norm. 

1 hour ago, y2199 said:

Also, their interview process allows them to seek out bright minds and intelligence that go beyond a GPA and LSAT. I did my undergrad with pretty dumb people who still managed to get a high GPA.

I would just defer to what @CleanHands already said about this. 

Ryerson is a fine law school but so is Windsor. Other law schools are better and some might be worse, and which law school each person should attend will depend on some mix of the opportunities that the law school makes available as well as the applicant's personal circumstances. There's reasons to think Ryerson will do well, and I do think that lots of firms and other employers want to support the new law school. But time will tell how Ryerson does. I don't think the reason's you've cited are really persuasive for picking Ryerson over Windsor. 

Edited June 28, 2021 by QMT20

[y2199]

2 minutes ago, QMT20 said:

Ryerson is a fine law school but so is Windsor. Other law schools are better and some might be worse, and which law school each person should attend will depend on some mix of the opportunities that the law school makes available as well as the applicant's personal circumstances. There's reasons to think Ryerson will do well, and I do think that lots of firms and other employers want to support the new law school. But time will tell how Ryerson does. I don't think the reason's you've cited are really persuasive for picking Ryerson over Windsor. 

Completely agree with everything you said, which is why my post literally ended with me telling OP to pick what they think is best for them. I just wanted to point out Ryerson's strong points in a forum where they get a lot of backlash. I did not say that any of those points put them above other law schools. 

[SlytherinLLP]

47 minutes ago, CleanHands said:

@y2199Okay look, I wrote above in this thread "at every step of the way so far Ryerson has been proving the naysayers wrong" and I stand by that. But Ryerson students/admits like you aren't really doing the school any favours with these cringeworthy defences.

This is true of every Canadian law school. Law professors across the country are more often than not some combination of JD gold medalist/SCC clerk/HYS or Oxbridge grad degree holder/etc. Put simply, there are more people with amazing profiles like than there are law professor jobs in Canada, so any new school that opens is going to be able to hire very impressive people.

So I fully agree with you about Ryerson's faculty, but that's not unique or a selling point and you're implicitly not giving other Canadian law schools enough credit when you emphasize this.

Trying to spin admitting students with mediocre GPAs and LSATs into a *positive* thing with some nonsense about how they are able to see past that determine who is *really* a meritorious candidate is just silly. Ryerson hasn't figured out some magic formula that allows them to see something in candidates that no other school in the country is tuned into. Weak admission stats is not a plus. This is something the Ryerson groupies on the old forum kept asserting before they got scared off, and it's just as embarrassing a thing to write now as it was then.

Again, I say all of this as someone who encouraged the OP to attend Ryerson and who doesn't think it's a worse option than Windsor.

Should also mention that now that the admittance stats have been posted by the hard work of Rainology, you can clearly see the Ryerson stats are significantly lower than Queens/Western (not to mention Oz or UoT) and comparable with Windsor. 

Probably can't go wrong with either if you had to pick between the two. 

[BlockedQuebecois]

Re: interviews, there's a (possibly) important point to be made there that is perhaps being missed due to the phrasing. 

Ryerson isn't competing for top students. If you have a 170+, 3.80+ profile, you're almost certainly getting into one of the two other Toronto schools (as well as UBC and other great schools). You're not attending Ryerson, absent some exceptional circumstances. 

Ryerson is competing with Windsor and Queens/Western/Ottawa for students, with the competition with the latter three schools being more towards the bottom of their class. But there's a huge bulk of students there. There are probably a half dozen 160/3.40 students for every spot in each school. So the way you build a strong class is by picking the best 160/3.5 student out of those six. 

That's where I think interviews could be useful. Ryerson could be using interviews to identify inefficiencies in the admissions processes of those other schools, thus building a stronger student body than you would expect based solely on their stats. 

Interviews have risks—including the risk of implicit bias permeating the admissions process—but if done well they could provide Ryerson with useful information. 

[Hairlesskat]

On 6/22/2021 at 9:17 AM, Lycidas said:

I agree with BQ above. I genuinely think Ryerson's reputation 5 years from now will be significantly better than Windsor. Windsor has a very uncomfortable stigma attached to it. Ryerson did very well in the 1L recruit (hilariously so) and Toronto is a way better city to live in than Windsor, expenses aside. 

If it came down to it I'd take Ryerson over Windsor. 

 

On 6/22/2021 at 12:15 PM, CleanHands said:

Windsor is a known quality, and that settled reputation and established graduate outcomes are...mediocre by the standard of Canadian law schools. 

Obviously late to the party, but still had to swing by.

Wow. It is very interesting how experience can change your perception of things. Comments like these used to mildly concern me as an applicant on the old website. But now that I have actually graduated from law school (proud Windsor alum!) and am a practicing lawyer, it is obvious to me how silly they are. I can honestly say that I don't even know where most of my colleagues went to law school. I've never cared to ask and neither have they. This is not a unique experience.

Once you start going to law school and getting involved in the profession more and more, you tend to realize that your career trajectory has far more to do with YOU as a candidate than it does with what school you attended. Sure, some schools definitely have more alumni in certain areas than others. And if you know exactly what area you want to practice going in, this can be a helpful deciding factor (although I would put to you that a lot of people end up changing their mind about this once they start actually studying law). But going to Windsor, for example, is not going to bar you from a career on Bay Street any more than Western would bar you from social justice work. Get good grades, demonstrate an interest, interview well, and you will be fine. That's pretty much it. Recruiters are hiring you, not your school.

In my legal career thus far, I have experienced discrimination as a woman, as a person of colour, and as both at the same time. But I have never, EVER experienced discrimination as a result of being a Windsor Law graduate. I believe that this "stigma" exists mainly in the minds of insecure law students and applicants.

I'm also curious as to what constitutes "mediocre" career outcomes when comparing Canadian law schools. To my mind, this seems a bit out of touch. Lawyers are highly educated people relative to the rest of the Canadian population and also tend to be higher earners on average. If you even get the opportunity to study law in Canada, you are already part of a relatively privileged bunch to which the word "mediocre" should not apply. Labeling career outcomes as mediocre also means assigning some kind of objective hierarchy to the different kinds of legal careers. Success and a good legal career don't look the same to everyone. Not everyone wants a job at MoreMoney NoLife LLP with ridiculously high billable hour targets.

My advice to OP and anyone reading after them is to visit both schools and figure out where you'd be happiest. Because that will have the biggest impact on your grades. And regardless of what area you eventually gravitate toward, good grades will help tremendously. 

Edited September 12, 2021 by Hairlesskat

[CleanHands]

17 minutes ago, Hairlesskat said:

But now that I have actually graduated from law school (proud Windsor alum!) and am a practicing lawyer, it is obvious to me how silly they are.

You're really going to use the word "silly" to describe other people's takes while writing a post like this?

17 minutes ago, Hairlesskat said:

I can honestly say that I don't even know where most of my colleagues went to law school. I've never cared to ask and neither have they. This is not a unique experience.

This is true. Once you land a job, it really does not matter.

However, the concern is landing the job you want in the first place.

17 minutes ago, Hairlesskat said:

Once you start going to law school and getting involved in the profession more and more, you tend to realize that your career trajectory has far more to do with YOU as a candidate than it does with what school you attended. Sure, some schools definitely have more alumni in certain areas than others. And if you know exactly what area you want to practice going in, this can be a helpful deciding factor (although I would put to you that a lot of people end up changing their mind about this once they start actually studying law). But going to Windsor, for example, is not going to bar you from a career on Bay Street any more than Western would bar you from social justice work. Get good grades, demonstrate an interest, interview well, and you will be fine. That's pretty much it. Recruiters are hiring you, not your school.

Yes, if you are a medalist you will do well wherever you went to school. But an average Windsor grad will not have the same opportunities an average UofT grad will.

17 minutes ago, Hairlesskat said:

In my legal career thus far, I have experienced discrimination as a woman, as a person of colour, and as both at the same time. But I have never, EVER experienced discrimination as a result of being a Windsor Law graduate. I believe that this "stigma" exists mainly in the minds of insecure law students and applicants.

Ultra Vires numbers don't lie.

17 minutes ago, Hairlesskat said:

I'm also curious as to what constitutes "mediocre" career outcomes when comparing Canadian law schools. To my mind, this seems a bit out of touch. Lawyers are highly educated people relative to the rest of the Canadian population and also tend to be higher earners on average. If you even get the opportunity to study law in Canada, you are already part of a relatively privileged bunch to which the word "mediocre" should not apply. Labeling career outcomes as mediocre also means assigning some kind of objective hierarchy to the different kinds of legal careers. Success and a good legal career don't look the same to everyone. Not everyone wants a job at MoreMoney NoLife LLP with ridiculously high billable hour targets.

I literally wrote "graduate outcomes are...mediocre by the standard of Canadian law schools" [emphasis added]. So attempting to refute this by saying that lawyers do better than the general population is asinine. I'm sure most people don't obtain seven years of post-secondary education, with all the cost (both actual and opportunity) that entails, with the goal of having career outcomes and incomes that are average relative to the general population as a whole afterwards.

I also went to law school when I was 30 and worked every shitty job under the sun for a dozen years before that, obtaining my undergrad degree while working full-time in one of them. And then I only ever applied to criminal law jobs. So piss off with this diatribe about privilege and not everyone being a corporate drone if you're going to respond to me with it.

17 minutes ago, Hairlesskat said:

My advice to OP and anyone reading after them is to visit both schools and figure out where you'd be happiest. Because that will have the biggest impact on your grades. And regardless of what area you eventually gravitate toward, good grades will help tremendously. 

And if you go to Windsor you're going to need better grades to be competitive for the same jobs compared to if you go to UofT or Osgoode.

Edited September 12, 2021 by CleanHands

[Hairlesskat]

Double. Weird editing.

Edited September 12, 2021 by Hairlesskat

[Hairlesskat]

EDITED FOR FORMATTING: I have NO idea how multi-quote works on here anymore.

Quote

You're really going to use the word "silly" to describe other people's takes while writing a post like this?

Yes. Silly. It is silly to look down on graduates and their careers based on what school they went to and/or some totally arbitrary idea of what a good career is.

Quote

This is true. Once you land a job, it really does not matter.

However, the concern is landing the job you want in the first place.

Absolutely. And going to Windsor is not going to preclude you from getting a job if that is what you want.

Quote

Yes, if you are a medalist you will do well wherever you went to school. But an average Windsor grad will not have the same opportunities an average UofT grad will.

I don't really know what this is for. I have never claimed that Windsor grads will have the exact same opportunities as UofT grads or vice versa. Hence my comments about each school having its own strengths and connections/alumni networks. My point is that if you are looking for a certain job, going to Windsor is not going to preclude you from getting there. Because it is mostly about you and your individual qualifications. There is nothing controversial about that.

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Ultra Vires numbers don't lie.

Do Ultra Vires numbers also have an asterisk beside them stating that Windsor grads didn't get hired because they went to Windsor?

Quote

I literally wrote "graduate outcomes are...mediocre by the standard of Canadian law schools" [emphasis added]. So attempting to refute this by saying that lawyers do better than the general population is asinine. I'm sure most people don't obtain seven years of post-secondary education, with all the cost (both actual and opportunity) that entails, with the goal of having career outcomes and incomes that are average relative to the general population as a whole afterwards.

I can see that my point sailed right over your head. I don't care that you are trying to compare Windsor Law alum to other law graduates. Because calling a lawyer professionally mediocre is so out of touch with the reality of most Canadians as to be ridiculous. *That* level of smug elitism is what is asinine. That is like calling a millionaire mediocre because they are not a billionaire. But even with that, you would also have to assume that one kind of career is better/more than another. And that is simply not true. Nor is it necessarily true that more schooling guarantees higher earnings in any way.

Quote

I also went to law school when I was 30 and worked every shitty job under the sun for a dozen years before that, obtaining my undergrad degree while working full-time in one of them. And then I only ever applied to criminal law jobs. So piss off with this diatribe about privilege and not everyone being a corporate drone if you're going to respond to me with it.

I clearly used Bay Street as an example. Reading comprehension is not your strong suit. To say the least, I find it troubling that someone who apparently (?) works in criminal law is so triggered by discussions of privilege and is so ignorant about the topic that they do not understand that it is a sliding scale. Lacking privilege in one area doesn't preclude you from having privilege in another. I am a woman of colour from a working class background, but I can readily acknowledge that I was privileged to be able to attend law school. 

I can see that I hit a nerve and that conversing with you further will not go anywhere. Furthermore, I've said exactly what I wanted to say on this topic already. So you unwind and have a wonderful day.

 

Edited September 12, 2021 by Hairlesskat

[CleanHands]

14 minutes ago, Hairlesskat said:

Yes. Silly. It is silly to look down on graduates and their careers based on what school they went to and/or some totally arbitrary idea of what a good career is.

Right, so trying to give applicants a picture of what outcomes look like for different schools, and (correctly) stating that not all schools will be equal in that respect, is "looking down" on them. Okay then.

14 minutes ago, Hairlesskat said:

I can see that my point sailed right over your head. I don't care that you are trying to compare Windsor Law alum to other law graduates. Because calling a lawyer professionally mediocre is so out of touch with the reality of most Canadians as to be ridiculous. *That* level of smug elitism is what is asinine. That is like calling a millionaire mediocre because they are not a billionaire. But even with that, you would also have to assume that one kind of career is better/more than another. And that is simply not true. Nor is it necessarily true that more schooling guarantees higher earnings in any way.

Your "point" is apparently firstly that even "less successful" lawyers do better than the general population. Which nobody here contradicted or is arguing against. And secondly that pointing out discrepancies in desirability and competitiveness of law jobs is somehow distasteful because...there are worse jobs outside the legal field? Which is irrelevant and inane.

14 minutes ago, Hairlesskat said:

I clearly used Bay Street as an example. Reading comprehension is not your strong suit.

Rich coming from the person who I am having this exchange with. I'll submit myself to the judgement of readers as to which one of us had poor reading comprehension.

14 minutes ago, Hairlesskat said:

To say the least, I find it troubling that someone who apparently (?) works in criminal law is so triggered by discussions of privilege and is so ignorant about the topic that they do not understand that it is a sliding scale. Lacking privilege in one area doesn't preclude you from having privilege in another. I am a woman of colour from a working class background, but I can readily acknowledge that I was privileged to be able to attend law school. 

No, I was annoyed because you made incorrect assumptions and went on a virtue-signaling rant about privilege on the basis of me suggesting that not all law jobs are equal. My point wasn't even controversial and your response was absurd. I certainly believe that there is often a lack of perspective about what careers, incomes and lives are like outside of the legal field, on this board and within this profession. No reasonable person could accuse me of contributing to that in the post you quoted. I chose my words carefully and you either couldn't understand them or didn't care to.

I don't care about your race or gender and it's irrelevant but thanks for mentioning it yet again like you already did in your last post. I guess you think that makes you "win" any discussion where you invoke "privilege" by default.

Edited September 12, 2021 by CleanHands

[QueensGrad]

2 hours ago, Hairlesskat said:

Once you start going to law school and getting involved in the profession more and more, you tend to realize that your career trajectory has far more to do with YOU as a candidate than it does with what school you attended.

Spot on when it comes to private practice recruitment/hiring, IMO. My take is that U of T students don't have such great hiring numbers because of the institution itself - instead, it is because U of T students are just better candidates, on average, than Windsor or Western when it comes to private practice recruitment. Each school just has a more or less rigorous "filter" in the form of higher or lower entrance req's and/or softs, which results in better or worse recruitment outcomes because each school on average has better or worse candidates. 

[Superman]

@Hairlesskat, I work in the public sector so wanted to address a few of your points.

Windsor has better career outcomes in the private sector than it does public, which is contrary to what a lot of people think as the school brands itself as a "social justice" environment and you would assume that many if not most students pursue public interest jobs. Many of the lawyers I work in Toronto attended schools like U of T, Osgoode, McGill, Queen's, Ottawa, Dalhousie, UBC, and Victoria. There are Windsor grads, but not many. 

Like any profession, there is an "unspoken" hierarchy in law - or at least jobs that most lawyers and law students would consider to be more desirable. These include, in no particular order, top litigation boutiques, Big law, government/legal aid/non-profits, specialized boutiques, and appellate and SCC clerkships. I have done a lot of research over the years into the type of students and schools that place into these jobs, and I can tell you that it is clear Windsor does not perform as well as other schools. Most Windsor grads I see go on to work in the private sector in small and mid-sized firms. To add, this is not a knock against Windsor as the career outcomes are very similar to what I have seen from Western and Lakehead in Ontario. You can absolutely have a great career working in a small or mid-sized firm setting, but these jobs are also not seen to be as competitive as some of the others I mentioned above. All the Windsor students and alumni I have spoken to agree with me on this. 

I don't think speaking about the general trends in the Canadian population is helpful because this is a discussion for and about lawyers working in the legal profession, and so we should keep it focused on that. No one is saying that a Canadian law school graduate, no matter where they are employed, is a failure; rather, what people are trying to say is that some positions are generally seen as more competitive to land than others, and there is evidence to suggest that some schools do better than others in landing students into these jobs. 

I may be biased as someone employed in a competitive public sector position, but I certainly view some legal jobs as being better or more competitive than others. Others may disagree, but I think there is a consensus in the legal profession on what these jobs are, because people are generally impressed with my position whenever I attend networking events and school panels, while I have noticed that this is not necessarily the case for everyone. Windsor is a good school but we have to understand what its limitations are as well, so that we do not mislead prospective candidates deciding between the different law schools. We should not say that career outcomes out of all law schools are similar, or the same, because this is not true across the board. And this is not just the case if you want Biglaw jobs. In fact, I think Big law is the one employer that does not care as much which law school you attended, as the focus is on grades, there are more of these job available across all Canadian markets, and more NCA candidates are being hired through the ITLNCA recruit. But it will matter for some competitive public interest jobs when employers are deciding between candidates (I have seen this in my own workplace), litigation boutiques, and other smaller employers, as they may use the school you attended as a differentiating factor.