Who sets salaries in big law - why the discrepancy between markets?

[ZukoJD]

19 minutes ago, QueensDenning said:

The idea behind 4L is to train students for summer and articling, not to offload the training you should be getting during articling. The inadequacies being addressed (at least ideally, and I know the founder and have spoken to him personally about this) are the inadequacies of law school in terms of preparing students for articling and practice. That's the gap he's trying to fill. 

He makes plenty of remarks about law firm culture generally no? Not just in reference to people being underprepared as summers and articling students, but as lawyers. 

Edited August 25, 2022 by ZukoJD

[ZukoJD]

57 minutes ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

The absolute worst thing about this forum are people who come in with zero experience about something and then argue with a bunch of people who have recent and exactly on point personal experience.

You worked one summer at a municipality, and you’re arguing with people who have years of experience at the relevant firms. Maybe it’s worth listening and questioning your own assumptions, rather than arguing and dismissing any explanation that doesn’t fit with the conclusion you’ve already drawn? 

Right, well I was reiterating what I've heard from people who have been in exactly the kinds of positions you describe. I don't think it was unreasonable to believe what they told me. 

Edit: I've had my opinion changed on here many, many times. That's partly why I come back here. I think it's better to engage with things you disagree with and attempt to explain why than to simply accept what certain posters say for truth. This is a forum after all. 

[Rashabon]

5 minutes ago, ZukoJD said:

Edit: I've had my opinion changed on here many, many times. That's why I come back here. I think it's better to engage with things you disagree with and attempt to explain why than to simply accept what certain posters say for truth. This is a forum after all. 

Sure, but I also think it is critical to a good flow of information for people not to spout facts from a position of ignorance. I don't comment on what criminal defence is like because I have no clue. You came in here asserting that big law firms are universally terrible at training. If you even thought about it for a second, that indictment would mean there is no good training to be found in the legal profession at all.

[ZukoJD]

5 minutes ago, Rashabon said:

Sure, but I also think it is critical to a good flow of information for people not to spout facts from a position of ignorance. I don't comment on what criminal defence is like because I have no clue. You came in here asserting that big law firms are universally terrible at training. If you even thought about it for a second, that indictment would mean there is no good training to be found in the legal profession at all.

Sure, but if you heard from a pretty accomplished criminal defence lawyer than X is the case, you might be inclined to repeat it. 

Your second point is a little bit rubbish. It can both the case that the training received at a given firm is poor but that eventually they churned out a good associate. It depends on what you consider to be "poor." You could mess up due to lack of instruction and guidance and learn from your mistakes and eventually make enough of them to know what you're doing. This is exactly how I pictured the environment and this is pretty much what was described to me. 

Edited August 25, 2022 by ZukoJD

[QueensDenning]

8 minutes ago, ZukoJD said:

He makes plenty of remarks about law firm culture generally no? Not just in reference to people being underprepared as summers and articling students, but as lawyers. 

Firm culture may be one thing, but I don't think that Aaron Baer would ever try to sell a course that was intended to replace large firm articling/training. That would be a pretty impossible task. 

The biggest pull to bigger firms (at least for me), aside from the money, is the training. It's really not up for argument. Smaller firms just can't match the resources that the bigger firms can. I worked at a smaller firm this summer and there were days where lawyers and partners were simply too busy to go through a red line with me or review my statement of claim or whatever. Bigger firms have dedicated programs designed for training articling students. It's a tried and true method. A lot of smaller firms these days (including those in the official recruit) might be taking on an articling student for the first time. Or the new principal at the firm might be taking on his first articling student, etc. 

The bigger firms also have dedicated student committees whose job it is to make sure articling students are getting the training they need.

[Rashabon]

9 minutes ago, ZukoJD said:

Sure, but if you heard from a pretty accomplished criminal defence lawyer than X is the case, you might be inclined to repeat it. 

Your second point is a little bit rubbish. It can both the case that the training received at a given firm is poor but that eventually they churned out a good associate. It depends on what you consider to be "poor." You could mess up due to lack of instruction and guidance and learn from your mistakes and eventually make enough of them to know what you're doing. This is exactly how I pictured the environment and this is pretty much what was described to me. 

Not if that pretty accomplished criminal defence lawyer was literally selling a course lol. It's like the number one thing to look for when looking for financial advice online. Do not trust people that make money off claiming everyone else does things badly and they have the solution.

And no, my point stands. If you think big law firms, which are the best capitalized, with the most resources, hire the most students, out of the most broadly accomplished student base aside from maybe SCC hiring, are universally terrible at training, then no firm or organization is going to do better.

If you think every single big law firm is successful because of sheer dumb luck year after year, and can afford to have people fuck up continually until they learn otherwise, you're just being an idiot.

Edited August 25, 2022 by Rashabon

[ZukoJD]

4 minutes ago, Rashabon said:

Not if that pretty accomplished criminal defence lawyer was literally selling a course lol. It's like the number one thing to look for when looking for financial advice online. Do not trust people that make money off claiming everyone else does things badly and they have the solution.

And no, my point stands. If you think big law firms, which are the best capitalized, with the most resources, hire the most students, out of the most broadly accomplished student base aside from maybe SCC hiring, are universally terrible at training, then no firm or organization is going to do better.

If you think every single big law firm is successful because of sheer dumb luck year after year, and can afford to have people fuck up continually until they learn otherwise, you're just being an idiot.

Did I say it’s by sheer dumb luck? Hiring some of the smartest people in their cohort who can figure things out quicker is already not just luck. 
 

But go ahead and stomp your feet. 

[Rashabon]

Yes. It's sheer dumb luck if enough people swim instead of sinking without being trained to swim. It's an asinine position that flies in the face of all logic.

I don't care what you think generally, I think your posts in this thread have been really dumb across the board. But there are other people reading this that might get the impression they need to shell out $1000 bucks to learn how to close a fictitious deal which they will learn on the job easily using firm precedents and receiving mentorship and training from the people they work with. Every company trying to make a buck would love a mark like you, but there's value in making it clear how wholly ignorant and out of touch you are.

Edited August 25, 2022 by Rashabon

[ZukoJD]

28 minutes ago, Rashabon said:

Yes. It's sheer dumb luck if enough people swim instead of sinking without being trained to swim. It's an asinine position that flies in the face of all logic.

I don't care what you think generally, I think your posts in this thread have been really dumb across the board. But there are other people reading this that might get the impression they need to shell out $1000 bucks to learn how to close a fictitious deal which they will learn on the job easily using firm precedents and receiving mentorship and training from the people they work with. Every company trying to make a buck would love a mark like you, but there's value in making it clear how wholly ignorant and out of touch you are.

Mate there are plenty of firms who operate exactly as I described. People have pointed that out in this very thread. People learn from mistakes and self-learn. It's an asinine position to argue that there aren't firms that operate like this. 

Choosing to hire the best from a cohort because they're more capable individuals is not sheer luck. It's a deliberate choice.

People made good points about why this isn't the case for big law firms, and I accepted them. 

 

Edited August 25, 2022 by ZukoJD

[Swami]

1 hour ago, QueensDenning said:

Could be a lot worse. I know people at Toronto firms making 40K. And I'm talking decently reputable firms with 10+ lawyers, not just the predatory ones people are warned about. 

that sounds awful... 40k for articling?! is this downtown toronto or GTA

[Ryn]

Having articled at a biglaw firm, I can say the training was incredibly good. I cannot imagine how a course could ever replace that experience. On top of that, if I were hiring a student, I would not trust any such course to have provided the appropriate experience. I would not consider that student to be any more qualified than another student who did not take the course. 

Of course the quality of formal training programs at law firms will vary. Some of the leading national firms have entire programs to train their students. But even the mid-sized and boutique firms take their training obligations seriously. In both classes of firms, students are going to develop the vast majority of their skills on the job, running transactions and working on files for partners. In my view, this is the holy grail of training, and there’s no way a course or any other kind of formal instruction is going to replace this. There’s a reason why lawyers trained on Bay Street as students are so sought after in other markets. 

[СлаваУкраїні]

In @ZukoJD’s defence, he was upfront about the fact that his impression of Big Law training was secondhand knowledge, and when people here gave their own experiences to the contrary he admitted what he had been told was likely unrepresentative. He also explained how he came to his conclusion, the logic of which some took issue with, but that’s not the same as intentionally presenting a misconception as fact. As someone who also knows very little about big law training, I never felt like his posts were intentionally misleading or that he persisted in spreading falsehoods after being told he was wrong, nor that his initial impression of big law training from what he had been told was particularly absurd or unbelievable.

I get the concern people have about people confidently spewing misinformation on a public forum, but one of the ways the forum works to fix this is to allow people a space to give their impressions and get told by more experienced members of the profession to what extent those impressions are correct or incorrect. And if this can’t happen without being told that you’re dumb/an idiot, people are going to be less likely to speak up and those learning opportunities are going to get missed.

[TheAEGIS]

On 8/28/2022 at 12:40 AM, СлаваУкраїні said:

I get the concern people have about people confidently spewing misinformation on a public forum, but one of the ways the forum works to fix this is to allow people a space to give their impressions and get told by more experienced members of the profession to what extent those impressions are correct or incorrect. And if this can’t happen without being told that you’re dumb/an idiot, people are going to be less likely to speak up and those learning opportunities are going to get missed.

To be fair, I think some of the replies simply mirrored the attitude said poster eventually started projecting. Maybe it's an unfortunate consequence of the medium that some writing styles convey more pomp and certainty than their authors might have intended ... but when you're also the first in an exchange to call someone else "pathetic" ... well ... there's not much room for misunderstanding after that.

And hey, I've seen examples of posters being unfairly harangued for setting a foot wrong by sheer inadvertence. But this isn't one of those imo.

[ZukoJD]

On 8/30/2022 at 2:15 PM, TheAEGIS said:

To be fair, I think some of the replies simply mirrored the attitude said poster eventually started projecting. Maybe it's an unfortunate consequence of the medium that some writing styles convey more pomp and certainty than their authors might have intended ... but when you're also the first in an exchange to call someone else "pathetic" ... well ... there's not much room for misunderstanding after that.

And hey, I've seen examples of posters being unfairly harangued for setting a foot wrong by sheer inadvertence. But this isn't one of those imo.

Meh. There are countless examples of the poster I called pathetic making uncharitable interpretations of others peoples' comments and proceeding to reply with snarky remarks. It seemed a fair assessment of someone who so consistently illustrates this type of behaviour. 

[CleanHands]

50 minutes ago, ZukoJD said:

Meh. There are countless examples of the poster I called pathetic making uncharitable interpretations of others peoples' comments and proceeding to reply with snarky remarks. It seemed a fair assessment of someone who so consistently illustrates this type of behaviour. 

lol I posted a reply to you two weeks ago that really wasn't even that provocative, but stay butthurt if you want.

[ZukoJD]

7 hours ago, CleanHands said:

lol I posted a reply to you two weeks ago that really wasn't even that provocative, but stay butthurt if you want.

My comment takes issue with the pattern of behaviour, clearly not just a particular reply. 

Cheers.

Edited September 9, 2022 by ZukoJD