Bay Street Toronto Firms Ranking

[helloall]

Are there no noticeable differences in exit opportunities between firms?

Like, all else equal, would a Davies associate in M&A not have better exit opportunities than, for example, an Aird & Berlis associate in M&A?

[CheeseToast]

McCarthy Tétrault has the most followers on linkedin. I think we can consider this matter settled everyone. 

[carlill]

Dentons*

 

 

 

*Disclaimer: Following in the spirit of CheeseToast's excellent post and also a long-standing joke on this forum that never fails to make me laugh.

[CleanHands]

You know the OP doesn't know what they are talking about when they don't even mention Wildeboer.

[Squirtle]

On 10/23/2022 at 11:19 AM, helloall said:

Are there no noticeable differences in exit opportunities between firms?

Like, all else equal, would a Davies associate in M&A not have better exit opportunities than, for example, an Aird & Berlis associate in M&A?

IMO it's completely equal. Assuming we're talking about corporate related 'exit opportunities', most of these opportunities are looking for some kind of full-service/corp experience or (sometimes) specialized expertise in an area. They aren't fixated on the differences between the major Toronto firms. In fact, most of them don't know and don't care to know. 

[PzabbytheLawyer]

On 10/21/2022 at 1:14 PM, realpseudonym said:

I knew a bunch of classmates who really emphasized going to full-service firms, where they'd get a variety of work through their rotations. There's nothing inherently wrong with that. It's fine to defer a decision, because you feel you need information that you'll get through work. But I also think that can reasoning can end up being a sort of procrastination. I did get the sense from some students that they were trying to avoid doing any of the reflection and decision-making @KOMODO suggests. And, while I have no idea of OP's specific motives for asking the question, I think that's part of the allure of working for one of the "best" firms: if you go to a firm that's better than every other firm, you can't make the wrong choice, right? The problem is that as Komodo is pointing out, terms like best and reputation aren't universally reliable metrics. And even if rankings are objective, it's usually better to have narrowed down goals and career objective beyond "work at most reputable firm" so that you can look for things that align with your interests, needs, and preferences.

Honestly, I used to think like this. "of course I can figure out what I want to do as a second year - I've had a year of law school and a summer of experience!"

But having had many summers of experience, articling, and now a year and something practising, I'm pretty confident the opposite is true - I didn't know anything, and still don't. But I'm getting closer to knowing what I want.

Law students tend to find an interesting subject and think that's all they want to do.

In reality, many many more considerations are important, like:

What hours am I working?

How predictable are those hours?

Am I likely to have to have my own firm? Can I work at an institution? Is my work limited to giant firms? Boutiques where I'm as much a business person as a lawyer?

What exit options are there? Into what?

How transferable will my skills be?

Is my day to day practice more writing, thinking, research, verbal communication, solo work, or brain storming?

How much money can I make to have a roof over my head and feed my own and my partner's mouth?

Can I travel? Actually travel? With money? Without? Will I be travelling but working? Will I have no money to travel? How much time off (continuous) can I take at once?

What does my day to day practice look like in 3 years? 5? 10? 20?

Etc.

I think bay street gives you limited exposure to a lot of areas early on so you get a wider array. But you don't ever get exposed to the realities of a small practice, managing clients on your own, etc early on.

Bay Street also expects you to specialize soon after. 

Boutiques even earlier.

Government is very flexible in this regard.

In house I have no idea - @Jaggers?

 

 

[Jaggers]

I mostly knew what I wanted to do when I started law school. But I still picked a full-service firm that had both good labour/employment and good general litigation so I had general litigation as my fallback if I ended up not liking labour law practice.

Being pretty sure I knew exactly what I wanted did give me the confidence to say no to firms like Osler, Blakes and McCarthys, and not even apply to places like Torys, Stikeman or Goodmans (yes, that's six of them, and I can't remember what the last one is right now). But I didn't have the confidence to take a job at a labour boutique, because I still had that nagging doubt that maybe I didn't quite know what I wanted yet.

I didn't really think that far down the road. I just researched which places had good reputations for labour/employment law and had the litigation fallback. Turned out ok for me.

[xdarkwhite]

4 hours ago, Squirtle said:

IMO it's completely equal. Assuming we're talking about corporate related 'exit opportunities', most of these opportunities are looking for some kind of full-service/corp experience or (sometimes) specialized expertise in an area. They aren't fixated on the differences between the major Toronto firms. In fact, most of them don't know and don't care to know. 

Recruiting, lateraling, exiting—these are such individualized processes that I agree with the lawyers on here saying that it's dumb to chase "prestige" for its own sake. Firms have certain specialties in certain areas of law and for certain situations. People have their own interests, strengths and goals which should be the determining factors to where you end up. Chasing prestige, whether it be choosing a law school or an employer, can very well make you miserable. If you're really good and passionate at what you do, it matters less and less where you come from.

That being said, I don't think it's fair to pretend that all Toronto firms have the same exit opportunities. Certain firms just have bigger clients doing bigger deals and by exposure you'll start building connections with those clients and counterparties. Certain firms work more with US or international counsel. Working at "some kind of full-service/corp experience" isn't just a generic box to check that will lead you to a job.

All else being equal, working at certain firms will open more corporate opportunities than others—but all else is rarely equal.

[PePeHalpert]

Every year a thread like this pops up and I find it kind of silly.  Leaving aside the obvious answer, which has already been covered in detail, that its really practice area dependent, what difference does it make where a firm ranks if they don't practice the kind of law you're interested in and the lawyers you are working with suck?  Figure out what kind of law you want to practice and the type of files you want to work on, and interview at the firms that do that.  Ask to meet with the lawyers who practice in those areas.  Do you like them? Want to work long hours with them?  Go there.  If you're miserable, you're not going to find much solace in knowing that you are at a top ranked firm.

Are there differences in the exit opportunities between firms?  Maybe slightly.  But if your primary motivation in picking a firm is your exit strategy, you're probably heading down the wrong path.

[WilliamMoore]

On 10/21/2022 at 9:18 AM, Coolcucumberlaw said:

Is there a ranking of the Bay Street firms in terms of reputation?
 

I’m particularly interested in how Blakes, Cassels, Miller Thomson, McMillan, and Stikeman Elliott, and Bennet Jones are ranked in relation to each other? 

1. Blakes
2. Stikeman
3. Bennett Jones
4. McMillan
5. Miller Thomson
6. Cassels

Good luck with in-firms!

[Jaggers]

LOL

[WhoKnows]

1 hour ago, Jaggers said:

LOL

That's a yikes of a list in terms of firms I hope to see on the other side of my practice. 

[Jaggers]

I use one of those firms regularly for a specific kind of work. Another one I specifically asked to participate in an RFP we recently put out for another kind of work. They are all great firms for some things, and I suspect people I work with use every single one of them for different kinds of work.

[CleanHands]

C'mon, Blakes is so incompetent that it's a matter of public record that they can't even help a client enter into a lease without realizing that zoning prohibits the use intended by their client. lmao

[duck]

On 10/27/2022 at 5:40 PM, WilliamMoore said:

1. Blakes
2. Stikeman
3. Bennett Jones
4. McMillan
5. Miller Thomson
6. Cassels

Good luck with in-firms!

Blakes Blakes Blakes Blakes Blakes Blakes Blakes Blakes

[Jaggers]

They actually have a really good employment tax person. Those are hard to find.

[OzLaw16]

On 10/27/2022 at 5:40 PM, WilliamMoore said:

1. Blakes
2. Stikeman
3. Bennett Jones
4. McMillan
5. Miller Thomson
6. Cassels

Good luck with in-firms!

This post is so silly that it almost feels like it's purposely meant to be satirical to demonstrate to law students how useless it is to post a ranked list without any sort of explanation, caveat or personalization to their needs. I assume it wasn't intended that way, but if it was, then honestly kudos for generating some discussion with it.

[Pantalaimon]

On 10/27/2022 at 3:40 PM, WilliamMoore said:

1. Blakes
2. Stikeman
3. Bennett Jones
4. McMillan
5. Miller Thomson
6. Cassels

Good luck with in-firms!

Thank you for your service.

[CanadaWater]

On 10/21/2022 at 12:26 PM, helloall said:

You can use Chambers to get a sense of firm tiers in specific practice areas by Province. But note that Chambers Canada is unfortunately less reliable for boutiques for some reason. 

This is really the only helpful response.  

For general corporate work (assuming Toronto-focused), see: https://chambers.com/legal-rankings/corporate-commercial-the-elite-ontario-20:2667:12885:1

For general litigation work (again, assumign Toronto focused), see: https://chambers.com/legal-rankings/litigation-general-commercial-ontario-20:228:12885:1

[JurisPrudent]

On 10/23/2022 at 11:19 AM, helloall said:

Are there no noticeable differences in exit opportunities between firms?

Like, all else equal, would a Davies associate in M&A not have better exit opportunities than, for example, an Aird & Berlis associate in M&A?

The premise of this thread is mostly ridiculous, but I thought this question deserved a somewhat thoughtful response.

If we are talking in-house opportunities, I don't disagree with what others have said that, generally, having any particular major full service firm listed on your resume isn't going to move the needle on an application over another applicant with a different major full service firm (it'll be the substance of your experience that will matter much more).

However, I'm a senior M&A associate at such a firm (not either of the ones listed) and I've seen a number of colleagues both at my firm and across the street leave for in-house opportunities and a large number of those transitions are moves in-house with current firm clients. That's typically either because (i) you work with a client on a big file or on an ongoing basis for a number of years and you've developed a relationship with them that, when a job opportunity opens up (maybe because they've just completed that huge acquisition you worked on and the internal legal department needs to grow), they immediately think of you or (ii) because the firm has a longstanding relationship with the client and, when there's a job opening, they reach out to the relationship partner and say "Hey, we need a new body in our legal department, is there anyone in your group that you think might be a good fit". Either way, it's not having "Specific Firm LLP" at the top of your resume that gets you the job, it's the opportunity to have either grown the relationship yourself with the client or had a partner who the client trusts vouch for you.

Now, this information is only helpful if you have a good sense of what type of exit opportunity you might be looking for down the road (which, at the student stage, is often difficult, if not impossible to predict) but I think it's worth noting that not all firms have the same type of client base. "M&A" is a big world and different firms on the street will cater to different client categories (financial institutions, big public companies, international conglomerates, private equity firms, start-ups, pension plans, founders, etc.) and if you have a sense of what type of category you might be interested in working with/for then that may guide you to one firm over another.

For those that are participating in the in-firm interview process next week, it's tough to ask "Hey, I'd like you to give me a job, but also, can you tell me about what my opportunities look like when I want to quit this job you're giving me", but you can certainly ask questions like (after doing appropriate research on a firm's website): "What does the firm's client base look like?", "What type of clients does the firm try to attract?", "What are the areas of emphasis of growth for the firm with respect to particular practice groups?" which will give you some sense of who the firm does work for and what areas are important to them.

This was a long way of saying that it does make a difference which firm you end up at, but not because of the value of the "prestige" of the name of the firm, but because the type of work that the firm does and who they do it for will play a big factor in the growth of your practice and, ultimately, which direction you'd like to go if you decide you want to eventually move on from that firm (as most people do).

Hope that helps.

[Jaggers]

43 minutes ago, JurisPrudent said:

However, I'm a senior M&A associate at such a firm (not either of the ones listed) and I've seen a number of colleagues both at my firm and across the street leave for in-house opportunities and a large number of those transitions are moves in-house with current firm clients. That's typically either because (i) you work with a client on a big file or on an ongoing basis for a number of years and you've developed a relationship with them that, when a job opportunity opens up (maybe because they've just completed that huge acquisition you worked on and the internal legal department needs to grow), they immediately think of you or (ii) because the firm has a longstanding relationship with the client and, when there's a job opening, they reach out to the relationship partner and say "Hey, we need a new body in our legal department, is there anyone in your group that you think might be a good fit". Either way, it's not having "Specific Firm LLP" at the top of your resume that gets you the job, it's the opportunity to have either grown the relationship yourself with the client or had a partner who the client trusts vouch for you.

The two ways described here are exactly how I got my two in house jobs. The first was a move to a client that I had done a lot of work for and had litigated (successfully!) a pretty important precedent-setting case for them. The second was when my current employer called a partner at a firm (who had been a mentor to me in my early years) and asked if  he knew anyone good.

[easttowest]

22 hours ago, Jaggers said:

The two ways described here are exactly how I got my two in house jobs. The first was a move to a client that I had done a lot of work for and had litigated (successfully!) a pretty important precedent-setting case for them. The second was when my current employer called a partner at a firm (who had been a mentor to me in my early years) and asked if  he knew anyone good.

He didn’t, but he had happened to have lunch with you in his calendar so just mentioned your name. 

[Rashabon]

The problem with ranking firms is that different firms will fluctuate drastically depending on practice area or type of work, and some firms have a stronger culture (positively or negatively) than others.

[Jaggers]

8 hours ago, easttowest said:

He didn’t, but he had happened to have lunch with you in his calendar so just mentioned your name. 

Neither... he thought I would help him get more business to his firm! And he was right, because he taught me much of what I know about how to practice employment law, and I trust him like almost nobody else.

[C_Terror]

Gonna be a very unpopular opinion here, but OP if your goal is a) big law corporate and b) good exit opps whether in PE, in-house, US etc, then the sisters still hold the infamous prestige for a reason. Look at the firms with the top deal tables and look for the firms involved with the biggest Corporate transactions, and they're always the usual suspects.

You can choose to work on these huge deals, or you can choose to work on smaller deals with these firms, because there's no shortage of high quality corporate work. (Not that there isn't in other firms, but from my experience speaking with other peers, it's easier at these firms).

Related to the above, it's then easier to exit because large institutions or US law firms will recognise the sister names more often than the other firms. You shouldn't be asking whether joe blow on the street will recognize the name Osler over Miller Thompson, but more so whether the Hiring Partner at KE or the CLO of Shopify etc will.

Anyway, unpopular opinion, but when it comes to corporate work, some firms just rank better than others in terms of exposure, work, and exit opps, and yes, these firms are more often than not sisters.