FAQ on "Bay St Firms"

[Rashabon]

He was also a tax guy meaning he only worked with other tax lawyers, so the narrowest possible slice of Bay Street lawyers around.

[BlockedQuebecois]

I'll never understand why students are so hesitant to rely on the league tables and Chambers rankings. 

The league tables are a proxy for quality in capital markets work because they show who the decision makers trust to paper their deals. To the extent you're worried about firms doing high volume simple stuff, you can always just adjust it on a per-partner basis. 

The Chambers rankings are based on market research and analysis by Chambers, and reflects what the firms put forward in their applications as well as feedback from client referees. The typical complaint is that firms with resources can spend a lot of resources to improve their application and  get better rankings, which is true. But it's not a terribly relevant complaint when you're comparing Blakes and Dentons, because both firms easily have the resources to submit strong applications. The fact that both are spending those resources and Blakes is a band 1 Corporate/M&A firm while Dentons isn't ranked is telling. 

Any firm ranking on this website is just going to be a slightly worse version of the league tables or Chambers rankings, unless you want a ranking of firms by personability. 

[Rashabon]

Yeah. Chambers is hit or miss in some respects, but generally within the ballpark. I can quibble whether some firms deserve to be Band 1 or should be Band 2, but rarely that they aren't within a 1 Band margin of error.

I've stated before I'm biased towards league tables because I'm a capital markets and M&A lawyer but I will reiterate that outside of boutiques, they are a proxy for overall firm standing and health because those are the big dollar mandates that allow you to do everything else (as I said in the other thread today).

Public company clients are also some of the biggest in Canada with the most diverse needs, leading to actual full service needs. You don't always get that with other types of clientele, which is why firms with big public company work rosters have a ton of work in other areas as well.

[OnlyResident]

On 11/4/2021 at 1:01 PM, Lifeisgood said:

How much is the pay for 2L summer student in personal injury and labor and employment firms?

The top-tier PI firms are paying close to if not the same as the big corporate ones. Most of the management side firms also pay the same range (1700+/week). The only meaningful difference I noticed in summer pay is that none of the boutiques have the 3-5k 3L tuition bonus for returning to article at the firm. 

[Jaggers]

35 minutes ago, Rashabon said:

Yeah. Chambers is hit or miss in some respects, but generally within the ballpark. I can quibble whether some firms deserve to be Band 1 or should be Band 2, but rarely that they aren't within a 1 Band margin of error.

Yeah. For my area, employment, the tables are pretty bang on. 

https://chambers.com/legal-rankings/employment-labour-ontario-20:2351:12885:1

I wouldn't say Filion Wakely is in the top tier of employment firms, but the other four in band 1 are the ones I send work to. I send specific pieces of work to two of the firms in band 2, and use one firm in band 4 for something very specialized (recognizing that their general employment practice is not at the top level).

For most employment law, you could go to any firm in the four bands and get the right answer pretty quickly, or get good representation in litigation. But for big or cutting-edge stuff, the firms in band 1 (other than FW, but I think that's an historical vestige rather than the current state of affairs) have the people and the reputation.

[Rashabon]

1 hour ago, Jaggers said:

but I think that's an historical vestige rather than the current state of affairs

That is my biggest quibble with Chambers - some rankings are definitely coasting on past reputation. There's one firm in one of my particular practice areas that is coasting off the reputation of a partner emeritus and has almost no impressive clients or work in the space anymore, but are still in Band 1. Annoying, but is what it is.

[Ghalm]

When I was a student, I would go onto lexpert.ca, click on a practice area ranking of choice, scroll down to see the list of lawyers "Most frequently recommended" "consistently recommended" "repeatedly recommended" - I'd then get a sense of which firms had the most lawyers ranked and the distribution among the tiers.

I thought this was useful information because, presumably, the more lawyers well known in area X, the higher likelihood of high quality work flowing into the firm in area X, also - the more likely a little old student, or junior, would have a chance to work on that kind of file. 

My firm does not see much or any of X work, because there is no partner who does X work (or is well known for doing X work). But my firm does see a lot of Y work, high quality cases too, because there are a few partners well known in Y work.

Interested to hear thoughts on this approach? One possible flaw is that the # of well known lawyers at a firm in a given area doesn't necessarily correspond to # of mandates; since it might be that 1 big shot brings in a whole ton of the work anyway.

Edited November 5, 2021 by Ghalm

[QueensGrad]

2 hours ago, Rashabon said:

That is my biggest quibble with Chambers - some rankings are definitely coasting on past reputation. There's one firm in one of my particular practice areas that is coasting off the reputation of a partner emeritus and has almost no impressive clients or work in the space anymore, but are still in Band 1. Annoying, but is what it is.

For sure. When a firm is ranked highly but they have few or only lowly ranked lawyers that is a good sign something is off. 

Edited November 5, 2021 by QueensGrad

[Mr. Deeds]

Can someone give me some insight to Wildeboer Dellelce LLP in terms of corporate work and just generally? I've heard amazing things about the firm and how they are constantly on opposites ends of deals as the other larger firms, give their students amazing experience, work life balance and pay but haven't heard it talked about too much in this forum. 

[BlockedQuebecois]

4 hours ago, Mustang said:

I've heard amazing things about the firm and how they are constantly on opposites ends of deals as the other larger firms, give their students amazing experience, work life balance and pay but haven't heard it talked about too much in this forum. 

Did you hear this from Wildeboer’s marketing materials? 

In all seriousness, they’re a perfectly fine firm for corporate work, though it’s correct to say they’re usually representing the smaller players in most deals. I know people who work there and they don’t seem to have a materially better work life balance. And I’m not sure what “amazing pay” is, but Wildeboer’s ain’t it. They pay close to market.

[Avatar Aang]

5 minutes ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

Did you hear this from Wildeboer’s marketing materials? 

In all seriousness, they’re a perfectly fine firm for corporate work, though it’s correct to say they’re usually representing the smaller players in most deals. I know people who work there and they don’t seem to have a materially better work life balance. And I’m not sure what “amazing pay” is, but Wildeboer’s ain’t it. They pay close to market.

Lol, I was wondering the same thing. It's a small corporate firm with ~50 lawyers. Why would they be on the opposite of large deals against large firms and give "amazing experience" to students? It's an average firm. That's why you don't hear much talk about it. 

Seems like every average corporate firm is now trying to market itself as the next Davies among law students.

[Mr. Deeds]

4 hours ago, Avatar Aang said:

Lol, I was wondering the same thing. It's a small corporate firm with ~50 lawyers. Why would they be on the opposite of large deals against large firms and give "amazing experience" to students? It's an average firm. That's why you don't hear much talk about it. 

Seems like every average corporate firm is now trying to market itself as the next Davies among law students.

I wouldn’t call them an average corporate firm lol. They’re a top 10 corporate boutique in Canada, have been ranked band 1 by Chambers in Corporate work and also ranked by Lexpert. The amazing work comes from thinner files allowing students to play a larger role rather than doing minuscule  work at a large firm on large files.

Also, just an fyi, Davies isn’t the big thing anymore. A lot of students don’t even want to work there. If anyone else has any insight it would be greatly appreciated. 

Edited November 8, 2021 by Mustang
Wanted to add more to the post.

[PePeHalpert]

 

[Mr. Deeds]

2 minutes ago, PePeHalpert said:

 

No! I got meme’d 😂 But no I really don’t but rather than just downplaying a firm it’d be nice to get some general information about the firm. 

[chaboywb]

9 minutes ago, Mustang said:

I wouldn’t call them an average corporate firm lol. They’re a top 10 corporate boutique in Canada, have been ranked band 1 by Chambers in Corporate work and also ranked by Lexpert. The amazing work comes from thinner files allowing students to play a larger role rather than doing minuscule  work at a large firm on large files.

Also, just an fyi, Davies isn’t the big thing anymore. A lot of students don’t even want to work there. If anyone else has any insight it would be greatly appreciated. 

You've gotten good answers, even if theyre not what you wanted. Did you accept a position at WD or something? It'll be a great and meaningful experience. But you're repeating classic firm marketing lines and getting annoyed that they may not be accurate.

Davies is still very much desired and gets top candidates every year. There's just a lot of coping in 2L when Davies' rejection letters come out and suddenly nobody wanted to work there anyway (despite applying).

[Mr. Deeds]

Just now, chaboywb said:

You've gotten good answers, even if theyre not what you wanted. Did you accept a position at WD or something? It'll be a great and meaningful experience. But you're repeating classic firm marketing lines and getting annoyed that they may not be accurate.

Davies is still very much desired and gets top candidates every year. There's just a lot of coping in 2L when Davies' rejection letters come out and suddenly nobody wanted to work there anyway (despite applying).

Nono, I’m just curious. The info I got was from past students and associates who seemed to love it. I guess that’s just the best answers I can get. Thanks for the info everyone! 

[QueensGrad]

29 minutes ago, Mustang said:

I wouldn’t call them an average corporate firm lol. They’re a top 10 corporate boutique in Canada, have been ranked band 1 by Chambers in Corporate work and also ranked by Lexpert. The amazing work comes from thinner files allowing students to play a larger role rather than doing minuscule  work at a large firm on large files.

Also, just an fyi, Davies isn’t the big thing anymore. A lot of students don’t even want to work there. If anyone else has any insight it would be greatly appreciated. 

Haven’t they only been ranked band 1 in the “highly regarded” chambers corporate law table—that is, the table 1 step below the “elite” table where you find the Davies types? And that is just an Ontario table, not nation wide. 
 

 

[BlockedQuebecois]

14 minutes ago, QueensGrad said:

Haven’t they only been ranked band 1 in the “highly regarded” chambers corporate law table—that is, the table 1 step below the “elite” table where you find the Davies types? And that is just an Ontario table, not nation wide. 
 

 

Yes. And considering there are 4 bands in “the Elite” that would make them a Band 5 firm if you want to rely on Chambers. 

Also, you can tell its no Davies because nobody is ever going to post on this forum saying “Wildeboer isn’t even the big thing anymore”. 

I’ll repeat what I said above: it’s a fine firm. 

[easttowest]

On 10/20/2021 at 3:30 AM, Lifeisgood said:

I don’t have any backgrounds on business, corporation, securities …related knowledge, will big firms (full service) hire me or will I survive if I have the chance to work in there?

Yes and yes.

Who among us has a background in securities?

[Rashabon]

1 hour ago, easttowest said:

Yes and yes.

Who among us has a background in securities?

The JD/MBA folks, or a junior we hired that had gotten their CFA. But largely nobody.

I had no experience in securities prior to law school (no clue what they were, didn't know what Bay Street was before I got to law school, etc.) and now I'm a senior securities associate that practices securities law and will stake a claim to being really good at it.

[DonCorleone]

The prestige chasing among law students is ridiculous sometimes. If you landed a job during the 2L recruit, whether it be at Blakes or “mid size”, be happy, because 70% of your peers would have loved to have been lucky enough to land any one of those positions. 
 

FYI, Wildeboer is an awesome firm with a terrific culture and some truly brilliant people. I worked with some former Wildeboer lawyers last summer. If you landed at Wildeboer, consider yourself very lucky, not only because it’s a great firm, but also because their articling and associate hireback is 100%. They work with both entrepreneurial and institutional clients. The nature of the work is the same as it would be at any large national law firm, as is the pay. 
 

The disparaging remarks about Dentons and other firms here are really cringeworthy. Dentons is a fine firm - you don’t become the largest law firm in the world by sucking. Dentons being ranked perhaps lower than Blakes/Davies on Chambers is characteristic of international firms since local players typically have a competitive/first mover advantage in certain markets. Talent acquisition is also a challenge for international firms like DLA and Dentons. This is obviously subject to change. 
 

Bottom line is that if you got a job at Dentons or Blakes or Wildeboer during the recruit, you’re going to be doing the exact same thing at any one of them for the first few years of practice - double checking commas and decimal points and other gruelling corporate associate type work. So who cares. Be happy. 

[easttowest]

That hyperbole doesn’t even accurately describe my articling experience at a large firm, and I wasn’t a “corporate” student and just touched a couple of matters.

You actually become the largest firm in the world by merging with regional firms in, like, every country (ie. exactly what Dentons did). Nothing to do with not sucking.

[BlockedQuebecois]

39 minutes ago, DonCorleone said:

Dentons is a fine firm - you don’t become the largest law firm in the world by sucking.

No, you become the largest law firm in the world by forming a Swiss Verein and vacuuming up a bunch mediocre local firms in 73 different countries in addition to a massive firm in China 

39 minutes ago, DonCorleone said:

Dentons being ranked perhaps lower than Blakes/Davies on Chambers is characteristic of international firms since local players typically have a competitive/first mover advantage in certain markets.

This would be a great rebuttal if Dentons hadn't been formed from Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP, a middling firm that had existed in Canada for 170 years. FMC was the literal definition of a first mover, and yet when it joined the Verein it was not a market leader and it has continued to not be a market leader since. 

39 minutes ago, DonCorleone said:

Talent acquisition is also a challenge for international firms like DLA and Dentons.

Well yeah, that's the point. Law firms are, at their heart, just a collection of lawyers. If your law firm has talent acquisition issues it has quality issues. 

39 minutes ago, DonCorleone said:

This is obviously subject to change.

Sure, Dentons could stop sucking. Will it? Who knows. 

Now that we're done with the Dentons nonsense: 

39 minutes ago, DonCorleone said:

If you landed at Wildeboer, consider yourself very lucky, not only because it’s a great firm, but also because their articling and associate hireback is 100%. They work with both entrepreneurial and institutional clients. The nature of the work is the same as it would be at any large national law firm, as is the pay. 

Wildeboer is a good firm, as I said above. But two things: 

1. Wildeboer doesn't really have 100% hireback. In 2018 & 2019 they hired back 2/3 and 3/4, respectively. In 2020, they had an unexplained opt out. And in 2021 they hired back all their students but, as noted above, they originally delayed articling start dates until January and offered an interest free loan to keep their new associates afloat. I know one of their students left as a result of that. 
2. The nature of the work will not be the same. They still do high quality work, but the idea that every law firm that practices "corporate" law or whatever has the same breadth and depth of practice is incorrect. Wildeboer is a good firm, but lawyers there are going to be working on different files than the work done at the top tier firms. 

Edited November 15, 2021 by BlockedQuebecois

[CleanHands]

51 minutes ago, DonCorleone said:

Bottom line is that if you got a job at Dentons or Blakes or Wildeboer during the recruit, you’re going to be doing the exact same thing at any one of them for the first few years of practice - double checking commas and decimal points and other gruelling corporate associate type work. So who cares. Be happy. 

I don't want to pile on, bud, but the fact that you just got an OCI job and haven't started yet shows here, and the idea that summer students, articling students and junior lawyers are just overpaid copy editors needs to be dispelled since applicants and 1Ls use this forum.

I have friends currently articling in firms of all sorts of different sizes and practice areas and none of their experiences align with your description (and I say this as someone who thinks articling students tend to overestimate their value). In fact, most of them have been surprised at the amount of responsibility one has to assume so early in their career in this field.

Edited November 15, 2021 by CleanHands

[DonCorleone]

8 minutes ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

No, you become the largest law firm in the world by forming a Swiss Verein and vacuuming up a bunch mediocre local firms in 73 different countries in addition to a massive firm in China 

This would be a great rebuttal if Dentons hadn't been formed from Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP, a middling firm that had existed in Canada for 170 years. FMC was the literal definition of a first mover, and yet when it joined the Verein it was not a market leader and it has continued to not be a market leader since. 

Well yeah, that's the point. Law firms are, at their heart, just a collection of lawyers. If your law firm has talent acquisition issues it has quality issues. 

Sure, Dentons could stop sucking. Will it? Who knows. 

Now that we're done with the Dentons nonsense: 

Wildeboer is a good firm, as I said above. But two things: 

1. Wildeboer doesn't really have 100% hireback. In 2018 & 2019 they hired back 2/3 and 3/4, respectively. In 2020, they had an unexplained opt out. And in 2021 they hired back all their students but, as noted above, they originally delayed articling start dates until January and offered an interest free loan to keep their new associates afloat. I know one of their students left as a result of that. 
2. The nature of the work will not be the same. They still do high quality work, but the idea that every law firm that practices "corporate" law or whatever has the same breadth and depth of practice is incorrect. Wildeboer is a good firm, but lawyers there are going to be working on different files than the work done at the top tier firms. 

Oh my god BQ I try to spread some positivity and you hit me with this. That’s the last time I try that. Vietnam flashbacks to lawstudents.ca. 

1 minute ago, CleanHands said:

I don't want to pile on, bud, but the fact that you just got an OCI job and haven't started yet shows here, and the idea that summer students, articling students and junior lawyers are just overpaid copy editors needs to be dispelled since applicants and 1Ls use this forum.

I have friends currently articling in firms of all sorts of different sizes and practice areas and none of their experiences align with your description (and I say this as someone who thinks articling students tend to overestimate their value).

Fair enough