Law Firm Reputations

[CleanHands]

13 minutes ago, TheMidnightOil said:

I've heard that Hegdis & Company makes their articling students sit on the floor.

Why are you picking on him, of all people here? lol

[PzabbytheLawyer]

Hegdis is great. But sometimes, chairs break man.

(I've never met Hegdis and this is just playful).

[BlockedQuebecois]

There’s a reason Dentons is the only firm I publicly slag on this forum 🙂 

[WhoKnows]

11 hours ago, Jaggers said:

I actually know a bunch of people working at both Norton Rose and Dentons, and I'm not sure they're any different from any other Toronto firm. How good your life is depends on which department you work in and which partners you work with. Maybe there is slightly more pressure on hours, but I doubt that differs from one of the other biggest Toronto firms.

My understanding is that NRF laid off admin staff before (never) cutting partner draws at the beginning of the pandemic, which disqualifies them for me.  

[BlockedQuebecois]

Don’t forget BLG, which cut associate salaries by 10-15% depending on how much the firm liked you (compared to the flat 10% cut that NRF applied). 

The fact that they cut salaries is obviously incredibly offensive and should make both firms significantly less attractive for law students and lawyers, but the more offensive thing is that they let their associates work as hard as everyone else on the street for six months during the COVID boom before reinstating their salaries.

[PzabbytheLawyer]

I've heard unpleasant things about NRF, BLG, and Dentons, both in terms of how they recruit, and how they treat their associates.

[PzabbytheLawyer]

You know, it's funny.

I've had a lot of really good experiences in law. I've recently had a couple of poor ones.

My worst ones came when, unfortunately, I lost some confidence in myself and chased "prestige" instead of just doing something which made me happy. 

My best ones came when that was never, ever on my mind. It's also when I've learned the most.

Do something that excites you. For sure, check to see who you're learning from has a good reputation, since you don't want to learn the wrong things. But, you don't need a shiny name plaque on Wellington or Bay to be a good lawyer.

There's also plenty of really questionable lawyers on Wellington and Bay as well.

[sarcasticlemon]

16 hours ago, GoatDuck said:

Wait why is Davies nowhere in the lists? I’ve only heard they offer the best pay for first year associates (aside from NYC satellites in Toronto) but they also work you the hardest. Anything else I’m missing?

Yes that is what people say. There is also controversy regarding them proudly displaying that reputation in an offensive way back in 2012. I'm unsure if a decade-old blunder indicates the firm's current culture. 

[QueensDenning]

On 5/27/2023 at 3:15 PM, sarcasticlemon said:

Yes that is what people say. There is also controversy regarding them proudly displaying that reputation in an offensive way back in 2012. I'm unsure if a decade-old blunder indicates the firm's current culture. 

Slavies! 
 

Didn’t realize till now they had that in their own recruiting advertisement LOL 

[PePeHalpert]

The problem with a thread like this is that is pretty difficult to discern anything of value based on a handful of opinions that largely seem to be based on hearsay.  There are shitty people and good people at every firm and your experience is going to depend very much on which of those people you work with.  

On 5/26/2023 at 9:49 PM, Whist said:

I do not and will never work at Dentons. I've met people who work(ed) there that were nice. But through the grapevine of admin assistants, paralegals, etc, I've also heard it's not a great place to work.

I know very little about Dentons but have a friend who recently lateraled there after working at two other Bay Street firms and has said very positive things about the culture, noting it is quite a bit more friendly and supportive than past experience at other firms. 

 

Quote

My understanding is that NRF laid off admin staff before (never) cutting partner draws at the beginning of the pandemic, which disqualifies them for me.  

I am quite certain this is not accurate. 

 

Its been said before in other threads but it bears repeating: you should be basing your decision on the type of law you want to practice and not the "reputation" of the firm.  Figure out what you want to do, figure out which firms are doing it well, and then meet with those people and decide if you like them.  Cutting a firm out of your OCI list based on a rumour you read on the internet is unwise and signals a lack of intellectual rigour (you know, the kind you need to practice law). 

[BlockedQuebecois]

I don’t know about the not cutting partnership draws part (although I suspect basically every firm on bay street managed to have the profits per partner stay at least level between 2019 and 2020). But it’s a matter of public record that NRF cut both associate and support staff salaries by 10% during COVID, something most firms did not do. 

My recollection is that they also laid off or otherwise did not pay some of their support staff, although that admittedly wasn’t reported in the Globe 🙂 

[PePeHalpert]

10 hours ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

I don’t know about the not cutting partnership draws part (although I suspect basically every firm on bay street managed to have the profits per partner stay at least level between 2019 and 2020). But it’s a matter of public record that NRF cut both associate and support staff salaries by 10% during COVID, something most firms did not do. 

I agree.  Its only the partnership draw that I am challenging. I have heard (here I am contributing to the very hearsay I called out upthread, but this is on good authority) that partners simultaneously took a larger cut.

[BlockedQuebecois]

1 hour ago, PePeHalpert said:

I agree.  Its only the partnership draw that I am challenging. I have heard (here I am contributing to the very hearsay I called out upthread, but this is on good authority) that partners simultaneously took a larger cut.

I assume that NRF, like basically everyone else on the street, had a record year in 2020 and thus the partners made more money in 2020 than they did in 2019. If that isn’t the case, that’s a huge indictment of NRF and it’s business model. 

Putting that aside, though, it doesn’t really matter if partners temporarily took less money. That is the bargain they struck for themselves: equity partners get a share in the business, and while that generally makes them very, very wealthy, it puts them at risk if the business performs poorly. 

That notably isn’t the bargain associates struck. The deal with associates is that you get a guaranteed salary, regardless of what the firms profits are, and you don’t get to participate in those profits at all beyond taking your usual salary. 

In unilaterally cutting associate salaries, NRF’s partnership revealed that, in its view, that’s not the bargain. The bargain is that partners get a share in the business, and if that share is threatened in any real way, even temporarily, they will force associates to participate in the downside of the business while continuing to refuse to let them participate in the upside. 

NRF’s partnership should be ashamed of themselves, and all of the associates that stuck around should really reflect on what message they’re sending by doing so. That became doubly true when NRF was spineless during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, even if it’s Canadian head had some nice words to say after it’s spinelessness went viral 🙂 

Edited May 29, 2023 by BlockedQuebecois