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How much does a Bay Street partner make?


keenerbeaver

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Lycidas
  • Law Student

Among the Seven Sisters equity partners it ranges between $500k-ish to $2m+ for rainmakers, with the median between $1.2-$1.4m. 

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HammurabiTime
  • Lawyer
1 hour ago, Pendragon said:

What are the other in-house options like for litigators? And how does the compensation, work, and work-life balance compare in Big law to litigation boutiques like Paliare Roland, Tyr LLP, Kastner Lam, Lenczner Slaght, Lax O'Sullivan, Hunter Litigation, Stockwoods, etc.? By smaller firms, do you mean the litigation boutiques?

I know people who do, or have, worked at about half those places. Work life balance does not sound any better and at a few of them my understanding is worse than many full service firms.

Edited by HammurabiTime
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For litigators, the main in-house options that don't involve leaving law are basically going to big companies that have a lot of litigation, and supervision outside counsel to run it for you. Those jobs may involve doing a bit of your own litigation (but none of the big or complex files, obviously) and advising people on how not to get into litigation or how to position your file for a good litigation outcome, prior to litigation starting.

And you can go to insurance companies, but those are either the same as (a) or basically like working in a specialized firm as a litigator.

Edited by Jaggers
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For a litigator who wants to be an advocate as opposed to a litigation manager, is the government the possible exit option with good work life balance (and much less pay)? I wonder if government litigators work just as much as private practice? I understand that hours worked will vary among departments/agencies but if anyone has insight into a given department/agency it would be nice to hear! 

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I don't know about civil litigation, but the government has a lot of labour lawyers who do a ton of litigation. There are a handful of private companies who do that as well (highly unionized places like Air Canada or Canada Post).

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Darth Vader
  • Lawyer
17 minutes ago, Jaggers said:

I don't know about civil litigation, but the government has a lot of labour lawyers who do a ton of litigation. There are a handful of private companies who do that as well (highly unionized places like Air Canada or Canada Post).

Yea, there are lots of labour positions with unions and some government departments. There are lots of crim positions too if you want to be a Crown. Civil litigation is hard to break into in the government since almost everyone working at a place like MAG Civil articled there or in another government branch. If you are a PI or insurance defence lawyer though, it's easy to get into insurance companies as in-house counsel. There are not many commercial litigation positions I see with the government unless it's a litigation job with the Ontario Securities Commission. 

@Ghalm The OSC has very high turnover and I always see job postings from there. I hear the OSC and some of the Crown offices have close to Big law hours. 

Edited by Darth Vader
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Rashabon
  • Lawyer

Certainly on the Corporate Finance branch side the OSC is working crazy hours. I'm getting emails and documents at hours from them that were unheard of 3 years ago.

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Hitman9172
  • Lawyer
4 hours ago, Yang said:

Folks — hoping to reel this thread back in. I am curious as to how compensation works at the partner level. Not exactly in terms of actual $$, but more specifically, is it based on how many clients you bring in? Hours you work? 

Relatedly, can someone please kindly shed light on why one would want to become an equity partner at a firm in this day and age? Is it… worthwhile? 

Note: I am admittedly a tad jaded (COVID lawyering has been rough lol) and looking for good reasons to stay in private practice other than simply bringing home the big bucks. 

From having spoken to equity partners at several big firms in Vancouver, it really does vary, but the most common model seems to be that partners get a base salary based on expected revenue generation (through own hours billed + bringing in new client work), and then a bonus if they exceed those targets, and then they'll split the remaining pot (if there is one) with all the other equity partners, based on some % divvy-up. The more clients you bring (or the more fees your clients generate), the bigger your bonus + share of the overall pie. If you don't have many clients and are just relying on billing lots of hours, then you're probably getting compensated on the lower end. In terms of how many hours equity partners have to bill per year, the ones I spoke to had targets ranging from 1400-1750 per year.

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On 9/30/2021 at 8:55 AM, Jaggers said:

Sometimes I feel like I shouldn't have left, but I do like my cushy $200K nine to five job with no hustling for clients.

Which job is this? 🙂

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Judgelight
  • Lawyer
On 10/25/2021 at 9:21 PM, Darth Vader said:

Yea, there are lots of labour positions with unions and some government departments. There are lots of crim positions too if you want to be a Crown. Civil litigation is hard to break into in the government since almost everyone working at a place like MAG Civil articled there or in another government branch. If you are a PI or insurance defence lawyer though, it's easy to get into insurance companies as in-house counsel. There are not many commercial litigation positions I see with the government unless it's a litigation job with the Ontario Securities Commission. 

@Ghalm The OSC has very high turnover and I always see job postings from there. I hear the OSC and some of the Crown offices have close to Big law hours. 

I can tell you that working for cloc or as a crown - your probably doing 10 - 12 hour days and a boat load of administrative work on top of that. 

At least as a junior, maybe it gets better.

Other civil law offices tho? Do your 9-5, clock in and out.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 10/25/2021 at 10:41 PM, Hitman9172 said:

From having spoken to equity partners at several big firms in Vancouver, it really does vary, but the most common model seems to be that partners get a base salary based on expected revenue generation (through own hours billed + bringing in new client work), and then a bonus if they exceed those targets, and then they'll split the remaining pot (if there is one) with all the other equity partners, based on some % divvy-up. The more clients you bring (or the more fees your clients generate), the bigger your bonus + share of the overall pie. If you don't have many clients and are just relying on billing lots of hours, then you're probably getting compensated on the lower end. In terms of how many hours equity partners have to bill per year, the ones I spoke to had targets ranging from 1400-1750 per year.

Thank you. This was very helpful. 

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