How not to get hired on Bay Street

[HarryCrane]

14 hours ago, QueensDenning said:

I emailed the list to our student program coordinator. Partners are aware of the list as well. I would be very surprised if any of those students got an offer this cycle.

I don’t think they’ll be black listed in the future though to be honest. 

I would think in the future it won’t black list them, but the students better have one hell of an answer to the question “explain why you signed this?”.

[Chief Keef]

In my opinion, putting your name on any political statement as a student is very careless - the probability of backlash is a lot higher than if you just stay quiet. Putting your name on this statement is downright stupid.

Edited October 25, 2023 by Chief Keef

[123]

12 minutes ago, Chief Keef said:

In my opinion, putting your name on any political statement as a student is very careless - the probability of backlash is a lot higher than if you just stay quiet.

I have mixed feelings on this. On the one hand, I do feel too many people and organizations make official statements. Especially organizations, where they're creating these written positions that are completely outside their mandate and expertise. Discussion is one thing. But I don't think it's great, as a society, that so many people believe in reaching some definitive position that they need to transmit out into the world.

On the other hand, I don't agree that students or lawyers should remain quiet on their political beliefs because of risk of backlash. People should stand for things. Not this thing that these students stood for. And obviously, where you're a professional, you do have to be thoughtful about the positions you take, in particular where you are part of some larger organization, like a law firm. But in general, I don't want to just be some career maximizing automaton, who avoids risk of approbation for fear of personal and professional reputational damage. Again, not commenting on this specific statement, which was out of the range of anything I see as advisable or acceptable. But thoughtful participation should be encouraged.

[erin otoole]

27 minutes ago, Chief Keef said:

In my opinion, putting your name on any political statement as a student is very careless - the probability of backlash is a lot higher than if you just stay quiet. Putting your name on this statement is downright stupid.

I'm not sure when you graduated, but in the zoom era of law school these group political statements were flying across group chats every other week. Students are advised to keep their nose clean from these, the risk vs reward is way off. 

[Turtles]

I agree that it is extremely foolish to put your name on a public letter that you should reasonably expect would limit your attractiveness to certain firms and clients while not doing anything to help the current situation. I also find many of the letters coming from university student groups are frequently over-simplified and poorly written, so I'm not sure why you'd even want to be part of their letter. If you want to express yourself in a more meaningful way: write to your MP, donate to a charity, help organize humanitarian relief efforts, call out for peace in a respectful way that doesn't glorify or justify civilian violence, etc. 

That said, I also appreciate that many of the students that get caught up in this are undergraduates and KJDs with limited life experience outside the academia bubble, where arguments are often protected by academic freedom and the more absolute or extreme the argument, the more attention it attracts. And many have grown up in the social media era where they constantly feel pressured to "show face" to their peers/friends by openly supporting popular causes, where silence is construed as being complicit and supporting the other side. The Facebook/Instagram/TikTok algorithms further train them to be more extreme than the last guy to gain more likes, engagement, and social validation. These conditions can lead students to say or do things they think is par for the course, or even necessary, without realizing their actions may break past the bubble and attach real-world consequences.   

Suffice it to say, schools, but especially law schools, probably could do a much better job ensuring students understand that what they say -- whether in a published statement, petition, social media post, or whatever -- can come back to bite them in a major way. Many schools do already with varying degrees of success, and no, I'm not shifting blame to the schools. But whether your desired outcome is discouraging students from sabotaging their own careers or to reduce the number of stupid takes that get posted that may harm victims, ensuring students fully understand the consequences before they engage in the behaviour is probably wise. Osgoode could certainly allocate time from ELGC to "don't post hot takes justifying violence that will show up in google in 10 years and make your potential clients uncomfortable"... of course whether students actually take enough away is a whole different question. 

[CleanHands]

Law students: "I'm going to take a stand on important and controversial issues; look how brave I am!"

Also law students: "It's so unfair that my opportunities would be limited in any way over taking a stand on important and controversial issues!"

[Chief Keef]

6 hours ago, erin otoole said:

I'm not sure when you graduated

Recently enough to remember the Zoom era.

[Rawlsian]

I've seen that at least one full service firm has sent an email to the TMU 2Ls they are interviewing, asking them to confirm that they did not sign the letter anonymously. Obviously if any signed using their name, they will not be getting the call on Friday. I imagine more emails will follow. 

Edited October 26, 2023 by Rawlsian

[Debtful]

1 hour ago, Rawlsian said:

I've seen that at least one full service firm has sent an email to the TMU 2Ls they are interviewing, asking them to confirm that they did not sign the letter anonymously. Obviously if any signed using their name, they will not be getting the call on Friday. I imagine more emails will follow. 

do you know which firm?

[Rawlsian]

8 minutes ago, Debtful said:

do you know which firm?

A&B

[chaboywb]

19 hours ago, Rawlsian said:

I've seen that at least one full service firm has sent an email to the TMU 2Ls they are interviewing, asking them to confirm that they did not sign the letter anonymously. Obviously if any signed using their name, they will not be getting the call on Friday. I imagine more emails will follow. 

I mean that is little more than virtue signaling. Clearly nobody will volunteer that information. 

[Dinsdale]

1 minute ago, chaboywb said:

I mean that is little more than virtue signaling. Clearly nobody will volunteer that information. 

I would say it's more grounds for dismissal if the firm subsequently discovers that the person did in fact sign the letter, having claimed they did not.

[BlockedQuebecois]

1 hour ago, Dinsdale said:

I would say it's more grounds for dismissal if the firm subsequently discovers that the person did in fact sign the letter, having claimed they did not.

I’m not an employment lawyer and I don’t play one on the internet, but it would be surprising to me if any reputable firm were to try to terminate someone for cause on the basis they signed this letter but didn’t disclose it.

[Forever Curious]

19 hours ago, Rawlsian said:

A&B

21 hours ago, Rawlsian said:

I've seen that at least one full service firm has sent an email to the TMU 2Ls they are interviewing, asking them to confirm that they did not sign the letter anonymously. Obviously if any signed using their name, they will not be getting the call on Friday. I imagine more emails will follow. 

I know that this forum and the corporate legal world is very much removed from the overall discourse but this is up there with the Slavies debacle. A&B should be ashamed of themselves.

[CleanHands]

If a student signed anonymously and demonstrates willingness to lie about it instead of standing by their convictions, that's all the firms really care about. They just want to know that their grunts will bend the knee, fall in line, shut up, do what they are told, and not embarrass the firm, regardless of what their private beliefs may be.

[BlockedQuebecois]

2 minutes ago, Forever Curious said:

I know that this forum and the corporate legal world is very much removed from the overall discourse but this is up there with the Slavies debacle. A&B should be ashamed of themselves.

… huh? 

[Forever Curious]

17 minutes ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

… huh? 

Not really much to explain if you don’t get why this is terrible on the part of A&B. These law firms have literally just spent the last decade using POC to bolster this fake image that they care about D&I and courting POC to be part of their marketing campaigns and student initiatives. Now, these same firms are not only exposing their true racist sides, but also doing away with any of the goodwill that past decade may have garnered. If you equate support for Palestinians right to liberation as support for killing innocent civilians/hamas, that’s on you and not these amazingly brave students. Best of luck to them. 

Oh and this is terrible business btw. You can’t just pretend the rest of the world will blindly delude themselves into a zionist worldview just because you try rlly hard. Fyi, the majority of people see through the fog of war, even in Canada and in fact Israel. 

Edited October 26, 2023 by Forever Curious

[Jaggers]

You might consider re-reading the letter if that’s how you took it?

[Forever Curious]

12 minutes ago, Jaggers said:

You might consider re-reading the letter if that’s how you took it?

You might consider that propaganda has worked brilliantly on you if you took it as anything else.

These are the  key points of the letter, not sure what I’m supposed to be so outraged by: (1) Israel is a settler colony and apartheid state, (2) condemning statements that minimize the colonialism at hand, (3) condemning organizations that have only condemned Hamas, and (4) Israel is ultimately responsible for the Oct 7th attacks, and that the attacks on Oct 7th are ultimately the product of Israel’s occupation and colonialism. 

Not only is it not condemnable, it is in fact admirable and I’m so thankful to these students for giving voice to the voiceless. I hope that other firms that feel this way speak out and expose themselves. What a dark time for the corporate legal profession. 

Edited October 27, 2023 by Forever Curious

[Apple]

26 minutes ago, Forever Curious said:

Not really much to explain if you don’t get why this is terrible on the part of A&B. These law firms have literally just spent the last decade using POC to bolster this fake image that they care about D&I and courting POC to be part of their marketing campaigns and student initiatives. Now, these same firms are not only exposing their true racist sides, but also doing away with any of the goodwill that past decade may have garnered. If you equate support for Palestinians right to liberation as support for killing innocent civilians/hamas, that’s on you and not these amazingly brave students. Best of luck to them. 

Oh and this is terrible business btw. You can’t just pretend the rest of the world will blindly delude themselves into a zionist worldview just because you try rlly hard. Fyi, the majority of people see through the fog of war, even in Canada and in fact Israel. 

This analysis really escalated quickly. Fortunately (and oddly enough unfortunately), most of the accusations alleged here have largely lost their meaning over the last years because the labels are so brazenly used on the diatribe of platitude that has taken the place of actual analysis.  

[Chief Keef]

41 minutes ago, Forever Curious said:

Not really much to explain if you don’t get why this is terrible on the part of A&B. These law firms have literally just spent the last decade using POC to bolster this fake image that they care about D&I and courting POC to be part of their marketing campaigns and student initiatives. Now, these same firms are not only exposing their true racist sides, but also doing away with any of the goodwill that past decade may have garnered. If you equate support for Palestinians right to liberation as support for killing innocent civilians/hamas, that’s on you and not these amazingly brave students. Best of luck to them. 

Oh and this is terrible business btw. You can’t just pretend the rest of the world will blindly delude themselves into a zionist worldview just because you try rlly hard. Fyi, the majority of people see through the fog of war, even in Canada and in fact Israel. 

Sure thing, Student in Solidarity.

[LMP]

20 minutes ago, Forever Curious said:

You might consider that propaganda has worked brilliantly on you if you took it as anything else.

These are the  key points of the letter, not sure what I’m supposed to be so outraged by: (1) Israel is a settler colony and apartheid state, (2) condemning statements that minimize the colonialism at hand, (3) condemning organizations that have only condemned Hamas, and (4) Israel is ultimately responsible for the Oct 7th attacks, and that the attacks on Oct 7th are ultimately the product of Israel’s occupation and colonialism. 

Not only is it not condemnable, it is in fact admirable and I’m so thankful to these students for giving voice to the voiceless. I hope that other firms that feel this way speak out and expose themselves. What a dark time for the corporate legal profession. 

Fear not, lots of non-corprate firms have also made clear that none of these students will find employment with them. So your "dark time" isn't as limited as you feared! 

[Forever Curious]

5 minutes ago, LMP said:

Fear not, lots of non-corprate firms have also made clear that none of these students will find employment with them. So your "dark time" isn't as limited as you feared! 

And i’m sure you just love that 🙂 

[Hegdis]

So, just as a general reminder to all - because this looks likely to get heated - posts are forever and no one is really that anonymous. Absolutely discuss. But please recall that there is no delete button and the mods are unlikely to remove posts just because you later regret posting. 

[chameli B]

People who are condoning or excusing the rape, torture, murder and kidnapping of civilians (including children and the elderly)  have no business practicing law in this country. All Palestinian and Israeli civilian deaths should be condemned. Some of the posts here are sickening and nothing these hateful posters say will negate the fact that they are horrible human beings who deserve nothing but contempt from society.

Edited October 27, 2023 by chameli B