Is lateraling into Canadian BL/US BL out of reach for me?

[Anonymous]

Looking for advice or alternatively, to be told to suck it up.

I am currently articling at a small firm that does 90% litigation (not corporate litigation tho). I wanted to practice corporate law when I entered law school but struck out at both recruits. I had some softs (undergrad from ivy, publishing experience) but didn’t make the cut. I see my friends from undergrad who did their JDs in the US practicing at US BL firms and people from law school practicing at Canadian BL firms and feel dejected about my future prospects. Is there any way to lateral? A LLM doesn’t seem to be useful based on reading subreddits on it but idk if my current skill set makes me attractive to Toronto BL firms.

[QueensDenning]

What type of litigation does your firm do? 

[Anonymous]

Basically everything but they specialize in human rights stuff

[QueensDenning]

On 6/22/2024 at 12:05 AM, Guest Anonymous said:

Basically everything but they specialize in human rights stuff

I recently finished up my articles at a big firm and during my year we had a few junior and mid level lawyers from smaller firms join, but all in litigation.

Most "big law" firms do a decent amount of human rights work (as a subset of management side employment law). So those skills are certainly transferable. In my limited experience, I haven't seen anyone go from litigation to a big firm doing corporate solicitor work. I assume it's because it's a totally different skillset.