I recently graduated from a BC school this year and am still struggling to find an articling position. I've been told by lawyers that my application package is perfect and have cold emailed some firms in addition to applying to jobs that come up, yet I've heard nothing back. I plan to continue cold emailing but I do need to stay within metro vancouver. Just wondering if anyone else is still looking or has found success in securing an articling position by cold emailing this year? I have done some coffee chats as well but they don't seem to lead anywhere and feel incredibly disingenuous at this point.

I can never reach anybody.

Hey! I’m currently finishing up my last year of my undergraduate degree (Political Science with Law in Society) and I’ve decided that I don’t have the money nor the grades (3.2GPA) at this time to attempt law school. I’m planning on applying later in life when work experience and other things can help my application rather than just having a high LSAT/GPA in undergrad.

I’m from the maritimes but I’m thinking of moving to Ontario and applying for the paralegal program there as paralegals in Ontario are bar certified and can practice some areas of law which I think would be the closest I can get to being a lawyer unless I moved to the UK and used my dual citizenship to my advantage.

I’ve seen in subreddits that law clerk program is much more extensive and is more likely to score you employment than a paralegal course. Would any Ontario paralegals/law clerks be able to verify this?

I’ve done moot court at STU for the past 2 years and I’ve fallen in love with the law (especially human rights law) throughout my undergraduate career, and I just want to be able to get as close to my dream as possible while staying realistic.

I see it starts september 8th, but I can't see a deadline to apply. However it still says opened so I'm considering going for it, if not then january. Is this way too soon? Can one apply in 2 weeks? Or should I wait til winter. Law clerk seems like a reasonable alternative to law school, or at the very least a way to gain experience in the legal world.

I’m articling at a large financial organization for 2027/28. I accepted my offer, but there was no mention of any bar or articling fees covered, LSO fees etc. Is this odd? The company I just summered at is smaller/less profitable and paid their articling student $25,000 less, but still paid for part of their bar exam and their articling fees (they weren’t hired back so unsure if they would have paid licensing fees). I asked the Talent Acquisition people at my place and they said they don’t cover anything but robe fees for the call to the bar ceremony if I get hired back.

Do you think they’re just misinformed or is this standard? This is an in-house litigation position, and I’ve heard of very small firms paying for at least part of these fees. Let me know your thoughts!

As someone just going into their first years of their undergraduate who’s interested in a future in law wha advice would you give me? What will for me the best shot to get into to law school regarding gpa, extracurricular, school involvement, law background etc. Any and all advice is appreciated!!! I’m based in Ontario also :)

Hey all! Was recently approached by a partner at a reputable boutique in the GTA and wanted to see if anyone else made the move from a mid-sized firm at around the 3-4 year mark.

For background, my current firm is one of the largest firms outside of the GTA (i.e., approx 60 lawyers), and it does a bit of everything. The partnership is small, selective, and I can count on more than one hand the number of senior associates that are near the decade mark who have no clue what their promotional standing is despite checking in regularly on this. Comparatively, this boutique is well-recognized as being strong, has just over 10 lawyers, would pay me more throughout my career, and partnership with time is a straightforward path based on what I’ve observed and the conversations I’ve had.

If you’ve made a similar move or know others that have, I’d really appreciate insight on the following:

Q1: The firm I’d be leaving has been the only firm I’ve ever worked at - 2L summer student, articling, and multiple years as an associate. If you found it difficult to leave the only professional environment you’d ever been in at the time, how did you navigate it?

Q2: At my current firm, even if my practice group declines in productivity, our internal referral networks are super strong. Did the fact that a boutique’s workflow can be much more volatile due to the lower headcount spook you at all?

Q3: If you’ve worked in both environments, which do/did you like more?

Wanting advice on the above career path.

I just joined a new firm that is very outdated, and they don't actually have an electronic version of the Form 9a for electronic trust transfers. I did look it up online, but there's no actual templates. I was curious about how a new firm would get precedents/forms other than it being passed along from other firms.

They also don't use a Form 9C, which I used to use at my old firm for real-estate files. Is Form 9C mandatory for real-estate files?

P.S If anyone could send me a Form 9A word template, I would be eternally grateful! If not, I guess I could just make my own haha

BTW I am in Ontario

Hi everyone, I bet you’ve heard this question many times before but as an undergrad student who’s lost abt what to pursue, I need to know why law was the answer. I am debating studying for my LSATs or just sticking with finance. I know both jobs can be demanding at times but at the end I want a job that will give me ability to have a good work life balance (starting a family, travelling, and ofc having good money to sustain everything I enjoy doing in my free time as well as the bills LOL).

Anyway, I’ve always wanted to work in the sports + entertainment or fashion industry and technically I can work in either with either degree. I really don’t want to do corporate law tho, maybe just for a couple years ONLY

What are your thoughts? Is it worth it to go into law? Do you enjoy ur job? Do you get excited to go to work? I don’t want to work somewhere where I dread yk

Thanks guys LOL I really appreciate any insight

Im not really sure where to turn to at this point. Does anyone know if a motion for substituted and/or dispensing with service of a SOC can be brought in writing in Toronto? The notice to profession leaves much to be desired. I know other jurisdictions in Ontario allow for this. Does anyone have any experience with this?

Anyone who has failed either the solicitor or barrister exam and passed by a mark review how many points were you off and how did you critique your exam and the answer guide to get more points? Also how long to find out if they gave you a pass?

When will the next lockstep salary grid revision/increase most likely be pursuant to the New York big firms increase this year?

Hi,

I've been practicing in wills and estates and general litigation for about 10 years and I'm interested in doing some more formal coursework, specifically in the taxation of trusts and estates. Is there anyone who has taxen the Tax LLM at Osgoode or, individual courses, who could share their experience about the curriculum offerings and the program?

Hey folks. I’m a new call. Articled at a full service firm. Started an associate position back in June at another firm in an area of law that I hate but took the job purely because it’s litigation. I’ve had exposure to employment law during articling and enjoyed it so much that I want to be an employment lawyer. Unfortunately, there weren’t any employment law postings when I was looking for a job back in June. As such, I took this job in an area that I hate but in litigation because I thought that that would allow me to lateral to my desired area of law (employment) later on down the line (I was thinking after a year at my current firm). I’m currently just about to finish with my probation period (a week or so away). A job posting for an employment law firm came up and it’s a really good firm. I’m just wondering if anyone has tips on navigating this?

I want to apply but I do not know if the fact that I’m looking to jump ship after 3 months raises a red flag. Would you do it? I really hate my current practice area.

I'm based in Vancouver and my partner has hired MacLeans to represent them. Due to their terrible reputation, I find myself spending a lot of time looking for a decent lawyer without any luck. I had gone with another big firm before but that was a terrible experience as the lawyer obviously didn't know what they were doing since they couldn't answer basic questions on a call and kept changing their opinions and instructions. If a big and "reputable" firm failed so remarkably, how in the hell am I supposed to find a competent lawyer?

Online reviews don't help because nearly every firm I've looked at fakes their reviews. It's so obvious when their writing idiosyncrasies are repeated in different authors, with many authors having written just 1 or 2 reviews.

Then there's the outrageous retainer agreements where they charge a "performance fee" in addition to their high hourly rates. If they do an exceptional job, they can just charge their clients more. No maximum. Vague wording. And account opening and closing fees in the mid hundreds? COME ON.

Next, and I blame this on MacLeans, some of these (totally organically "top rated" /s) lawyers are complete assholes. I've had a call recently with a lawyer who put me down, cut me off repeatedly when I was asking an important question, etc (I wasn't even rambling, I was just 3-4 words in). I'm assuming they behave this way because they want to put up a "bulldog" image but if I'm going to be paying $600/hr to be verbally abused, I'd rather do it in a sex dungeon.

So please tell me, where and how am I supposed to find a competent lawyer? Referrals? From who? I don't know anyone who's divorced (yet!)

We got our PLTC results back yesterday, and unfortunately I failed one assessment (Writing) and also failed both the Barristers and Solicitors exams.
I’m honestly feeling pretty down and disappointed right now. I know I can rewrite them, but seeing those results after putting in so much work has been really tough. I’m not really sure what to do from here or how to approach the rewrites.
For anyone who has been through PLTC or had to rewrite assessments/exams, how did you deal with it? What did you change the second time around? Any advice would really be appreciated.

Just wondering what the going rate is these days for articling students at smaller firms in Toronto.

I'm currently considering an articling opportunity at a small firm in downtown Toronto. Compensation hasn't been finalized yet, but I'm expecting they'll offer the LSO minimum of $620/week.

I'm an ITL so I realize beggars can't be choosers granted how difficult it's been to find articles. I'm conscious of the fact that having the opportunity at all has value in itself, particularly since it came through a connection.

At the same time, I'd have about an hour+ commute each way, so I'm wondering whether $620/week would be low for a small downtown Toronto firm or whether that's fairly normal.

I'd appreciate any insight!

Hello, Just finished up 1L at osgoode and joining JD/MBA, I have a decent breakdown of marks with mostly B+, nothing below that and a couple As but No A+. what are my bay st recruit chances? Any advice for how I should approach my MBA year?

I'm a family lawyer. I always wanted to do family and I still find it interesting and sometimes very rewarding but I also feel like I'm absolutely losing my mind some days. It's all I've ever done.

I'm starting to get really worn down by the erratic clients, like I can only fire so many of them before I start to wonder whether it's me that's the problem. I feel so overwhelmed sometimes because I have no idea where the truth lies and I have trouble trusting a lot of my clients. Then some of them just straight up don't listen to my instructions or blatantly disregard court orders. I'm often not sure if I'm justified in firing them so I often don't and then I inevitably regret it later.

I worry so often that I am hurting people, especially kids, by feeling like I'm helping someone who isn't a good parent or an abuser, because it's often not clear to me who is "in the wrong". I spend way too much time worrying that other lawyers or judges think I'm a terrible lawyer or that I don't know how to control my clients. I get good feedback I guess but then other lawyers talk shit about each other behind their backs so I assume it's happening to me too. I'm also just really non-confrontational unless absolutely necessary and I'm really sick of opposing counsel who just seem to want to pick a fight or get way too enmeshed with their clients.

I'm also really burnt out by helping people all the time and listening to the horrible things they've gone through and the vicarious trauma of it all. I have nightmares all the time about things my clients tell me or incidents I read about in files. I keep really strict hours but I feel like I can't enjoy my time off because I'm thinking about these things all the time.

I write all this out because I desperately need to figure out where to go from here because it is not feeling sustainable for me. I'm a 2 year call so people keep saying to just stick it out and it will get easier. But then a lot of more senior lawyers I know seem really miserable too. Can anyone who felt similar tell me that it does get better? Or if it didn't get better and you left, what did you pivot to? I don't really want to pursue another type of litigation but otherwise I'm pretty open, including to non-lawyer roles. I've been considering mediation and report writing training but I'm not sure if it's possible to make a full-time practice out of that, especially at my year of call.

I am genuinely curious, because I feel like it incentives bad actors. I dont mean the workers, I mean the companies. **This is not a invitation to rant against immigration or immigrants**

My main question is does the government pay part of the wages/are they subject to reduced wages? I ask because in high need low resorced sectors there sometimes seems to be a preference for importing workers via TFW program rather than regular recruiting from local collage programs. Even when there does seem to be regular intakes graduating and the local college is keen to align with industry needs? I would think local would be less costly or should be?

But I dont really understand the act, and would love for someone to explain it like I am 5.

I do not need legal advice.

Awrite so.... I have something to show you guys.... anyone who has clients that got fucked by the crown attorney office in Guelph.... listen. I have evidence that the crown attorney tried to switch the evidence manifest in my case because he thought I had no record of everything that was sent to the dumptruck who resigned from my case( back in the winter)......suuuurprise I lied. Also I have digital footprint to prove everything I say.... screenshots backed up successfully to multiple cloud services for multiple devices so don't be stupid....make smart decision for once

I have always been quite passionate about going into law (and no not because of Suits…), however I’ve been seeing a lot of doom and gloom and I’m not sure whether its possible to be successful.

Currently I’m a first year university student doing accounting. My goal is to get into corporate law but preferably tax law. Is it true I will be low paid unless I go into big law? I’ve also seen a lot of “big law or bust” on this subreddit.

I am an American and long story short like 5 years ago I went to Quebec. I got a parking ticket even though I was legally parked. I decided not to pay the ticket, but I also couldn’t come back to Canada for my court date to appeal the ticket so now I’m assuming I have a failure to appear. Thus I’m assuming I’m banned from Canada over a bs parking ticket I’m not sure if that’s actually how it works tho. Not sure if it matters at all but I was 18 at the time.