Brett Hughes (3L)
The official Law Society of Upper Canada (LSUC) first-year student recruitment period took place in the week of February 15. Toronto law firms and several Ministry of the Attorney General (MAG) offices participated in the recruit and hired 63 students overall. Ultra Vires has included MAG’s first-year student hiring numbers in our chart for the first time. When counting only the firms included on last year’s Ultra Vires first-year hiring chart, student hiring was down to 43 from 50 for those firms.
Most law firms hired a comparable number of students to recent years. Blakes is perhaps the most notable change—from nine first-year students last year to four this year. However, Blakes increased its hiring in the 2015 November recruit for second-year summer students—from 32 in 2014 to 36 in 2015. Torys is the only firm that participated last year (hiring three first-year students) but did not participate this year.
University of Toronto Faculty of Law students secured the most positions, with 30 overall compared to 24 last year. The increase was due to a big jump in hiring for JD students, with JD-MBA students faring marginally worse.
To make the chart more user-friendly, we placed a number of schools in the “Other” column as follows. The four other students for MAG – Aboriginal Law Summer Student Program are: two from UVic, one from UBC, and one from Dalhousie. The one other MAG – Crown Law Office – Civil student is from Harvard. The other MAG – Ministry of Health and Long-term Care student is from Dalhousie.
It is worth keeping in mind that this chart represents a tiny fraction of first-year summer student hiring. Most students will find first-year summer employment in a variety of other roles, including research assistants for professors, caseworkers at legal clinics, summer students at other firms, and more. Additionally, most of these employers are likely to participate in next academic year’s November recruitment process for second-year students.
Article updated on March 1, 2016 to include numbers for MAG – Court Services – Ontario Superior Court.
