Click here to view our 2017 Recruitment Special.
Every year, Ultra Vires conducts a survey, gathering responses from U of T students that were eligible to participate in the OCI process. This survey gives us valuable insight into both the recruiting process and the makeup of the 2L class. All information contained in this report is based on the results of this survey.
In November, we published some preliminary hiring data, including the number of students hired by many Toronto employers recruiting through OCIs. As some of the firms also hire through the 1L recruiting process, this data is not necessarily a comprehensive report on all Toronto summer student positions at any of these employers. It does, however, provide an accurate representation of 2L summer students hired at these firms.
Like last year, the relative performance of individual law schools remains mostly unchanged. However, though other schools’ hiring remained stagnant (with increases and decreases of no more than 4%), U of T experienced the largest downtick in hiring for 2L summer students at firms participating in the OCI process (47% of the class were hired this year versus 53% last year).
This year’s survey differs from prior editions in a couple of ways. We asked students to share not only whether they were hired, but also their OCI and in-firm data. This allowed us to discern the importance of various factors at each stage of the recruiting process. We also added questions focusing on the social elements of the law school experience at the Faculty of Law, ranging from questions about students’ Facebook profiles to the frequency of their alcohol consumption.
Because not all students choose to participate in the recruitment survey, the data presented should be interpreted with caution. Nonetheless, response rates were high and were nearly identical to last year: 165 students out of a class of approximately 200 people.
We hope that both the quantitative data and the qualitative reflections of those surveyed will be valuable for our readership. Many students take the time to give thoughtful accounts of their experience in the process, for which we are tremendously grateful. We hope that this report proves helpful to future students.
Finally, we would like to remind students that 2L OCIs are just one way to begin your legal career. There are many great employers who hire outside of this process and in the articling recruit.
Thank you to everyone who took the time to complete our survey!
This recruitment special was produced by Cory Bettel (2L), Kyle Jackson (1L JD/MBA), and Maud Rozee (2L). They would like to note that they do not necessarily endorse the views expressed by students in this feature.
Ultra Vires normally strives to have the results from our annual recruitment survey published earlier in the year, and we sincerely apologize for this year’s delay in publication.
Click here to view our 2017 Recruitment Special.
