McCarthy Tétrault indefinitely pauses Black & Indigenous 1L summer hiring program
In 2020, McCarthy Tétrault (‘McCarthy’s’) introduced its Black and Indigenous Summer Program, offering 1L summer positions to Black and Indigenous law students. The program was part of the firm’s broader “Inclusion Now” plan launched in 2018, which reflects their purported values of diversity, inclusion, and corporate social responsibility. Inclusion Now is the first program of its kind in the Canadian legal space and is a “key priority” for McCarthy’s. The firm employs a full-time Chief Inclusion Officer, Charlene Theodore, a lawyer-turned-Diversity Consultant who in 2024 was named Canadian DEI Leader of the Year by the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion America’s Awards. Its inclusion efforts have likewise received wide recognition: for the past 12 years, McCarthy’s has been recognized as one of Canada’s Best Diversity Employers; in 2020, Inclusion Now was awarded Diversity Initiative of the Year at the Canadian Law Awards; and at the end of 2024, it received the Catalyst Award for 2025 in recognition of its advancements in gender equality and diversity. Evidently, the firm has taken many steps towards advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”) within it, its 1L hiring program being a significant and well-known one within the broader legal community.
The “Our Commitment to Reconciliation” page on McCarthy’s website describes the firm’s 1L hiring initiative as being “designed to remove the historical and practical barriers that can discourage [Black and] Indigenous students from applying to large, full-service firms.”
However, earlier this month, the firm announced that it would be discontinuing this hiring initiative. The firm claims that this move is the result of an “overall recruitment review,” but the timing has raised concerns given the current political climate and McCarthy’s presence in the United States. Since Trump reclaimed office in January of this year, he has used executive orders to begin a widespread dismantling of DEI initiatives across the United States. Prominent corporations have expeditiously done away with DEI programs in droves. Many of these changes have (at least ostensibly) been to comply with Trump’s anti-DEI executive order, but some companies, such as Boeing and Walmart, started to dispense with their DEI initiatives before he even took office.
Like many big law firms, McCarthy’s serves clients internationally, including many American ones. The firm has a New York office that advises US clients operating in Canada and it regularly assists on cross-border deals throughout a range of industries. McCarthy’s states that having an office located in the US allows for “[American] clients to access the strongest firm in Canada” and highlights its “borderless client service.” Evidently, McCarthy’s has a serious interest in keeping its American corporate clients happy, leading many to side-eye the circumstances of their 1L hiring program’s discontinuation. As pointed out by Robyn Doolittle in The Globe and Mail, the firm has not discontinued all 1L hiring: they are maintaining their program for students interested in practicing intellectual property law, which is not connected to any diversity initiatives. As it currently stands, the suspension of the Black and Indigenous 1L hiring program seems to be indefinite. The firm has not released any timeline for when they will resume–if ever.
As previously alluded to, this move has drawn hefty criticism from the Canadian legal community. Many Reddit users openly shared their feelings in response to Doolittle’s article in the r/LawCanada subreddit, taking advantage of the anonymity that the platform offers. One user commented identifying the irony of the firm continuing to boast about its recognition in the area of DEI: “And they are on LinkedIn CONGRATULATING themselves for winning the Canada Best Diversity Employers for 2025 award. I wish I could be vocal on LinkedIn. I would comment on their posts. But my LinkedIn is tied to my job.” Several commenters opined the decision as demonstrating that the inclusion efforts of McCarthy’s (and other big law firms) were performative all along and one questioned why the Chief Diversity Officer Theodore was not mentioned in The Globe article. The Reddit comments were not, however, exclusively anti-McCarthys: one user argued that the firm does “walk the walk” by taking on pro bono cases, representing, for example, the UR Pride Centre for Sexuality and Gender Diversity in their challenge to the Saskatchewan government’s invocation of the notwithstanding clause in relation to a policy requiring students under 16 to obtain parental consent for using their preferred name and pronouns at school. Another shared that they heard the change was due to individuals of other marginalized groups feeling excluded from 1L hiring (though it is difficult to see how, if this truly was the issue, why they could not have just expanded eligibility).
While McCarthy’s lawyers have not publicly spoken out for obvious reasons, some lawyers from other large firms have been unafraid to voice their opinions. Walied Soliman, KC, Global Chair and Canadian Chair of Norton Rose Fullbright shared The Globe article with a simple question for McCarthy’s leadership: why?
The firm still does not seem to have directly responded to this query. At the time of writing, Soliman’s post has garnered over 1300 likes and 100 comments. Lawyers and non-lawyers alike expressed solidarity with his views in the comments. Arlene Dickinson (of Dragon’s Den fame) said: “Many of us will absolutely consider not having a DEI program as a disqualifier for doing future business with a law firm.”Michael Bryant, former Ontario Attorney General and former CEO of Legal Aid BC commented: “A firm cannot congratulate itself for being a great leader, in the name of diversity, then axe the very program that helped McT win its recent award for diversity (trumpeted on its site).”
Just like on Reddit, some people did defend McCarthy’s, arguing Doolittle’s article was sensationalizing and inaccurate. Two notable voices in the comments of Soliman’s post were partners of the firm. A Business Law Partner from the Montréal office commented: “I would respectfully encourage all to get your facts straight and look beyond the headlines….that would be more productive ‘at the top of our profession’.” This comment was liked by a number of other McCarthy’s lawyers. The Managing Partner of McCarthy’s London, England office also emphasized that the discontinuation of this program did not mean a complete discarding of all DEI initiatives: “We need to keep some perspective. Quietly pausing one of our many DEI initiatives, that was operated in one of our offices, while you assess its effectiveness is hardly a retreat and doesn’t warrant a comparison with companies that are disavowing DEI in its entirety.” While the word of one managing partner cannot be taken to represent the views of the firm as a whole, this perspective may provide some comfort given the very real fears many are facing about the very real and continuing reverberations of Trump’s attacks on DEI.
The permanence of this change and whether it is a sign that other DEI initiatives at McCarthy’s will be cut remains to be seen. The fact remains, however, that this change will have an objectively negative impact on the accessibility of summer positions for the Black and Indigenous 1L who may face barriers in entering a profession that is still predominantly white. In the opinion of many members of the legal community, the firm has some explaining to do and, if they don’t want people to jump to the inevitable Trump-related conclusions, it would seem prudent for a more comprehensive explanation of their decision to be given sooner rather than later.