INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY

    The Lexpert® Law Student and Associate Recruitment Guide – in its fourth year – continues to undergo a process of change in step with the feedback we receive from the legal community. Lexpert® made extensive efforts this year to receive and incorporate that feedback — from coast to coast in Canada. We continue to believe that we provide a valuable third-party vehicle for students, embarking on the next stage of their legal careers, to receive the opinions and experiential reviews from associates at law firms.

    We have taken extra care this year to draw in regional and boutique firms. In particular we have provided the “Day in the Life” opportunity, which these firms have taken up. Firms paid for these articles and had the right to approve of their contents, we want to be candid on that point. However, they were written by journalists who personally interviewed the students. We’re very pleased with the results and trust that our readers will be also.

    We have also added a demographic study to our journalistic offerings, by Marzena Czarnecka with research assistance.

    As for our survey process, here’s what we do:

    We surveyed more than 5,200 associates and junior partners from the leading 195 business-oriented law firms in Canada. We collected and reported the data.

    All Canadian law firms were eligible to participate in the survey. The survey was sent to associates and junior partners in first to ninth year of practice (classes of 2000-2008 year of call to the Bar).

    The survey questions were carefully chosen to provide relevant information to law students and facilitate the decisions they must make. Participation by law firms was solicited in the winter 2009, and the survey took place during the late spring. The survey process is anonymous; we require certain minimum response numbers from firms in order to publish results. Participants received a personal e-mail invitation and responded to the survey questions online.

    Survey questions asked for a response on a scale from 1 to 10 and the published results for each question, or group of questions, are shown as a weighted average of the responses. An average is then calculated for each category of questions and illustrated graphically. All compensation data is obtained directly from the firms. All quotes come directly from individual lawyers via their survey responses and are edited only for typographical errors.

    Since we could not publish all quotes, we selected those ones that the editorial team deemed to be representative. Keep in mind that our underlying goal is to educate. We were also very attentive to protecting anonymity. From firms whose response rates were so low that the overall results might compromise that anonymity, we selected only non-identifying quotes.