Life skills and career tips for Canada's lawyers in training
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yet, although, frankly what I'm hearing is that certainly the hire-back rates, most people are anticipating that they're going to be a little lower this year than they have been in the past," she says. Marttila is optimistic though. "Some firms, I suspect, will try and hire back all — even though they're not as busy as they'd like to be — just because they don't want to lose really good tal- ent, and they're also quite concerned about their reputation I think." She says in terms of summer hir- ing, she has seen a slight decline, albeit not quite as drastic as many have been anticipating. "There were some firms that reduced their num- bers quite a bit, but other firms ac- tually increased by one or two, so it sort of evened out to some extent." She says students looking for placements outside of Canada have taken a hit though. "I think what did make a huge difference this year, in terms of the summer recruit, is that candidates who normally would have secured positions in other markets, in particular in the U.S. and in the New York market, didn't get offers this year be- cause of the state of affairs there. So those students were thrown back in the mix, there, which is good, and I think that at the same time people have to understand that we aren't really over-leveraged in Canada like some of the U.S. firms. We don't have that same model of having 30 associ- ates to one partner. So I think that it's a little different experience in Canada." It can't be argued that the anxiety — Carol Chestnut, Stikeman Elliot LLP competing for the Toronto positions." Marttila says there's still optimism for the Canadian market, and hopes things won't take too long to rebound. "From what I've heard from my contacts is that they're an- ticipating that certainly things will turn around within the next 18 months or so," says Marttila. "So I think there's optimism will continue for a while, but as every- one is quick to remind, this is a nor- mal part of any lawyer's life, especially for students. "I think traditionally, from what I understand, there's al- ways anxiety amongst students about the summer and articling recruiting — but I suspect that has certainly been heightened with the current economic climate," says Marttila. "It's a hard year," Ward tells Canadian Lawyer 4Students. "It's a hard year for ev- erybody, and we're really hopeful that at the end of the day, by May, by graduation time, we'll have placed as many people as we normally do, and it just means every- body has to work a bit harder to find and make those opportunities." Get Our Environmental Law Specialists*on Your Team! Untitled-6 1 4STUDENTS SPRING 2009 17 2/25/09 9:09:37 AM