Blakes is one of few Toronto law firms that offers a First-Year Summer Student Program.

Upon arrival at Blakes in early May, students attend an orientation session that introduces them to the Firm and its resources and ensures that students are integrated into the Firm.

A first-year summer student may select up to three rotations from the following list of practice groups to complete during the summer:

• Corporate/Commercial
• Competition
• Financial Services
• Information Technology
• Intellectual Property
• Labour & Employment
• Litigation & Dispute Resolution (corporate-commercial, media, aboriginal, public law)
• Pension & Employee Benefits
• Real Estate
• Restructuring & Insolvency
• Securities
• Tax

In each rotation, first-year students are matched with mentors who are actively involved in training students and ensuring that students receive interesting and varied work assignments. Blakes has a long tradition of providing a strong foundation for legal careers through top-notch mentoring. Our partners benefited from the introduction and wise counsel of more senior members of the Firm, and the Firm benefits further when those lessons are passed onto our summer students. In addition to the mentoring process, first-year summer students are invited to regularly scheduled "coffee talk" meetings during which any topics of interest to students may be discussed, including workload and capacity.

All first-year summer students are invited and encouraged to attend a variety of professional development seminars held throughout the summer on a variety of topics. Blakes believes training and the continuous education of students and lawyers is a key driver in the Firm's success. The main focus of the professional program is to expose students to different practice areas and assist them in developing substantive skills.

Social events are held throughout the summer and are a great way to build relationships. Past events have included attending a Blue Jays game, student/mentor dinners, a go-carting event, a pub night, a dinner at the home of a partner, an Amazing Race-type adventure, and an AGO tour and dinner.

First-year summer students are evaluated and reviewed at the end of each rotation. At the end of the summer, first-year summer students will learn if they will be hired back as second-year summer students. Our goal in the evaluation system is to help each student develop their skills as lawyers in training.

Our recruitment of first-year students is governed by Law Society regulations. For more information regarding The Law Society of Upper Canada regulations, please click here.

Second-year summer students may select up to two practice areas for their rotations during their summer at the Firm.

Upon arrival at Blakes in early May, students attend an orientation session that introduces them to the Firm and its resources and ensures that students are integrated into the Firm.

The practice areas in which you can do a rotation include:

• Corporate/Commercial
• Competition
• Financial Services
• Information Technology
• Intellectual Property
• Labour & Employment
• Litigation & Dispute Resolution (corporate-commercial, media, aboriginal, public law)
• Pension & Employee Benefits
• Real Estate
• Restructuring & Insolvency
• Securities
• Tax

Blakes will also consider requests from students to spend part of their summer with another organization through a program sponsored by their law school or with a law firm in a foreign jurisdiction.

In each rotation, second-year students are matched with mentors who are actively involved in training students and ensuring that students receive interesting and varied work assignments. Blakes has a long tradition of providing a strong foundation for legal careers through top-notch mentoring. Our partners benefited from the introduction and wise counsel of more senior members of the Firm, and the Firm benefits further when those lessons are passed onto our summer students. In addition to the mentoring process, first-year summer students are invited to regularly scheduled "coffee talk" meetings during which any topics of interest to students may be discussed, including workload and capacity.

All second-year summer students are invited and encouraged to attend a variety of professional development seminars held throughout the summer on a variety of topics. Blakes believes training and the continuous education of students and lawyers is a key driver in the Firm's success. The main focus of the professional program is to expose students to different practice areas and assist them in developing substantive skills.

Social events are held over the course of the summer to ensure that students get to know one another as well as lawyers at the Firm. Summer social events have included a student/mentor dinner, attending a Blue Jays game, a go-carting event, a pub night, a dinner at the home of a partner, and an AGO tour and dinner.

We evaluate our second-year summer students twice during the course of the summer. At the end of the summer, second-year summer students will learn if they will be hired back as articling students. Our goal in the evaluation system is to help each student develop their skills as lawyers in training.

The application and interview process for second-year summer students is governed by Law Society rules. We conduct on-campus interviews across Canada in the fall. For more information regarding The Law Society of Upper Canada regulations, please click here.

Please send your application, including a cover letter, résumé, law school and post-secondary transcripts, as well as a list of your proposed upper-year courses, through the student portal site.

Your cover letter should be addressed to:

Kari Abrams
Director of Student Recruitment & Development
Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP
199 Bay Street
Suite 4000, Commerce Court West
Toronto ON M5L 1A9
Canada

Tel: 416-863-4194
Fax: 416-863-2653
Email: kari.abrams@blakes.com

At Blakes, we try to ensure the articling students receive well-rounded articles by getting experience in different areas of law. Our rotation system also ensures students work with a wide variety of lawyers at the Firm. Students complete four rotations in different practice areas. Each rotation is 2.5 months in duration.

We work with our articling students to help them get the experience they want and need to develop. Our students are required to do at least one corporate-focused rotation. We also recommend that over the course of the articling term students consider doing a rotation in litigation and one of the specialty areas of the Firm.

In our Toronto office, students complete rotations in the following areas:

• Corporate/Commercial
• Competition
• Financial Services
• Information Technology
• Intellectual Property
• Labour & Employment
• Litigation (corporate-commercial, media, aboriginal, public law)
• Pension & Employee Benefits
• Real Estate
• Restructuring & Insolvency
• Securities
• Tax

We also offer a number of rotations outside the Firm. In the past, we have offered rotations with the Ontario Securities Commission, the ARCH Disability Law Centre, the Deutsche Bank, Justice for Children and Youth, UPS, Coca-Cola, GE and the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.

During each articling student rotation, students are assigned a mentor whose role it is to ensure the student receives good work experience at the Firm. Mentors give the students work directly and make a concerted effort to find work for the student with partners and senior associates who can evaluate them. A mentor also helps the student deal with work flow, shows them precedents, reviews their work and gives the student advice about work styles of different lawyers.

The mentors enjoy the mentoring role and have a proven ability to work well with students. We collect feedback from our students about their mentors and use that information to continually improve our mentor program.

While the mentor will assign most of the work, other lawyers will also assign work to the students.

The mentor will ensure students receive ongoing feedback on their work. Students will also meet with a member of the Legal Personnel Committee and the Director of Student Recruitment & Development, who will review the student's performance and discuss the experience at the Firm. There are also regularly scheduled group meetings with articling students to discuss development in the Firm and receive feedback from the students on matters that concern them.

When articling students start at Blakes, they receive an orientation on the resources at the Firm. We also have an educational plan for our articling students that focuses on developing substantive skills, such as legal research and writing, advocacy, and drafting skills. Click here for the articling student education plan.

The Law Society of Upper Canada requires students to complete the licensing process and complete 10 months of articling in order to qualify to practise as an associate. For more information, click here.

At Blakes, we strongly encourage all of our articling students to write the barrister and solicitor exams before starting the articling period at the Firm. For information about the licensing process, click here.

At the end of the each rotation, articling students are asked to solicit reviews from the lawyers for whom they completed assignments. The identified lawyers complete an evaluation. Meetings are held with the Director of Student Recruitment & Development and one of the Co-chairs of the Student Committee to review the information gathered from the evaluations. The purpose of the meetings is to provide constructive feedback to help students hone their skills and become successful associates.

The Firm's compensation package is competitive with other large national law firms. Articling students are paid during the study period for the barrister and solicitor examinations. Articling students receive medical and dental benefits, 10 days' paid vacation (during the 10-month articling term) and a $4,000 tuition contribution for third year. Articling students also receive a fitness subsidy. Summer students receive ADD benefits, as well as a fitness subsidy.

Please send your application, including a cover letter, résumé, law school and post-secondary transcripts, as well as a list of your proposed upper-year courses, to:

Kari Abrams
Director of Student Recruitment & Development
Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP
199 Bay Street
Suite 4000, Commerce Court West
Toronto ON M5L 1A9
Canada

Tel: 416-863-4194
Fax: 416-863-2653
Email: kari.abrams@blakes.com

2011/2012 Articling Students

Blakes is pleased to announce that the following 2011/2012 Articling Students have joined the Firm in the Toronto office:

2012 FIRST YEAR SUMMER STUDENT

Blakes is pleased to announce that the following First Year Summer Students will join the Toronto office in the summer of 2012:

2012 Second Year Summer Students

Blakes is pleased to announce that the following Second Year Summer Students will join the Toronto office in the summer of 2012:

*First year summer student returning to the firm

The Blakes Student Committee seeks to create and develop a fulfilling student program. It is comprised of both associates and partners at the Firm who are involved in creating and developing a comprehensive professional development program, planning and executing social events, and fostering a culture of learning. The Student Committee also acts as a resource for students if they have any concerns or issues.

Kari Abrams is the Director of Student Recruitment & Development at Blakes. In this role, she is responsible for all aspects of the summer student and articling student programs, including the recruitment, supervision and professional development of summer students and articling students, as well as liaising with law schools. Kari is also an active member of several internal Firm committees, including the Student Committee, the Legal Personnel Committee, the Equity & Diversity Committee and the Pro Bono Committee. Prior to joining Blakes, Kari was a partner in the labour and employment department in the Toronto office of a national law firm where she was also actively involved in the student program as a member of the student committee.

Below is a list of the Student Committee members:

• Kari Abrams, Director of Student Recruitment & Development
• David Kruse, Co-chair
• Eric Moncik, Co-chair
• Anne Glover
• Andrew Gordon
• Michelle Laniel
• Robin Linley
• Stacy McLean
• Matthew Merkley
• Holly Reid
• Deborah Salzberger
• Cynthia Sargeant
• Paul Singh
• Marianne Smith
• Laura Weinrib

Please send your application, including a cover letter, résumé, law school and post-secondary transcripts, as well as a list of your proposed upper-year courses, through the student portal site.

Your cover letter should be addressed to:

Kari Abrams
Director of Student Recruitment & Development
Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP
199 Bay Street
Suite 4000, Commerce Court West
Toronto ON M5L 1A9
Canada

Tel: 416-863-4194
Fax: 416-863-2653
Email: kari.abrams@blakes.com

	The "20-Minute" On-Campus Interview
	Call Day
	The Interview at the Firm
	Cocktail Receptions
	Interview over Lunch or Dinner

Note: This is advice based on our experience at Blakes, a large business law firm. Interviewing at boutique firms and for governmental positions may be very different than the experience described here.

The "20-Minute" On-Campus Interview

The setting is rather sterile. It is typically in a big room with drapes separating interview booths. Once you start the interview, you won't notice the setting (we hope!).

Wear something you are comfortable in and that looks professional. Generally, interviewers from business firms will be dressed in a more formal manner.

Most firms trained in interviewing will use their time to explore the candidates' credentials. Be prepared to talk about anything that is on your résumé. When we interview a candidate, our goal is to get someone to explain an experience they have. We use that explanation to judge their ability to communicate, to analyze an issue or experience, and to determine whether they work well with people.

Some firms will also use the time to provide information about the firm. At Blakes, we try to provide as much information about the Firm in advance of the interview so that we can focus on the candidate during the 20 minutes.

Many interviewers will spend the first several minutes of the interview attempting to make you feel comfortable and getting to know you.

To prepare for your interview, review your résumé as it is used as the starting point for the interview. You should consider what your application package says about you and consider what you want to convey in the interview. Think about what kind of experiences you want to speak about if you have the opportunity.

Before your interview, we try to provide you with the names of the lawyers interviewing you. If possible, try and find out some information about them. For information about our lawyers, check out the Firm's Web site.

Think about what the firm may ask you. Although many interviews are not structured, often interviewers will ask:

What areas of law are you interested in and why?

What do you like about law school?

What do you want to know about our firm?

You should research the firm before you go for an interview. Interviewers like to see that candidates are informed and interested in their firms.

Call Day

Before Call Day, many firms will let you know whether they will be contacting you on Call Day to set up an interview. At Blakes, we let candidates know by email and letter before Call Day whether we will be contacting them.

Most firms will try to contact you as soon as possible after eight o'clock. One person may be responsible for calling four to five candidates, or two people may work together to call eight to 12 candidates. For many candidates, Call Day is over in 10 to 15 minutes.

Do not expect to have long conversations with the lawyer calling you as they will be calling others and will expect that you will want to receive other calls.

Most large firms will ask you to set aside 1.5 to two hours for your interview. It is a good idea to find out how much time a firm is likely to want to schedule for your interview before Call Day. At Blakes, we ask candidates to set aside two hours for their interview and start them "on the hour" rather than on the half-hour.

To prepare for Call Day, it is a good idea to set up a chart to let you record your interviews. You should also prioritize the firms that you want to see. There is a limit to how many large business firms you can see in three days given that most will ask for interviews of 1.5 to two hours in length. Over the course of the three days, you could probably interview at 10 to 12 firms at the most. It is possible to do up to five interviews on each of Monday and Tuesday, but you will find it extremely tiring if each of those interviews are two hours in length.

There is really no "perfect" time for an interview. Some firms really use all three days to interview while other firms attempt to interview the candidates in the early part of the week. The Bay Street firms are close to one another, so you do not need to build time in your schedule for moving from one office to another. Firms will respect your time and will endeavour to make sure you have time to get to your next interview. At Blakes, we ask our hosts to find out about the candidates' schedules so that we do not delay candidates.

On Call Day, do not use your answering machine or voicemail. We suggest you disconnect your call-waiting service on that day. We prefer to get a busy signal instead of voicemail. Please understand that if a firm leaves a message for you to call them back, it is unlikely you will be able to connect to the caller until after they are through with their calls. Therefore, you may not get the time-slot you want for your interview. Instead, you get whatever time the caller may have available. At Blakes, we try to accommodate a candidate's preferred time, but it can be very difficult.

Make sure you handle your own calls on Call Day as you may be speaking with someone who will host you or be interviewing you. It is not advisable to delegate the task to someone else as they will rarely fully appreciate your perspective or scheduling. If you are absolutely not available by telephone, try to find someone who has handled the Call Day process previously (i.e., another law student) and make sure you tell them:

Which firms will be calling you (if this information is available).

Which firms may be calling you.

What your preferences are in scheduling.

The Interview at the Firm

Firms differ in their interview style. Most of the larger business firms will have you see at least three to four lawyers at the firm as well as an articling student. At Blakes, we assign an associate to act as a host to each candidate while they are interviewing with us. The host does not evaluate but is there to guide the candidate through the interview process. The host is the main contact for the candidate. We then arrange a series of 20-minute interviews with other lawyers. Any lawyer you meet during the actual interview will be evaluating you to determine whether you exhibit the qualities that would make you a successful lawyer at Blakes.

Do arrive on time for interviews as they are often tightly scheduled. If you are late, just explain the reason why and move on.

Wear business attire for the interviews. Most of the lawyers you meet will be dressed accordingly. Also, make sure you are comfortable. It's not a good idea to try out new shoes!

Let the host know where you can be reached in case the firm wants to contact you.

How to deal with problems that may arise:

The "too-talkative" interviewer just wants an audience. Be an active listener.

If you are too nervous, do everything you can to relax. In the case of our Firm, talking to your host may help you calm down. The host is usually a junior associate and remembers exactly how it felt. Remember, many of the interviewers are very nervous about making a good impression.

If you don't "hit it off" with an interviewer, try to meet other people at the firm. Keep in mind that lawyers can have bad days, too, and that one lawyer is not indicative of the entire firm.

If you are asked an inappropriate question, examine who is saying it. Sometimes a lawyer doesn't appreciate how his or her question is perceived. Consider whether you think the question is being used for a discriminatory purpose. For instance, sometimes a lawyer who has children will be interested in whether you have children simply because they like talking about them. While this doesn't make the question appropriate, there is no negative intention. Other times, a lawyer may be out of line. There are several things you can do. First, consider whether the behaviour is a reflection of the culture of the firm. We would suggest speaking to the person in charge of recruitment and gauging their reaction. Second, you can contact the Law Society about the behaviour.

At Blakes, we are committed to a fair recruitment process. Before students are interviewed, we make sure that all our interviewers understand the importance of treating everyone with respect and being sensitive to cultural differences.

Cocktail Receptions

Firms know that not everyone enjoys cocktail receptions. However, they do provide an opportunity to see how lawyers in a firm interact with one another. At Blakes, we sometimes have a small reception at a restaurant before dinner so you can meet more lawyers from the Firm.

If you are not comfortable in these settings, you can make a short appearance.

Firms generally do not judge candidates at the reception.

If you are interested in a firm but cannot go to a reception, just let the firm know this.

Do not drink heavily at a reception.

Treat other candidates well at a reception as lawyers do note if you are not friendly to your colleagues.

Lunches or Dinners

Don't panic - it's just lunch or dinner!

This is an opportunity for more relaxed conversation. Use this time to learn more about the culture of the firm. Listen to the lawyers' stories about their experiences and observe how the lawyers communicate with one another.

Don't worry if you spill something. It's not a big deal. If you are really concerned, order something you are comfortable eating.

Lunch or dinner gives you an opportunity to provide more details about yourself. Consider again what you want to convey (e.g., interest in the firm, experience you have, etc.)

Lunches and dinners are booked in advance of interview week. Some are scheduled during interview week. If you know you are not interested in a firm, you can cancel. However, try not to do this at the last minute.

Don't double-book lunches or dinners. If two firms ask you out, try to determine which firm you would prefer. Perhaps you could suggest lunch with one of the firms instead of dinner.

Please send your application, including a cover letter, résumé, law school and post-secondary transcripts, as well as a list of your proposed upper-year courses, through the student portal site.

Your cover letter should be addressed to:

Kari Abrams
Director of Student Recruitment & Development
Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP
199 Bay Street
Suite 4000, Commerce Court West
Toronto ON M5L 1A9
Canada

Tel: 416-863-4194
Fax: 416-863-2653
Email: kari.abrams@blakes.com