Bay Street Hireback Ranking

Since 2009, Precedent has tracked the number of articling students Toronto law firms have hired back as first-year associates — and called it the Hireback Watch.

In the interactive chart below, we’ve ranked the firms that have historically taken on the largest crop of students. You can toggle between the past nine years and sort the hireback data in each column. And if you click on any firm names, you’ll see its numbers from over the years.

See below the chart to find out how we calculate the data and for more information on how we have collected the hireback numbers over the years.

For a broader look at the articling job market, you can browse through our full list of Toronto-wide hireback numbers.

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Rank Firm Articling
Students		 Students
Hired Back		 Number of
opt outs		 Hireback Rate*
1 Bennett Jones 18 16 2 100%
1 Department of Justice 9 8 1 100%
1 Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt 20 17 3 100%
1 Blake, Cassels & Graydon 23 23 0 100%
1 Borden Ladner Gervais 27 24 3 100%
1 Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg 11 10 1 100%
1 Dentons 11 10 1 100%
1 Fasken 17 16 1 100%
1 Goodmans 15 11 4 100%
1 Gowling WLG 13 13 0 100%
1 McCarthy Tétrault 24 23 1 100%
1 Stikeman Elliott 23 21 2 100%
13 Torys 13 12 0 92%
14 Cassels Brock & Blackwell 12 10 1 91%
15 Norton Rose Fulbright 18 15 1 88%
16 McMillan 11 9 0 82%
  TOTAL 265 238 21 98%

*Before calculating each hireback rate, we subtracted the opt-outs from each firm's total number of articling students.

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Interpreting Hireback Watch
Learn how to interpret the numbers.
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Notes on the data

  • Our data for each year before 2013 refers to the numbers for FMC, which merged with Dentons in March 2013.
  • Our data for each year before 2012 refers to Ogilvy Renault, which merged with Norton Rose in July 2011.
  • Our data for each year before 2016 refers to Gowling Lafleur Henderson, which merged with UK-based Wragge Lawrence Graham to form Gowling WLG in February 2016.
  • Our data for each year before 2015 refers to Davis LLP, which merged with DLA Piper in April 2015.
  • The Bay Street Ranking usually includes Goodmans LLP. In 2020, however, Goodmans did not respond to PrecedentJD’s requests for its 2020 hireback data. As a result, the firm does not appear in that year’s final ranking.