Lateral Law Report publishes resume guides and career data for Canadian lawyers, law clerks, paralegals, and legal assistants. The guides are only useful if the dates, rules, and figures in them are right. This page explains where those figures come from, how we keep them current, and what to do if you find a mistake.
Where the figures come from
We rank sources in three tiers and use the highest tier that answers the question.
- 01
Official and primary sources
Law society rules and recruitment procedures, government wage data, court and regulator pages, and each firm's own student and careers pages. These come first. When a firm publishes a fact about itself, we use the firm's own words.
- 02
Published research and reporting
Salary surveys, hireback rankings, and reporting from established publications fill the gaps that official sources leave, such as pay at specific firms or how many students a firm kept.
- 03
First-hand reports
Student and lawyer discussion, such as the Canadian Law Forum, helps explain how a process feels in practice. We use it only for experience, label it as what people report, and never treat it as the source for a date, rule, or figure.
How we present them
- Every figure has a source. Pay, dates, and rates link to the page they came from, in the sentence or table caption, and each guide ends with its full source list.
- Every figure has a date. We say when a number applied, for example "as of January 1, 2025", because legal pay and recruit rules change each year.
- Ranges stay ranges. Where sources disagree or a firm does not publish a figure, we show the range or say it is not public, rather than picking one number.
- Rounding is light. Salaries are shown as published. Converted figures, such as hourly wages expressed as yearly pay, say so and show the assumption.
- Currency is labelled. Canadian figures are in Canadian dollars. US figures are marked USD.
How we keep them current
Recruit dates are checked against the Law Society's procedures before each cycle. Pay scales are reviewed when firms announce changes, and at least once a year. Every guide shows the date it was last updated at the top of the page. When a figure changes, we update the guide rather than adding a note at the bottom.
What we do not do
We do not estimate a firm's pay or hireback when it has not been published, and we do not present forum posts as fact. Lateral Law Report is independent of law firms and employers. Our guides are general information, not legal, financial, or immigration advice, so confirm anything important with the original source, the Law Society, or the employer before you rely on it.
Corrections
If you spot an error or a figure that has changed, email will@laterallawreport.com with the page and the source. We check it against the original and update the guide.
See the figures in one place on our insights page, or read how the resume formatter works. Ready to update your own resume? Format it free.