Toronto Articling Program

Our team in Toronto

Our Toronto office provides law students with exceptional opportunities to work with our national and international clients across a number of industries and practice areas. Our highly-recognized professionals and award-winning practices ensure that students receive a rich and rewarding learning experience doing work that really matters.

Office details

1 First Canadian Place, 100 King Steet West, Suite 1600
Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5X 1G5.

Please note this office is an English work environment, where all applications must be in English.

Recruitment contact Office details

Practice areas

Our student programs focus on the following practices:

Advocacy
Business Law
Environmental
Real Estate & Urban Development
Financial Services
Intellectual Property

Gowling WLG offers two articling rotation programs.

The intensive rotation program — suited to articling students who have already decided on a chosen specialty — places students for seven months in either our Business, Advocacy or Intellectual Property groups, and three months in one of the other departments.
In the balanced rotation program, the student's time is divided equally between Business Law and Advocacy.

In Business Law you will be exposed to most, but perhaps not all, areas of business law, which includes:

General corporate/commercial
Technology
Tax
Energy
Corporate finance
Financial services
Real estate

In Litigation, you will gain experience in most areas of our litigation practice, such as:

Commercial litigation
Banking litigation
Employment and labour law
Insurance and professional liability
Product liability
Health law
Class actions
Environmental law

And finally, our Intellectual Property practice covers areas such as:

Patents
Trademarks
Copyright
Industrial design
Marketing/advertising

With a broad clientele of national and multinational organizations, Gowling WLG provides students with exposure to a wide variety of industries including; Energy, Financial Services, Government Relations, Infrastructure, Mining, Manufacturing, Technology and Life Sciences.

Application process

In addition to providing a résumé and transcripts, applicants should indicate a preference for the balanced rotation or one of our three intensive rotations. Following a review of applications, selected candidates are interviewed in accordance with the Law Society of Ontario's Articling Recruitment Procedures. Please visit the Law Society's website for further information on these procedures.

Gowling WLG Toronto is an equal opportunity employer. That said, our firm is dedicated to providing equitable opportunities for employment and advancement, and to creating a more inclusive workplace for all our people, as we believe that diverse professional and administrative teams make better decisions. Applicants who are Indigenous, racialized BIPOC, members of the 2SLGBTQ+ community, and persons with a disability are encouraged to self-identify.

External rotations and secondments

To provide articling students with valuable hands-on corporate experience, we offer a number of external rotations where students are immersed within the legal department of some of Canada's leading organizations. In previous years, students were seconded to The Royal Bank of Canada, Coca-Cola, General Motors, Alectra Energy and the Ontario Power Generation.

Professional development

Gowling WLG provides a rewarding and educational experience. We actively develop our articling students through educational programs that provide insight, evaluation and experience with various areas of the law. Our mentoring program provide you with opportunities to work with – and learn from – our diverse and experienced professionals. Our articling students are also encouraged to define their own development, and to seek out and experience the work in which they are most interested.

Compensation & benefits

Our commitment to our articling students includes a competitive salary, based on the market rate for articling students; plus ten paid vacation days to be taken during the articling term. Articling students also participate in our benefits plan and fitness plan. All students are provided with a mobile device during their articling terms. Gowling WLG also established a guideline for agile working. The goal is to ensure a balance between working in the office and working remotely.