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First-Year Associate

First-Year Associate Job Description:

A first-year associate is an entry level lawyer who typically specializes in one area of law.Entry-level and first-year associates perform a variety of tasks under heavy supervision and should be familiar with standard legal concepts and procedures.To qualify for the job, candidates should have an LL.B/J.D, and be a member of an applicable provincial bar.Employers prefer candidates with summer associate or law clerk experience.

Typical first-year associate duties:

Researching and analyzing the law on complex issues and writing briefs for submission to a supervising lawyer in the firm Analyzing and summarizing complicated legal documents, including contracts, and suggesting alterations to those documents Performing discovery of various electronically stored data and hard copies of information in preparation for litigation Performing due diligence in legal matters concerning contracts, agreements, and mergers and acquisitions

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Our starting salary projections come from a rigorous, multistep process so that our numbers accurately reflect the marketplace. They are based on actual compensation for professionals Robert Half has matched with employers across the country and third-party job posting data from Textkernel that we use to independently validate the salary levels. Starting compensation—pay for someone new to a role—can vary significantly based on a candidate’s skills, experience and certifications, as well as other factors including industry, company size and revenue, and demand for the role. To reflect this variability, we report our salary data in three levels: low, mid and high.