[AR_Six]

Originally Posted by blankall

If what you're saying is true, you'd expect the numbers across the board to reflect that. Is there more litigation work in Calgary? Are the billing rates different? What is driving this suppossed increase in salary across the board.

The market, I guess. Alberta has had to draw lawyers almost exclusively from U of A and U of C historically, which is a relatively small pool for a legal market (at the big firm level) larger than Vancouver and a second market in Edmonton that certainly dwarfs anything else in B.C. (i.e. Victoria). As you say there is more money flying around in this province. The litigation pay scale is somewhat driven by the corporate side. The causes can be argued about, the result is still the same: if you're working in litigation here you're making considerably more money than your Vancouver counterpart. Again, this is big firm experience; if your argument is you could do as well hanging out a shingle in Van as CGY, that's great but there's no standard to compare to as people's success in that format largely depends on their individual circumstances and ability to generate business.

A person working in insurance litigation is arbitrarily going to be making twice as much in Calgary than Vancouver despite working comparable hours?

Yes. My firm does a lot of insurance litigation and the pay scale is about equal to the corporate side scale - that is to say, way way higher than in Vancouver and with a better bonus structure.

And the line between O&G work and non O&G work is not arbitrary. It's a huge industry with a huge amount of billable hours. The larger companies have excessive amounts of money to spend on legal fees that companies in other industries don't. And no, the corporate work is not he same. You're dealing with major government and environmental issues you won't find in other industries.

Of course it's "not the same". Every particular industry has its idiosyncracies and issues. Mining has its own, forestry has its own (the government and environmental issues in both of those areas are similar in various respects to O&G), manufacturing has its own, aerospace, IT. Why is Oil and Gas special? If I'm a securities lawyer in Toronto vs. Calgary, I'm still helping my clients issue shares / notes / sub receipts / whatever, there may be some differences as to what goes into the prospectus where one's an oil company and the other does something else, but it's the same job and the same legal area.