Our firm was established in 1967. We celebrated our 50th anniversary in 2017, as did Expo 67 and La Ronde!
We have offices in Montréal, Joliette and Trois-Rivières. The Montréal office is located inside Place Ville Marie in the downtown core, while our Joliette and Trois-Rivières offices are located in the heart of the historic neighbourhoods of their respective cities.
Our team has more than 50 lawyers, including several partners.
Due to our size and the corporate culture instilled by the founders, a collegial atmosphere reigns in our offices. Everyone at Bélanger Sauvé knows each other and works side by side, thanks in particular to the social and sporting events we organize. This creates a real climate of mutual support and fosters teamwork. Bélanger Sauvé also has a telework policy to ensure that team spirit is maintained while allowing members to enjoy the benefits of working from home.
Our offices start filling up as early as 8 am, and you can usually get back to your personal and family life as early as 5 pm.
Like other major firms in Montréal, Bélanger Sauvé is a signatory to the Course aux stages, the official recruitment agreement for articling positions in Québec. As such, we do not recruit first-year students for the Montréal office or for summer jobs. The Joliette and Trois-Rivières offices are not subject to this agreement and thus may recruit students according to their specific needs.
As part of the Course aux stages, the Montréal office recruits three students for each semester, or six students in total annually. There are two articling periods in the Montréal office, from June to December or from January to June. The Joliette and Trois-Rivières offices recruit students based on their particular needs.
The firm does not have a systematic summer hiring policy. It assesses its needs annually based on the current workload. When students are hired for summer jobs, the duration of the hiring may vary. Although not mandatory, summer employment allows future articling students to become familiar with the firm’s operations.
We are always present at various editions of interfaculty career days to meet students from Université Laval, McGill University, Université de Montréal, Université d’Ottawa’s civil law section, UQAM and the Université de Sherbrooke.
The firm has no preference in this regard! As proof, our lawyers come from the various universities that signed the Course aux stages and many are themselves former articling students.
First impressions are often decisive in a professional relationship, so we pay close attention to the quality of French and the content of the cover letters. Academic results are then scrutinized with interest, although they are not crucial to obtaining a first interview. These selection criteria are then supplemented by past or current work experiences, extracurricular activities, life experiences, hobbies and personal interests.
That is how we select the students who will be invited to come for an interview. The choice is often difficult, but the interview is then the decisive factor in recruitment.
At Bélanger Sauvé, recruitment takes place in two stages.
First, the initial interview, then the cocktail de la relève.
The initial interview, which lasts between 30 and 60 minutes, is conducted in the presence of two lawyers or partners from the firm.
Then, a dozen candidates selected at the end of the interview process are invited to the cocktail de la relève, which will allow them to meet the largest number of members of the firm, to visit the offices and to appreciate the atmosphere.
The articling offers are then presented at a time determined as part of the Course aux stages.
We do an average of 30 interviews during the first recruitment phase.
Given the large number of files that must be processed in English, if only in part, bilingualism is a real asset both for obtaining an articling position and for a job as a lawyer.
As an articling recruited, you will receive a hiring letter specifying the employment duration and the conditions of remuneration.
We will try to accommodate a student who fails the bar exam, but there are no guarantees.
Articling students receive mandates directly from lawyers and associates from the various practice areas. The articling experience is maximized by allowing students to handle several areas of law simultaneously and thus determine their preferences and future practice choices.
The firm certainly prioritizes the hiring of its articling students based on the capabilities demonstrated during their internships, but also on its current needs and mandates. In this section, several articling students recount being hiring at the end of their experience with us.