The legal profession in Ontario, as in the U.S., is restructuring. The partnership class is shrinking. Both men and women are affected, but women are affected more. Discrimination exists in hiring. Those with contacts do better than those without contacts.
More men have contacts than women.
Men who lack contacts attribute this deficiency to be the most serious drawback in obtaining a first job. Women attribute their most serious drawback to be their gender, followed by marital status. The effects of grades are greater for women than for men. A woman to be hired in a large firm has to have better grades than men comparably hired. There is in addition some evidence indicating that WASP men with contacts do better than women with great grades.