Hudman

hi!
hudmans wife here, i am hoping there may be fellow english lawyers out there who are suffering with the ridiculos hurdles that are put up for foreign lawyers here. (before anyone says you should have reseached it - i did - and was mislead)
i am currently sitting the NCA challenge exams,(subjects i have already passed) and they charge you $600 per exam with no tution, nothing, just a reading list.
I then must do a PTLC course, to learn basics such as interviewing!!!!! i have been a trial lawyer for 5 years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This costs me $5k and they will give me no credit. Then, i must do a 9 month training contract (already done this for 2 years)
so, anyone out there who has been or going through this?
i am quite tempted to call it quits with qualifying here and practice in washington state (american make it much easier for english solicitors to practice)
fianlly, i have looked at training contracts with the government and they state priority given to canadians!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
uh! :scared:

andy_sheila

A solicitor with bad grammar, no wonder our prisons are full
Just a humourous observation, no seriousness or insult intended

Hudman

none taken! call it exam stress!!!!

Colsgirl

In my experience solicitors earn so much that they all have PAs who do the typing

dbd33

I hesitate to count a lawyer as a friend but someone I know well here qualified in the UK, moved here, looked at the rules and qualified in the US rather than here. There's steady work in corporate matters for US lawyers in Toronto as so many firms here choose to incorporate across the border. Whether this would work for you or not depends, I suppose, on what branch of law appeals.

Hudman

i am a criminal defence solicitor - trust me the pay isnt great!!!!!!!!!
america may be the way to go here. So annoying that your points under skilled worker are based on your qualifications, and then they change their minds when you arrive! what a con!

Purley

My sisters knows husband and wife solicitors - I think they are from Belgium. They, too, did the research and were told their qualifications were needed in Vancouver. So they are now working as Notaries Public. They would have had to go through a bunch of hoops too. They also say they were misled.

I have a friend whose son-in-law is a physiotherapist from New Zealand. They were in Saskatchewan and he worked as a physio about five years ago. A couple of years ago they decided to come back to B.C. and he also had to jump through hoops. It used to be that you could come, as a qualified physio, to Canada and you had 18 months to pass the exams that they make you pass (again) to qualify here. Now, you have to fly to Canada, take the exam, go back home and wait until you find if you passed. Then you can pay your fare all over again to come back and practice. A South African physio I had said the exam was mainly ethics and stuff like that - nothing useful for treating people!

And we are desperate for physios. My friend works at the rehab centre here and they tried and tried to hire physios from any country in the world and weren't particularly successful. I wonder why???

nsp

Hi Hudman

I'm also a solicitor about to move to Vancouver and am facing the same obstacles as you, don't know if you have any advice on these matters:

I'm surprised that the Accreditation Committee don't give any instructions on what is required for their exams, I don't relish the thought of having to sit more than a couple although I'm sure this will be the case, I'm waiting to hear from them this months as to how many challenge exams I'll need to sit, I'm only one year qualified so probably a lot. In your opinion what kind of job should a non Canadian lawyers like ourselve do while studying for the challenge exams and looking for an articling position? I would have thought paralegal type work but apparently even finding this kind of work can be tricky and law firms won't allow you to work as a lawyer until you're a member of the BC bar.


Do you know if the larger firms allow you to apply for articles outside the one week in August where they recruit for their articling positions (apparently the one week is a recommendation of the Vancouver Bar)? I know they do in exceptional circumstances although I wonder whether coming from overseas would apply in this case.

Does one have to purchase the texts from the Committee and are they expensive? Do you know if the syllabus changes from year to year or can you buy the text second-hand? I assume you can sit the exams in Vancouver ? The FLSC website doesn't really give any information on the exams. Are the exams difficult? Is there a high failure rate?

Would be grateful for any info you have. Oh and if you sit the WA bar exam don't you then need to work in WA state and get a US working permit/visa?????

Thanks

NSP

Souvenir

This bit cheeky of me but do you mind if I drop you a Private Message with a question about inheritance? I've tried to speak with the lawyers concerned in the UK, but the won't even get out of bed without a blood sample. I think it's probably a fairly straightforward question (ie you'll know the answer off the top of your head).

nsp

can't hurt to read it

Hudman

nsp,
have sent you private message re the hoops here!!!!!

Hudman

souvenir,
feel free to message me, will try and answer, if i can remember from law school!

Souvenir

Thanks for the offer.

nsp has already given me an opinion.

JAJ

Perhaps a Canadian employer might be more willing to employ you on the basis of a US bar qualification rather than a UK qualification. It would be interesting to know (although I don't) whether US lawyers get any preferential access to the Canadian profession because of NAFTA.

Jeremy

discouraged

Hi Mr. & Mrs. Hudman,

Ridiculous hurdles is right.

You might want to have a look at an old thread detailing my own experiences:

The Most Advanced 3rd World Country on the Planet

The very best of luck to you. If you stay in Canada, you'll need it.

D.