Noodle88

Hello all,

I will be finishing my Legal Practice Course next year and at the moment I do not have a training contract lined up. Obviously I need to complete this before I am a fully qualified solicitor over here in England. HOWEVER, my husband and I are looking to move to Canada within the next 4 years and I was wondering whether I am best to find a training contract and qualify over here or move to Canada unqualified but with the academic side of things completed. Things are quite slow over here at the moment and training contracts are becoming harder and harder to come by

I've seen quite a few threads on here regarding qualified solicitors moving to Canada, but nothing about law students.

Really appreciate input from any English solicitors working in Canada.

Best wishes

Becky

PMM

Hi

1. Do either of you qualify for Immigration in that you have at least 1 years experience in the list of "29" occupations in the past 10 years? http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigra...tions.asp#list If you don't or haven't worked/studied in Canada then you don't qualify Federally.
2. So if you wanted to qualify in Canada, you would need an employer that is able to get a Labour Market Opinion approved from HRSDC after advertising the position and finding no Canadians/PRs qualified for the position, before they could offer you the job. I think that is unlikely that any law firm is going to get an LMO to hire a student on articles. As you would probably have to have some Canadian law courses under your belt before you could apply for articles.

Almost Canadian

You will need to have a look at the BFA's website and go from there. Without practical experience in England you may struggle to persuade law firms to take a chance with you. You will be in competition with locals.

Noodle88

BFA?

Almost Canadian

Sorry, predictive text on a smartphone. It's the National Committee on Accreditation. You need to submit your application to them and they will inform you what exams you will need to take to turn your LLB into the Canadian equivalent. Once you have your certificate of equivalence you will then be able to apply to the Provincial Law Society for Articles.

Your biggest hurdle will be finding a firm to offer you articles and, as OMNIPOTENT said above, obtaining permission to work in Canada. I doubt very much that a Canadian law turn will assist you to do so.

Noodle88

Ahh thank you for the help, really appreciate it. I don't think getting into Canada should be a problem as the hubby works for an international company so hopefully he'll be able to transfer over. Sounds like I'll just be the problem with law firms!

christmasoompa

In which case, this Wiki article is essential reading - he'll need to meet all of the criteria to be able to transfer..........http://britishexpats.com/wiki/Intra-...ransfer-Canada

What does he do?

an_expat

Hello. I'm a UK LLB grad, about to start my LLM at Toronto. I've looked into this matter in some detail.

You need to submit an application to the National Committee on Accreditation (NCA) who will recommend a number of challenge exams to be passed, before issuing a certificate which basically says you have the same standing as a Canadian law graduate.

There are plenty of horror stories about the process and the NCA is notoriously inconsistent in the amount of exams it asks people to sit. But if you have LLB + LPC you might have to sit around 4-7 exams.

Anyway, here's the facebook group for current NCA students. There's loads of discussion about the process and also people sharing their own experiences.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_42489885315
(National Committee on Accreditation Students)

Once you have your certificate of standing from the NCA. You have to undertake a 1 year articling period with a law firm (similar to the training contract).

Also, google is your friend - there is quite a lot of information on this topic out there.

One thing I would note, from hanging out with young lawyers / law students, is their calibre is very high. When searching for an articling position you'll be competing against students with undergraduate degree + JD and typically Canadian students will have a lot of volunteering /extracurriculars under their belts (and this seems to be highly regarded by employers).

Best of luck!

Almost Canadian

I would agree with everything you said except this bit. Having practised in England and in Alberta, there is simply no comparison in their calibre. The English lawyers knock spots of their Canadian counterparts. The reason? Their training and practise. Typically, English lawyers work directly on client files right from the beginning of their practise. Canadian lawyers work on the files of others' performing glorified admin work and "legal research"

Canadians lawyers always comment on the fact that their English counterparts only have a single degree, whereas they, usually, have 2 and sometimes more. So what? Their selection process requires a first degree, the English selection process doesn't. I fail to see how a degree in Art History benefit the average lawyer.

One of the partners at the firm I articled with in Calgary was also a professor at the U of C. He said that, without a doubt, the "difficult" bit about becoming a Canadian lawyer was getting into law school. Once there, few students fail. The Bar exam I had to take in Alberta was not a patch on what I had to go through to obtain the LPC.

As in most professions, those at the top are likely to be able to hold their own in either jurisdiction but to state that Canadian law students are a higher calibre than their English peers simply because they have more than one degree and volunteer is wrong, although I accept that this does seem to send employers into a spin!

an_expat

I will agree with you, Almost Canadian. Perhaps 'calibre' was the wrong word. I just mean that, in the context of applicants looking for articling positions, Canadian law graduates are perhaps more 'well rounded'.

Having said that, one of the partners at my current firm in Toronto is British (also gave me my job) and he's forever singing the praises of UK law grads over their Canadian counterparts.

You might also remember you gave me some advice over a year ago about moving to Canada as a recent UK law graduate. I never got the chance to thank you- it was invaluable when it came to job hunting

Whoopi83

Sorry to hijack this with a question, but is there a time limit on how long you have from graduation of law school to applying to NCA? The reason I ask is I graduated LLB five years ago then did an MA and (married and moved here) then an LLM - now I'm looking at jumping on the NCA train....
Thanks

Almost Canadian

No time limit. No-one really knows how the NCA assessment process works. Submit and see what they ask you to write. You can then decide whether you want to.

Your LL.M. will stand you in good stead, particularly if it is from a Canadian institution, Canadians love their pieces of paper!

Best of luck.