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A profession that meets high standards of competence

 

 

Only individuals who follow a rigourous training program and demonstrate their suitability to serve the public with a high level of competence, are eligible to join Canada’s legal profession and be licensed by a Canadian law society to practice law.

Because Canada’s national mobility regime requires each law society to recognize the credentials of members of the legal profession wherever they were initially licensed to practice law in Canada, the Federation of Law Societies of Canada is leading initiatives to ensure that admission standards are consistent across the country.

 

National Competency and Good Character Standards

Admission to law societies is based on the ability of applicants to demonstrate that they possess certain core skills and knowledge with a high level of competence which members of the public have come to expect of legal professionals. Members of the legal profession are also expected to be of good character.

Work is underway to establish national competency standards for admission to the profession as well as national good character standards. Once the competency standards have been approved, work will begin on how Canada’s law societies should measure them in way which is consistent across the country.

 


National Requirements for Canadian Common Law Degree Programs

The basic qualification for individuals to apply for admission to a Canadian law society is that they must hold a law degree earned at a Canadian law school or a Certificate of Qualification issued by the Federation’s National Committee on Accreditation.

From 2007-2009, for the first time in 50 years, the Federation of Law Societies of Canada carried out a comprehensive review of what should be required of a Canadian common law degree program in order for the program to be recognized for the purpose of enabling its graduates to apply to a law society. The Report of the Task Force on the Canadian Common Law Degree is available here.

The report was approved by all of Canada’s law societies in 2010 and work is underway, in close consultation with Canada’s law schools, to ensure that the recommendations are implemented.


National Standards for Approving New Law Degree Programs

The last time a new law school opened in Canada was in the 1970s. The Report of the Task Force on the Canadian Common Law Degree recommended national standards for Canada’s existing law schools in common law jurisdictions, and that those standards should also apply to new law schools.

In 2011, the Federation approved applications for two new law schools in Canada on the basis of the new national standards. The report of the Federation committee which recommended the approval of law degree programs at Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia and Lakehead University in Ontario, is available here.


National Standards for Assessing Credentials of Internationally-Trained Law Graduates

The basic qualification for individuals to apply for admission to a Canadian law society is that they must hold a law degree earned at a Canadian law school or demonstrate that their legal training outside of Canada is equivalent to that provided by a Canadian law school.

In order to ensure that individuals with international legal credentials (or Quebec civil law training) are treated equally, Canada’s law societies in the common law jurisdictions delegated to the Federation of Law Societies of Canada the evaluation of those credentials based on a national standard. 

This function is carried out by the National Committee on Accreditation (NCA). Learn more about the NCA and how to obtain a Certificate of Qualification here.