UK vs CAN

[Spartan12317]

Is a graduate level LLB (“LLB Senior Status”) degree from a UK law school a good idea for practising in Canada? Is it as good as The typical JD degree? The UK program takes two years instead of three

[Notworthy]

2 hours ago, Spartan12317 said:

Is a graduate level LLB (“LLB Senior Status”) degree from a UK law school a good idea for practising in Canada? Is it as good as The typical JD degree? The UK program takes two years instead of three

I think that’s dependent on multiple factors. Getting a Canadian JD opens up opportunities in Canada that the UK will not, you have more access to firms in the country you are looking to practice. The 2 vs 3 years is made up for because you need to obtain a certificate of qualification issued by the NCA. Which may take longer than the one year you’d be dusting off. The NCA may impose additional education requirements before a certificate can be issued that take time. You’d be out of some opportunities, would not be saving a year, and may be unknowingly committing to a bigger financial investment than planned due to NCA requirements.

In summary, if you want to practice in Canada a JD from a Canadian institution is a better call. If you can’t get in, then go to the UK. There are programs that make the adjustment easier for example U of A offers an additional year for applicants who studied law outside of Canada. However, this adds an additional year and it is another financial investment.

https://www.ualberta.ca/law/programs/itlp/index.html

[CleanHands]

6 hours ago, Spartan12317 said:

Is a graduate level LLB (“LLB Senior Status”) degree from a UK law school a good idea for practising in Canada? Is it as good as The typical JD degree? The UK program takes two years instead of three

"No" and "no."

[Hegdis]

It costs more in time and money and effort in the long run. The degree itself is just the beginning. You then need to study for and pass your NCAs and - and this is a big stumbling block - get articles. 

Canadian employers tend to be suspicious of foreign degrees due to the fact that many students who attend foreign law schools and then return to Canada do so because they could not get accepted into a Canadian law school. Also they have not learned Canadian law, which is kind of a big flag. When there are hundreds of Canadian law school graduates looking for work every year a foreign LL.B. is not competitive. 

We can argue all day long about how fair this is, but this is how it is. So, no and no.

[CheeseToast]

The only way it makes sense is if you go straight in right out of high school. 

[ramoj]

I would only go to Cambridge (BA Law Senior Status) or Oxford (BA Jurisprudence Senior Status) for a 2-year LLB.

There is a lower degree of risk by attending those schools given their stature in society. Those two schools will also open up opportunities in the UK for you to do a vacation scheme while studying there or for you to even secure a training contract (equal to articling in Canada).

Also, those two schools will give you a higher/better chance based off name brand alone to get back to Canada.

It is hard to come back to Canada and say "oh I could not pass up the chance to study at Leichister" when recuriting for OCI/NCA. It is far easier to come back to Canada and say "oh I could not pass up the chance to study at Oxford/Cambridge." This is unique and differentiates you. 

Although this may sound elite, there is some degree of truth to it. Choose wisely and if I were you, focus on Canadian schools if you want to stay in Canada. 

Edited April 11, 2022 by jomar

[Lawstudents20202020]

Going to any Canadian law school will get you practicing law quicker and cheaper. 

[Ramesses]

Not sure about anyone else, but for me law school was less about learning the law and more about building relationships and networks for practice. The extra-curricular experience I got far outweights the law I learnt.

Edited April 11, 2022 by Ramesses
extra word

[Joe legal]

I can share my experience with you:

I am a Canadian (from Ontario) who went to the UK for law school (and I didn't go to Oxford or Cambridge). Before going, I read hundreds of forums where people would bash taking the UK route to practice law in Canada. I was scared, but I did it anyway. I have no family connections in the legal field, and I am not rich (I took out a loan to pay for my degree). People on forums will often say you'll only get a job in Canada with a UK degree if your daddy is a partner at a firm. This is seriously untrue in my experience. Maybe in Toronto it is like that, but I had no interest in practicing in a massive city anyways.

Here is what you need to do (in my opinion) to be successful in the Canadian legal sector with a UK law degree:

-->GET SUMMER STUDENT EXPERIENCE!! This is unequivocally one of the most important steps you could take to be successful in the Canadian legal market with a foreign degree. After 1L, I applied to about 100 different firms all over Ontario for a summer law student job. I was even willing to volunteer my time during the summer at a firm, but luckily it never came to that. I ended up summering for minimum wage at a tiny law firm in a small city in Ontario. This summer experience got me into a big law firm in a medium-sized city for my 2L summer. Impress these firms during the summer and they will likely take you on as an Articling student and junior associate once you get called to the bar.

-->NETWORK AS MUCH AS YOU CAN! Go to social events in the city you wish to obtain employment, reach out to lawyers and ask if you can pick their brain about how to penetrate the legal market, use social media platforms like LinkedIn to connect with people. Making good impressions goes a long way, especially if you have no family or friends in the legal sector.

-->GET DECENT GRADES IN LAW SCHOOL. Self-explanatory. Firms will ask for your law school marks so make sure they are up to par.

I won't say much else or this post will be way too long, but please feel free to send me a message if you have any other questions or wish to chat further about the process of obtaining a UK degree.

-Joe

 

Edited July 24, 2022 by Joe legal
Misspelled something

[CleanHands]

EDIT - I'm an idiot and misread this (or rather, skimmed it and missed the single most relevant sentence). Sorry.

Edited July 23, 2022 by CleanHands

[tiktok]

It is never a good idea to abroad to study law if you want to practice in Canada. People will automatically assume that you couldn't crack the LSAT or have the grades to be accepted locally. 

[Joe legal]

30 minutes ago, tiktok said:

It is never a good idea to abroad to study law if you want to practice in Canada. People will automatically assume that you couldn't crack the LSAT or have the grades to be accepted locally. 

Often times, this is the case. Not always, however. I personally think the negative stigma of foreign law degrees is slowly fading away. More people are becoming more open to the prospect of hiring foreign lawyers. I agree with your point though. It is important for people who take this route to put extra effort into networking to offset the fact that a Canadian degree was not obtained. It will come up in almost every interview too (especially when it comes to Articling interviews and junior associate interviews).

[capitalttruth]

6 hours ago, tiktok said:

It is never a good idea to abroad to study law if you want to practice in Canada. People will automatically assume that you couldn't crack the LSAT or have the grades to be accepted locally. 

This is just my anecdotal experience, but the more news I hear about firms hiring NCA candidates as articling students is making me doubt that assumption. I think it's becoming less and less of an operating belief for legal recruiters. This isn't to say that one's NCA status may prevent them from advancing in their career, but at least from what I can tell recruiters are starting to hire more NCA candidates and it begs the question whether their alternative education remains a barrier to breaking into the Canadian legal profession.

[Whist]

Also anecdotal, but I like to go through legal job boards/pages sometimes out of interest. The recent Canadian JD grads tend to be seeking new lawyer positions, the NCA grads tend to be seeking legal assistant jobs to get their foot in the door. Not going to say that it hasn't gotten better for NCA grads, because maybe it has, but it's not going to put you in the same position as a Canadian grad. You're not learning Canadian law, and Canadian schools just by their nature give you a leg up in making connections here. It's obviously not impossible to make it work from a foreign school. But if you look around, people aren't choosing UK schools over Canadian ones when they have the option of both.

[beyondsection17]

22 hours ago, capitalttruth said:

This is just my anecdotal experience, but the more news I hear about firms hiring NCA candidates as articling students is making me doubt that assumption. I think it's becoming less and less of an operating belief for legal recruiters. This isn't to say that one's NCA status may prevent them from advancing in their career, but at least from what I can tell recruiters are starting to hire more NCA candidates and it begs the question whether their alternative education remains a barrier to breaking into the Canadian legal profession.

There are always going to be bottom-of-the-barrel firms who hire NCA grads, often because they literally can't find any Canadian graduates to staff their office. I'm an insurance lawyer, I see these people working at tiny plaintiff shops all the time. Is someone out there going to be able to find one or two examples of a lawyer who went abroad and subsequently got hired at a reputable place (and not by their father)? Of course. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. But I assure you, the mere fact that some firms do hire NCA grads is not evidence that going to law school abroad is not a barrier to entering the legal profession in Canada.

Edited July 25, 2022 by beyondsection17

[CleanHands]

4 minutes ago, beyondsection17 said:

There are always going to be bottom-of-the-barrel firms who hire NCA grads, often because they literally can't find any Canadian graduates to staff their office. I'm an insurance lawyer, I see these people working at tiny plaintiff shops all the time. Is someone out there going to be able to find one or two examples of a lawyer who went abroad and subsequently got hired at a reputable place (and not by their father)? Of course. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. But I assure you, the mere fact that some firms do hire NCA grads is not evidence that going to law school abroad is not a barrier to entering the legal profession in Canada.

I've been seeing a lot of them getting hired in government lately. Obviously in the aggregate and proportionally, they aren't going to do as well as Canadian JD grads here. But it's increasingly seeming to be less of a barrier in that context at least.

I say this as someone with a personal bias against Canadians who go abroad for legal education (barring T14 or Oxbridge), who has literally without exception been extremely unimpressed with lawyers and students with this kind of background opposite me on files, and who intends to open my own shop eventually and will bin every resume with Bond, Leicester, etc, on it. My bias is to want these people to be shut out of the profession, but I have to grudgingly admit what I'm directly witnessing happen, which is that fewer and fewer people seem to feel the same way as me about this.

[LMP]

38 minutes ago, CleanHands said:

I've been seeing a lot of them getting hired in government lately. Obviously in the aggregate and proportionally, they aren't going to do as well as Canadian JD grads here. But it's increasingly seeming to be less of a barrier in that context at least.

I say this as someone with a personal bias against Canadians who go abroad for legal education (barring T14 or Oxbridge), who has literally without exception been extremely unimpressed with lawyers and students with this kind of background opposite me on files, and who intends to open my own shop eventually and will bin every resume with Bond, Leicester, etc, on it. My bias is to want these people to be shut out of the profession, but I have to grudgingly admit what I'm directly witnessing happen, which is that fewer and fewer people seem to feel the same way as me about this.

I wonder to what extent this is a result of the methodologies government offices are required to use. 

I'm no expert but I've worked for provincal and federal government before and the "point" system, if I can call it that, where you check off competencies is designed to remove outside considerations. 

So, I can totally see someone who went aborad, came back and did something like an LLM or certificate, getting one of these roles. Not because they're a better candidate than a domestic student but simply because they have, technically, more of the competencies checked off. Even though they are woefully underqualified in reality.

Or maybe that's not it at all and I'm just biased or ignorant or what have you. But even in my limited experience I've been thoroughly unimpressed with some of the forigen trained lawyers I've encounter during work. 

 

[Joe legal]

49 minutes ago, CleanHands said:

I've been seeing a lot of them getting hired in government lately. Obviously in the aggregate and proportionally, they aren't going to do as well as Canadian JD grads here. But it's increasingly seeming to be less of a barrier in that context at least.

I say this as someone with a personal bias against Canadians who go abroad for legal education (barring T14 or Oxbridge), who has literally without exception been extremely unimpressed with lawyers and students with this kind of background opposite me on files, and who intends to open my own shop eventually and will bin every resume with Bond, Leicester, etc, on it. My bias is to want these people to be shut out of the profession, but I have to grudgingly admit what I'm directly witnessing happen, which is that fewer and fewer people seem to feel the same way as me about this.

Hmm, you have strong opinions about this topic. If everyone had this point of view, I would be SOL in the legal field. Fair enough, everyone is entitled to an opinion. The fact that more and more foreign graduates are getting jobs in Canadian law firms leads me to believe that they are not producing unimpressive work. You perhaps encountered a few who were not good lawyers, but that cannot be the case for all. I have encountered a plethora of Canadian lawyers who were extremely unimpressive on files, so I personally think, to some degree at least, it doesn't matter where you are educated..if you're good, you are good. If you're not, then you're not.

[ZukoJD]

UK grads grind my gears a bit. You don't work hard in undergrad (likely), then you decide to opt out of the LSAT and away you go! Acceptance to law school secured. 

 

[beyondsection17]

14 hours ago, CleanHands said:

I've been seeing a lot of them getting hired in government lately. Obviously in the aggregate and proportionally, they aren't going to do as well as Canadian JD grads here. But it's increasingly seeming to be less of a barrier in that context at least.

I say this as someone with a personal bias against Canadians who go abroad for legal education (barring T14 or Oxbridge), who has literally without exception been extremely unimpressed with lawyers and students with this kind of background opposite me on files, and who intends to open my own shop eventually and will bin every resume with Bond, Leicester, etc, on it. My bias is to want these people to be shut out of the profession, but I have to grudgingly admit what I'm directly witnessing happen, which is that fewer and fewer people seem to feel the same way as me about this.

That's very interesting. I'm surprised. What kinds of government jobs are you seeing them hired into?

[BlockedQuebecois]

21 minutes ago, ZukoJD said:

UK grads grind my gears a bit. You don't work hard in undergrad (likely), then you decide to opt out of the LSAT and away you go! Acceptance to law school secured. 

I don't really know why you would find that annoying. Plenty of Canadian grads don't work hard in undergrad, spend little if any time preparing for the LSAT, and then coast through law school. 

[QueensDenning]

1 minute ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

I don't really know why you would find that annoying. Plenty of Canadian grads don't work hard in undergrad, spend little if any time preparing for the LSAT, and then coast through law school. 

Not a lot that I've met these days (aside from the coasting through law school part). 

[ZukoJD]

22 minutes ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

I don't really know why you would find that annoying. Plenty of Canadian grads don't work hard in undergrad, spend little if any time preparing for the LSAT, and then coast through law school. 

Not sure what your definition of "plenty" is but it definitely has a smaller threshold than mine. The vast majority of law students I have met have been diligent-at least as far as I can tell. Moreover, the vast majority have expressed struggling to varying degrees with LSAT study. Again, from my anecdotal experience (not sure what else I can use here), nearly every law student I have met so far seemed to work hard in school. Sure, maybe some only feigned it, but the stress and anxiety was palpable with most. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 25, 2022 by ZukoJD

[BlockedQuebecois]

I can assure you plenty of your peers did not need to work hard to get into Canadian law schools and many of them are not working exceedingly hard in law school. It's certainly not the case that "every law student" is working "exceedingly hard". 

A user on the old forum, theycancallyouhoju, used to refer to law school as a form of stress olympics. Essentially, because law school gives people relatively little feedback and you are competing directly with your peers, a lot of students use workload and stress as proxies for doing well. That leads to palpable displays of stress and anxiety from students who don't have the self assurance necessary to just do whatever work they need to do to succeed. I can see how, as a 1L, you would fall into believing that those anxious displays are representative of everyone in your class, but they're not. A significant number of your peers do not find law school all that stressful—you just don't notice them, because they're not anxiously telling everyone how busy they are. 

In any event, you should get out of the habit of comparing your level of effort to achieving a goal with the level of effort someone else requires to achieve the same goal. There is always going to be someone who is able to achieve what you want to achieve with substantially less effort on their part. It is far healthier to accept that and measure yourself relative to your goals. Comparison is the thief of joy and all that. 

Edited July 25, 2022 by BlockedQuebecois

[Piffle]

1 hour ago, ZukoJD said:

UK grads grind my gears a bit. You don't work hard in undergrad (likely), then you decide to opt out of the LSAT and away you go! Acceptance to law school secured.

While my gears, like yours, are also a bit grinded - mostly just by the fact that our law societies allow for degrees from dubious schools - I think of it more as a "don't hate the player, hate the game" type of situation.

Edited July 25, 2022 by Piffle
phrasing