Any American Trained Lawyers on CP?

[onetwo_threefour]

Originally Posted by OilersBaby

In California you dont have to have the law degree...you can take a course called Barbury that is weeks long to help, but if you dont know the material you wouldve learned in school it would have been hard.

But here its really easy to get into some law schools, even if they're nto as good, as long as you pass the bar its all good.

And that's why I'm saying they make some of those state bars so hard, to weed out at that level. In Canada, the bar admission course is ridiculously easy (IMO), because simply getting into law school is so hard.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by onetwo_threefour

I'm not going to claim to be anything special here. I was in the 96th percentile on the LSAT

You are special - that gets you into MENSA.

[TangerZ]

Hi Onetwo_threefour, I'm not certain if it might have been so when you were applying, but I've been assured by a University of Calgary Law School administrator, that they ONLY look at the last two years or 20 half courses for GPA purposes. Is this something recent? Additionally, I noticed a blurb about this on their law school fact sheet available in their office (dating back two years ago). Priya, was this the case when you applied?

[automaton 3]

Originally Posted by TangerZ

Hi Onetwo_threefour, I'm not certain if it might have been so when you were applying, but I've been assured by a University of Calgary Law School administrator, that they ONLY look at the last two years or 20 half courses for GPA purposes. Is this something recent? Additionally, I noticed a blurb about this on their law school fact sheet available in their office (dating back two years ago). Priya, was this the case when you applied?

I believe that U of A is the same.

[automaton 3]

Originally Posted by onetwo_threefour

And that's why I'm saying they make some of those state bars so hard, to weed out at that level. In Canada, the bar admission course is ridiculously easy (IMO), because simply getting into law school is so hard.

I think you're correct...just want to point out that the Bar Ad course in Alberta has changed significantly in the last couple of years - into the much dreaded CPLED.

[corporatejay]

In Canada, the bar admission course is ridiculously easy (IMO),

Currently in the CPLED program, (in fact I'm working on it right now). I can tell you it is not a "cakewalk". You have an assignment every week, which have taken me anywhere between 10-20 hours, and that goes on for 22 weeks. The failure rate of CPLED according to the director is low compared to the US (somewhere around 5% I think he said) compared to the US bar exams which in NY I think is like 50%.

However, I think it is unfair to say it is a cakewalk, you still have to put it in a lot of work. I think you could also make the argument that the reason the failure rate is less is not because they dont' make them as hard, but because the people taking them are better educated.

[onetwo_threefour]

Sorry Jay,

When I took it in 2002 it was still the three and five week course and I continued working through mine (even though our firms were supposed to give us the time off). I don't mean to minimize the difficulty of the course you are taking as it's obviously quite different than what I took, but I think the failure rate you pointed out suggests that my point is probably still valid even if the course is no longer as easy as it once was.

As for the U of C admissions, I am glad to hear that. In 1998 when I applied, they looked at your GPA over your best 40 half-courses. I had taken some courses to eliminate the worst of my enginering boner marks, but I think two C-'s were still in my overall average. After getting out of engineering I never got less than a B which helped a lot.

I had some decent reference letters but, as I said before, I was waitlisted and squeaked in.

After talking to a lot of people I honestly still don't understand the admissions process to this day.

[OilersBaby]

bar admission course? here its just an exam

[onetwo_threefour]

Double post

[housejunk]

Hey Pria,

I don't want to burst your bubble man, but as a lot of the posts indicate, you're probably going to have a tough time getting accredited, and an even tougher time finding a decent articling position. I'm a lawyer in the Vancouver office of a national firm, and we recently completed our articling student hiring. Every single person we took came from a Canadian school. I'm not saying that your education is any better or any worse than our system, but with an over-abundance of applicants (we recieved over 100 apps from UBC Law alone) and a scarctiy of decent articling positions, most firms that I know of would find a US applicant from a private school (with minimal work experience) to be too much of a gamble. If you're willing to work at a smaller firm in Canada, or act as a sole practioner, than you might have a little more luck. Big-Firm work (if that's what you're looking for) would be a tough go. It's not the best system, but that's just the way the game's played in Canada. Anyways, I think that with your solid LSAT, you'd be better served working for a couple years and then trying your hand again applying at a Canadian school. At that point, you can ignore all these ridiculous hassles and focus on landing a great articling position, instead of having to accept whatever comes your way. Good luck man.

[pria(kin)16]

Originally Posted by housejunk

Anyways, I think that with your solid LSAT, you'd be better served working for a couple years and then trying your hand again applying at a Canadian school. At that point, you can ignore all these ridiculous hassles and focus on landing a great articling position, instead of having to accept whatever comes your way. Good luck man.

Are you saying after completing my American JD I should reapply to Canadian schools? There's no way my brain or heart could take an additional 3 years of law school. I'd much sooner accept my fate of working in the states then go through that crap. If my "inferior" legal education can't cut it for our great country, then I guess neither can I.

[icarus]

Good luck dude. I know very well the rigours associated with completing a law degree in one country and then going to another country to live and work (and will know it all over again very soon).

Thankfully becoming a lawyer straight away was not the be-all and end-all for me, so here I am working away drafting contracts without being a qualified lawyer and it's alright (especially when you see most of my team comprises lawyers who got out of the profession and find this job much, much better). I'll eventually get admitted to practise someplace.

[Clever_Iggy]

PM'd.

[pria(kin)16]

Clever Iggy,


Thanks so much for the PM, I'll write you back in detail later. I'm looking into some of the things you said at my school and I will tell you how it goes.

[automaton 3]

Originally Posted by pria(kin)16

Are you saying after completing my American JD I should reapply to Canadian schools? There's no way my brain or heart could take an additional 3 years of law school. I'd much sooner accept my fate of working in the states then go through that crap. If my "inferior" legal education can't cut it for our great country, then I guess neither can I.

Your education isn't inferior - but it is missing some unique Canadian components. In particular constitutional law, criminal law, administrative law and family law. Probably civil procedure is sufficiently different that you may need to take it again, and perhaps other courses as well.

I know a guy who went to Cardiff - he ended up having to take one extra year in a Canadian law school. He found an article and is now happy in practice. Worked out fine for him and could for you as well.

Securing an article might be the toughest part. Some of the bigger shops hire mostly from their summer students. In any event much, but not all of the hiring is done at the conclusion of 2L. You're going to have to market yourself. Spending a year at U of C or U of A would help you make connections to the legal community. Plus you would then have the career services office at your disposal to assist you in finding an article. Just some thoughts, best of luck to you.

[Kjesse]

At one point I was in charge of hiring articling students at my firm in Calgary, a national firm.

We did not hire US JD's as articling students for the simple reason that they won't be called to the bar at the end of their articles. We can't get them to where we needed them after their year of articling, even if we tried.

We have had informal interviews with those students, interviews held outside the "Calgary Match". For those that appear to be good candidates, and who genuinely want to practice in Canada, we encourage them to finish their degrees, get some experience in the US, and then apply to become qualified in Canada. Often they have to take courses that Canadian law societies deem mandatory to practice in Canada, such as Constitutional Law (which I agree should be mandatory but beyond that... I do work where there are a lot of cross border issues and the laws between Canada and the US are often very similar with similar British roots... but then again the devil is always in the details, and those vary substantially... but those are things no law school teaches you).

My experience has been that very few take it that far. They get their JD, start doing well, and don't want to jump through the hoops again. Can't blame them.

EDIT: the LSAT mark matters not, and we never ask what it was, and look down on applicants that put it in there... I don't know if it is still the case, but before writing the LSAT you had to sign an agreement that you would never use it in an application for a job, which is a good thing for the LSAT people to do. If you get into a Canadian law school, we trust their vetting, and will want to see your grades, but never your LSAT.

[@theCBE]

Originally Posted by automaton 3

Spending a year at U of C or U of A would help you make connections to the legal community. Plus you would then have the career services office at your disposal to assist you in finding an article. Just some thoughts, best of luck to you.

U of C and the U of A are the two schools that do not accept special students, those that are not in their full law programs. Most of the other universities in Canada do although space is very limited usually only 1 or 2 sports per year.

They will allow you to audit the class, but then you still have to take the NCA exams.

[OilersBaby]

For people who have the opposite issue (where they have completed law school in foreign countries and then want to move to the USA), there is a Masters program (1 year) where you learn enough to prepare for the Bar Exam in the USA. Its called the LLM program as opposed to the JD program that American students do. The LLM is a 1 year program for people who already have a law degree from another country (LLB for example).

Is there something like that in Canada? For people that have a law degree from the USA or anywhere else, can they do a 1 year masters and then take the bar exam??????

[icarus]

Originally Posted by OilersBaby

For people who have the opposite issue (where they have completed law school in foreign countries and then want to move to the USA), there is a Masters program (1 year) where you learn enough to prepare for the Bar Exam in the USA. Its called the LLM program as opposed to the JD program that American students do. The LLM is a 1 year program for people who already have a law degree from another country (LLB for example).

Is there something like that in Canada? For people that have a law degree from the USA or anywhere else, can they do a 1 year masters and then take the bar exam??????

That's not a requirement though. I have a couple friends who did their law degrees in Australia and then studied hard to pass the NY bar and now practice in Manhattan.

[automaton 3]

Originally Posted by @theCBE

U of C and the U of A are the two schools that do not accept special students, those that are not in their full law programs. Most of the other universities in Canada do although space is very limited usually only 1 or 2 sports per year.

They will allow you to audit the class, but then you still have to take the NCA exams.

Interesting, I wonder why that is.

Now that you mention it, the fellow that went to Cardiff IIRC attended Western to complete his NCA requirements.