w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 6 33
AS WITH MANY
EFFORTS TO
STANDARDIZE
PRACTICES ACROSS
PROVINCIAL
JURISDICTIONS,
THE FLSC'S PLAN TO
CREATE NATIONAL
ADMISSION
STANDARDS
ISN'T GETTING
UNQUALIFIED
SUPPORT.
I
n response to the increasing mobility of lawyers
between the provinces, the Federation of Law
Societies of Canada has taken on the task of
developing national standards for admission to
the legal profession. While there is consensus
by law societies that cross-Canada standards
for admission to the profession are desirable,
and probably inevitable, provincial admission
programs are so engrained that the prospect of
changing them is proving to be wrenching.
Now that national mobility is an entrenched
feature of the Canadian legal landscape, regula-
tors have turned their minds to the need for consistency in admission
standards. When a lawyer steps across a provincial border, the view is
that the public needs to have confidence that lawyer will meet the local
standard. To this end, the FLSC launched the national admission stan-
dards project. The first phase of the program delivered the "national
competency profile" for lawyers and Quebec notaries, which has been
adopted by 13 law societies. It was understood that its adoption was
subject to the future development of a plan for implementation, but
that phase is proving to be a real test of the law societies' convictions.
As executive director of the Law Society of Alberta and chairman
of the national admission standards project steering committee, Don
Thompson recalls some conferences at the start of the program where
the attitudes of law societies across the country were canvassed. "There
were two interesting conclusions. There was unanimity that the best
way forward was to move forward with the national admission stan-
dards project, but then each law society also felt that their jurisdiction
What
BY JUDY VAN RHIJN
What
