Canadian Lawyer

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 35 had a really good bar program, maybe the best. Those two conclusions are in tension. It will require a change, and it's hard to change something that's near and dear to our hearts. Law societies take their bar admission programs very seriously." To advance the implementation of national standards, the FLSC created a concrete plan the law societies could assess, releasing a proposal last August, which is designed to provide a "road map for the journey of implementing national admission standards." The proposal focuses on how to assess whether applicants possess the national competencies. Phases one and two are intended to assess skills and tasks in the context of substantive and procedural law without retesting the common law degree national require- ments. They rely on computer-based multiple choice testing through desig- nated testing facilities across the coun- try. Phase three introduces perform- ance measures for articling students to be applied by the articling students' principals. Phases four and five, which are not expected to go into effect until around 2020, go on to look at nation- alizing training programs, common law degree approvals, and international accreditations. When the proposal was released, each law society was initially asked to make a commitment by Dec. 15, 2015 to the direction it outlined. That would be fol- lowed by a collaboration to develop a detailed assessment system. This was originally slated to be done by March 2016, with a firm commitment to the plan requested by May 1, 2016. Tom Schonhoffer of the Law Society of Saskatchewan rephrases the initial question as: "'Do you want to go on a second date?' We said we're still in. We don't know if the proposal is the right one, but we'll keep talking. My view is that we should really try to make it work. It's conceptually important to do this and the more who do it the better." Thomp- son says the benchers of the Law Society of Alberta unanimously decided to go on to the next step. "It was a very interesting meeting of benchers; there were public representatives, elected representatives, large-firm and small-firm benchers, big cities, and small cities. They all agreed that it was a really good and effective way of engaging in the protection of the public." He notes that the Prairie provinc- es have a history of collaboration in the development and delivery of the CPLED program, which is also used by the Law Society of Nunavut and recom- mended by the Northwest Territories. "There are things we can do together that we can't do alone and resources that we can take advantage of. We can have better regulation and more sophis- ticated regulation together." The Law Society of the Northwest Territories considers itself an active participant at the table as the process toward national admissions standards unfolds. At the Law Society of New Brunswick, executive director Shir- ley MacLean confirms its council has agreed to work with the other law soci- eties and has already put together a committee that is waiting for a more detailed plan for it to consider. "We are generally favourable at this point," says MacLean. "We are certainly going forward with the first part." Not participating are the Barreau de Quebec, based on the need for candi- dates to meet the requirements of Que- bec's civil law and its high confidence in its own system, and the Chambre des Notaires du Quebec, which has not yet adopted the national competency profile, having just implemented sig- nificant reforms and a new training program. FLSC president Jeff Hirsch says of the remaining law societies, some are leaning toward participating but have not yet committed and others have not made up their minds at all. "Enough law societies around the table felt they needed additional time so the timelines have been put forward." He says the matter of timelines has been referred back to the steering committee. "We knew going into the council meeting on Dec. 17, 2015 that the law societies were all over the map. That is not uncommon in the Federation of Law Societies con- text. They are often at various stages of readiness or not prepared to participate. The issue from the federation perspec- tive and a governance perspective is: 'What should the approach of the coun- cil be if we land in a place where we don't have complete consensus? Do we need a consensus or, as we have previ- ously done, we don't have everyone in at the start, but they have the ability to come in after the fact.'" So far, only the Law Society of British Columbia strongly opposes the propos- al. It has completed a detailed report cri- tiquing the model, but is still indicating a willingness to continue discussions and to provide the other law societies with details of its objections. B.C. law- yers' pride in their well-established face- to-face program is evident throughout its report, saying its Professional Legal Training Course "already assesses, with only modest adjustments, what would be covered in the proposed assessments (all three phases) more effectively and with the advantage of including applied knowledge of provincial law and procedure." The LSBC believes the federation's proposal would drive the standards for bar admission down to the lowest common denominator. It "WE DON'T KNOW IF THE PROPOSAL IS THE RIGHT ONE, BUT WE'LL KEEP TALKING. MY VIEW IS THAT WE SHOULD REALLY TRY TO MAKE IT WORK. IT'S CONCEP TUALLY IMPORTANT TO DO THIS AND THE MORE WHO DO IT THE BETTER." TOM SCHONHOFFER, LAW SOCIETY OF SASKATCHEWAN

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