Canadian Lawyer

Regional wrap-up BARREAU WILLING TO EASE MOBILITY RESTRICTIONS Continued from page 7 as the date by which he would like to see the signing of a new accord between Quebec and Canada's 12 other provincial and territorial jurisdictions that would embrace full permanent mobility. "In my best dreams, a Quebec lawyer would be able to register as an Ontario lawyer immediately and vice-versa, no tests, nothing," Plourde says in an interview. "Will that be what happens at the end of the day? We are still talking and negotiating. There will maybe be some reading pre-requisites at minimum but I hope we will be able to avoid any tests," in Quebec as well as all the other jurisdictions. In all Canadian jurisdictions, a lawyer can take advantage of enshrined temporary mobility rights in order to work on a specific case or to represent a specific client for up to 100 days each year by applying to the law society in the jurisdiction where the legal work will be performed. But as far as permanent mobility rights go, as it stands now a Quebec lawyer who wishes to become a full member of a law society of another province or territory must pass up to seven exams with the national accreditation committee of the Federation of Law Societies of Canada, the umbrella organization for Canada's 14 self-regulating provincial and territorial law societies governing an estimated 100,000 lawyers in Canada and 4,000 Quebec notaries. Lawyers from other parts of Canada seeking to establish a practice in Quebec must pass three exams, two on substantive law and one on legal ethics, administered through the Barreau du Québec. Those conditions stem from the Quebec bar's adoption in 2008 of a rule that allows lawyers licensed to practice elsewhere in Canada to obtain the special membership category of "Canadian legal adviser," with a restriction to practise only in areas of federal law, public international law, and the law of the lawyer's home jurisdiction. The 2010 Quebec Mobility Agreement paved the way for 8 Jan uary 2013 www.CANADIAN Quebec lawyers to apply for similar status in other Canadian jurisdictions. Until now, full implementation of the National Mobility Agreement throughout Canada has been held back by what were seen to be the special circumstances of Quebec's civil law tradition. But Plourde says it is what the legal profession in Quebec shares in common with lawyers elsewhere in Canada that needs to underpin a simpler mobility regime with "a co-ordinated national approach to governance of Canada's legal profession through our collective participation in the Federation, while respecting the autonomy of each of Canada's law societies." Plourde advocates there are more similarities between Canada's two legal systems than is commonly perceived, given that all public laws in Quebec are governed by common law, as it is in the other provinces and territories. Private law — such as the law of contracts, civil responsibility/torts, and property detailed in the Civil Code of Quebec — is an integral part of the civil law tradition, but both civil law and common law in Canada "continue to influence each other, in both formal and substantive ways," he says, influencing both legal principals that apply and the manner in which judgments are rendered. Globalization, with more clients carrying out business across borders and lawyers wishing to follow them, as well as the Quebec bar's recent experience with the 2010 mutual recognition arrangement with France — which has seen 50 lawyers from Quebec and France take advantage of new rules that allow Quebec and French lawyers to practice freely in each other's civil law jurisdictions after passing an oral exam on ethics — are other motivating factors says Plourde. This past fall, a committee at the FLSC began to review the implementation of the national mobility agreement across the country and its council recently adopted a new national competency profile. Gérald R. Tremblay, the former Quebec bâtonnier who assumed L a w ye r m a g . c o m 'We were all parochial at a given point in Canada and that era is over,' says FLSC president Gérald R. Tremblay. the one-year presidency of the federation in November, says he intends to actively promote Plourde's proposal for full mobility for all Canadian lawyers as well as the review and analysis currently underway to ensure professional ethics and disciplinary processes across the country are working in a co-ordinated fashion. Ottawa litigator Thomas Conway, treasurer of the Law Society of Upper Canada and vice president of the FLSC, has publicly welcomed discussions on permanent full mobility, saying he hopes they will result in an agreement that can be considered for "the very near future." "We were all parochial at a given point in Canada and that era is over," Tremblay, a litigator with McCarthy Tétrault LLP in Montreal, says in an interview, noting that it is in the interest of the public as well as for lawyers. "If the British Columbia bar accepts a person to be a member, if it is good for them, then it is good for us in Quebec. We have to have confidence in ourselves and Canadian standards are such that [all Canadian] lawyers should be able to work anywhere in Canada." — Kathryn Leger kathryn.leger@videotron.ca

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