How many of you would classify the effort to get into law school, to complete law school, to obtain articles, and then to be called to the Bar a “cake walk”? Not many - certainly not in my case, and definitely not in the current Alberta economy.
Well then, imagine adding significantly to that burden.
Imagine more exams, in another language, and then trying to find work in a close community where everyone seemed to know everyone else, except you. Where your voice, your appearance, and your customs might identify you as not “part of the club.”
This then, is the burden of the internationally-trained lawyer seeking to make their way in Alberta, after having obtained their education and skills outside of Canada.
For those seeking entry into the legal profession after having trained abroad, like most areas of work requiring accreditation, there is some understandable need to assess the training and experience of the applicant coming from a foreign country. Upon admission to the bar, a lawyer is held out to the public as being competent to practice law, including appearing in all levels of court - and the public has a reasonable expectation that governing bodies will review each applicant’s background before certifying them as being “competent” to be a lawyer.
In Canada, we have the NCA (National Committee on Accreditation) process, where foreign trained lawyers have their education and experience reviewed and, based upon that review, additional courses or examinations may be directed before they received their “Certificate of Qualification” - essentially affirming the equivalence of holding a law degree granted by a Canadian law school.
From that point, the applicant must then enter the articling stream, finding a principal to provide mentorship for a period of one year, during which time applicant must also complete the CPLED (Canadian Centre for Professional Legal Education).
Seems like a lot of work? Well, here’s the rub.
For many foreign trained lawyers, the exams and the continuing education is the easy part compared to fighting through the more amorphous barrier of being an outsider to the “club”.
The club? The club of Canadian graduates. The vast majority of Canadian lawyers are graduates of Canadian law schools - and they have a sense of comfort and predictability in hiring Canadian graduates. And if we know anything about lawyers, as a general rule, they are not big risk takers, they tend to fight innovation and change, and they tend to see the billable hour and the need to “run on the hamster wheel” to generate fees as the core of their business plan.
Witness the recent innovation of Lakehead University in including practice training - removing (presently) the requirement of graduates to complete formal articles after graduation before applying for admission to the Ontario Bar. Witness the changes in law school across Canada, where practical training has become much more common as firms pressure law schools to help students “hit the ground running.”
Now, then.
If you take the continuing effort on firms to economize, to find students who provide an immediate financial return “out of the gate”, imagine then the burden placed upon foreign trained lawyers - particularly where their appearance, speech and cultural practices may be seen as “out of the ordinary” for a recruiter. Easier many will say to take the “safe road” and hire a Canadian graduate - after all, particularly in today’s economy, there’s no shortage of applicants.
More insidious, while overt racism has become clearly socially unacceptable, there is, without question, a “smiling” racism where firms may feel “more comfortable” with people who look like them, or may feel “their clients” may not be receptive to people who are “different”, then smile and pass over a foreign-trained lawyer as a possible hire.
Unfortunately, this myopic point of view prevents real change in access to justice, prevents innovation in service delivery and, ultimately restricts - not improves - firm bottom lines.
The world is changing. Even in smaller communities, greater numbers of Canadians are no longer descendants of Northern Europeans - and having lawyers in your firm who are from other countries broadens your potential client demographic in a way that the “typical” Canadian graduate may not. The ability to speak a different language, to relate to a different community from your own EXPANDS the market of your firm - where hiring within a narrow cultural profile restricts it.
Beyond the demographic business case, broadening the experiential profile of your firm creates a palate of perspectives and ideas which, over time, will make your firm stronger and more adaptable to what is, without question, a changing legal landscape.
In addition, for larger firms, major business clients are now engaging in a review of the “diversity profile” of prospective firms they are hiring. It may be simply a question of time before this becomes more endemic in smaller firms and smaller centres - and, over time, may not be limited to corporate clients, but will likely become a more common public expectation. For example, we now see major international restaurant chains - even fast-food chains - advertising organic, cleaner produce and meats where such expectation was formerly limited to isolated niche restaurants. One can easily imagine the same sort of public expectation arising as smart, innovative firms begin to advertise the diversity of their members, seeking to cash in on growing “moral currency” in their communities.
So then, I would encourage readers who may have influence in hiring in their firms to take an extra moment to consider the burden of the foreign trained lawyer, to challenge themselves to honestly assess why they may not be considering hiring that applicant, and to imagine what the burden of having to jump so many hurdles may mean to the determination and the focus of that applicant, compared, perhaps, to those who have enjoyed the “cake walk” of being fellow members of the Canadian University Club.
For lawyers trained abroad, I would encourage them to contact the Law Society of Alberta, which has been working hard to streamline and facilitate the inclusion of foreign trained lawyer into the practice in Alberta - for more information visit the Law Society of Alberta website.
Robert G. Harvie, Q.C., is the Chair of the CBA Alberta Editorial Committee and Editor of Law Matters. Rob is also a former Bencher of the Law Society of Alberta, and currently practices in Lethbridge at the firm of Huckvale Wilde Harvie MacLennan LLP.