I’m currently a sophomore in college studying computer science. However, I’ve always had quite an interest in law, in particular in technology-related issues such as intellectual property.
I should also mention that I’m a Canadian who’s been living and going to school in the States for a good while now, but if possible, I’d like to spend some more time up North, and I’ve been looking at law school as a good way to do so. I like both the States and Canada and am comfortable living in both, so I’d like any education I gain to leave me with professional freedom in the future to move between the two.
So the crux of the question is this: How much is a Canadian law degree valid south of the border, and vice versa? Do Canadian law schools provide courses in American law, and do American schools Canadian law? Is it viable to get a degree valuable to firms in both countries?
In the U.S., admission to practice law is handled by each individual state. For example, I am licensed in New York. I cannot practice in other states without meeting their individual requirements for admission.
Thus, the extent to which a Canadian law degree will be “valid” will depend entirely on the state in the U.S. where you intend to practice.
In New York, for example, I believe foreign law degrees are honored in the sense that you can sit for the bar exam if you recieved your degree from a qualifying law school. I know when I sat for the bar, a fellow next to me had an Italian law degree.
But you’ve still got to pass the bar exam, regardless of where you went to school.
(N.B.: I’m ignoring “waiving in” for experienced attorneys since it does not apply to the OP)
As to “how valuable” it would be – well, that depends on your employer. If you work for a firm or company that does a lot of cross-border business, it might be useful, though I don’t think any firm would make a hiring decision on that factor alone.
Ohio – whose rules are I think fairly representative – lets a foreign-trained lawyer sit for the bar exam if the foreign legal education in question is determined by the Ohio Supreme Court to be sufficient to practice law in the US.
In practice, that usually means that lawyers from Civil Law countries (like Italy or France) are required to take several courses at an American law school in basic subjects like contracts, torts, or procedure before they can sit for the bar exam. On the other hand, I practice with a UK-trained barrister who was given “full credit” for his foreign legal training. I would think that a Canadian law degree would be treated similarly, i.e., as essentially equivalent to having attended an American law school.
The wife of a coworker both of whom are Canadian just sat for the California Bar. I don’t believe that she had to take any more classes to be permitted to take the test. She did however spend a lot of time studying for the test.
IIRC, there are also different rules as far as articling goes (as part of the rules for admission to the bar).
Example/ My ex can practise law in Ontario, but if she were to move to British Columbia I think she would have article all over again as well (kind of like 2 years of internship PRIOR to writing the exam.)
That was quite awhile ago, my memory is hazy on the issue so I may be mistaken about the articling.
In any case, Dewey Cheatem Undhow pretty much hit the nail on the head.
When I said “that was quite awhile ago, I may be mistaken” I was referring to my ex and the discussion we had on practicing law in different provinces. The discussion took place about 6 or 7 years ago, so I’m foggy in the details.
Just to amplify on what’s been said above: In practicing law, the operative question is where you are licensed (i.e., admitted to practice), not where you received your law degree. Both Canadian and American law degrees are equally “valid” in America, in that neither will entitle you to practice law in any American jurisdiction. To practice law, you must be admitted to practice in a given jurisdiction (state or federal). Most states (all states now?) require that you sit for and pass an examination (the dreaded bar exam) before you can be admitted to practice in that state. (There are other requirements as well, such as being of good character, and in some jurisdictions passing a separate ethics or professional responsibility exam.) The federal judicial systemy requires that you first be admitted in one or more states, so you can’t get out of sitting for a bar exam by saying you’re only going to practice in the federal courts. Bar exams vary from state to state, from a standardized extremely difficult multiple-choice exam (the “multi-state”), employed by many states, to an all-essay format, to some combination thereof.
Now, once you are admitted to practice in at least one American jurisdiction (by taking and passing their bar exam and meeting their other requirements), you then may be able to be admitted to practice in another American jurisdiction without taking that jurisdiction’s bar exam, if you meet that state’s requirements for reciprocal admission of lawyers from other states – what is commonly known as “reciprocity.”
Reciprocity also varies from state to state. Some jurisdictions will admit you to practice there without a bar exam so long as you can show you are admitted to practice and in good standing in some other jurisdiction. (Washington, D.C.) Other jurisdictions will make you take part of their exam – like the ethics portion – or have had a certain number of years experience (commonly 5 years) in another jurisdiction first. (Oregon.) Some states do not allow reciprocity at all, and every attorney seeking to be admitted to that state, regardless of experience, must sit for their bar exam. (Montana.)
Now, AFAIK foreign law degrees are not accorded reciprocity by any American jurisdiction, ever. It doesn’t matter if you graduated from a school in the UK or Canada or Burkina Faso, your degree and experience alone will never be enough to get you admitted to practice in an American jurisdiction without taking the bar exam. (If I am wrong in this, I will gladly take correction.) And sometimes a foreign law degree will not even be “good enough” to allow you to even sit for (i.e., take or write) the bar exam. You will first be required to at least take a certain number of courses in American law from an American law school, or maybe even get a whole 'nother law degree from an accredited American law school. It depends on where you get your degree. AFAIK, Canadian attorneys usually can sit for the bar exam without taking remedial or additional courses in American law – but not always. This also varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. For example, in my jurisdiction (Washington), Canadian (and English) lawyers may sit for the Washington Bar Exam if they have practiced law for a minimum of 3 years.
But Canadian law and American law are fundamentally different. Canadian law is largely premised on the system of the common law. American law is not; it is largely premised on various systems of codified law. Learning to practice law under a common-law system is very different from learning to practice law under a code system, and for this reason to my knowledge few American schools offer many classes in Canadian law. The schools are trying to teach people how to practice American law.
IME, it is extremely rare for a person to be admitted to practice in both Canada and the U.S., and I practice law in a location (Seattle) where, if it were to be done, one imagines it would be done here. The fact is, it is far easier to just associate Canadian counsel to handle a case in Canada, rather than going to the trouble and expense of being admitted to practice there, when such admission at a minimum requires a tough test and may well require that one obtain an entire second law degree. (And I freely disclose I know nothing about Canadian rules or requirements for the practice of law, or reciprocity, either between provinces or between nations.)
But the truth is that an American law degree probably doesn’t adequately prepare one to practice law in Canada, and a Canadian law degree probably doesn’t adequately prepare one to practice law in America, because the legal systems are different. Better by far IMO to get your degree and get admitted to practice in one country or the other. If you later find you need dual admission – highly unlikely – you can worry about meeting the requirements to obtain it then. In other words, cross that bridge when you come to it, if you ever do. Which you likely won’t.
I would make one clarification to Jodi’s points above. Jodi is clearly a litigator, and she’s right that it would be very difficult for a foriegn lawyer to practice as an advocate in court in the U.S. She’s right that it’s much better to just associate local counsel in a case that crosses borders.
It’s a little different on the transactional side, which is what I do. Although we still have to comply with all the technical requirements of admission to the bar, having truly local counsel is less important when you’re doing a deal. Our offices have several foriegn lawyers who have gone ahead and gotten themselves admitted in New York. For lawyers who work on large transactions crossing international boundaries, it sometimes is worth being licensed in both places.
If you have an American J.D. and want to study for the bar in Ontario, you can apply for advanced standing at a Canadian common law university and earn an LL.B., or you can have the National Committee on Accreditation check you out and set out what courses you need to complete before being admitted to study for the bar. Note that up here you have to article (apprentice) in addition to formally studying for the bar prior to writing the bar exams.
As far as using a Canadian LL.B. to let you write an American bar exam, it is very state dependant, so check it out very carefully. New York is quite open to Canadian LL.B.s, with few if any upgrades required, and Wall Street snatches up top corporate grads from Canadian law schools, much to the annoyance of Bay Street.
So as to service business clients internationally, in the last few years there has been a move for firms to open foreign offices, and there have even been some international mergers (though don’t ever ask why Tory’s stuck with their own name after the party celebrating their merger with a New York firm), so yes, there can be a value to being licensed in more than one nation, depending on your area of practice.
I must be misunderstanding you because that’s pretty much the opposite of what I was taught in law school. Former British colonies, including Canada and the United States, are based on common law, as opposed to civil law systems found in most other countries. The legal systems are similar enough that if you come from a common law country, you can sit for the bar exam (at least in NY), while those from civil law countries must complete additional course work. Of course common law isn’t the only source of U.S. law. If you’re trying to say that Canada relies on the common law more than the United States, that may be true, but I’m not an expert on the Canadian legal system. I do know that Quebec has a civil law system, and lawyers there study both systems.