On behalf of the Federation of Law Societies of Canada, I would like to invite you to participate in an important initiative to support development of a competency-based assessment system for internationally educated lawyers and law graduates applying to the Federation’s National Committee on Accreditation (“NCA”).

The NCA is responsible for assessing the credentials of internationally trained lawyers and law graduates. Before they may apply to a bar admission program in a Canadian common law jurisdiction, NCA candidates must demonstrate that their legal education and experience are roughly equivalent to those of graduates of Federation-approved Canadian common law programs. This process involves an assessment of each candidate’s legal education and experience and requires candidates to demonstrate competence in specified legal subjects through NCA exams or law school courses.

Under the guidance of the NCA’s Assessment Modernization Committee, an iterative consultation and review process was undertaken to develop a competency profile for use in updating the NCA assessment methodology and processes. An initial draft profile was developed by an appointed Task Force and was refined in consultation with members of the legal academy, supervisors of articling students, entry level lawyers, internationally educated lawyers, NCA examiners, law societies, and the Federation’s Indigenous Advisory Council.

We now seek input from you, and other members of the legal profession, to help validate the draft NCA competency profile. To do that, please complete a brief questionnaire and rate the competencies in the Profile. To do that, please complete the survey here. The survey may take up to 20 minutes to complete.

Your individual responses are completely anonymous, and your data record will be deleted from the file server one month after the close of the survey. The deadline for completing the survey is March 17, 2024. If you encounter any problems, please e-mail credentialing@act.org.

Thank you in advance for contributing to this effort that is essential to supporting a competency-based approach to the NCA process.

Lynda Troup
Chair
NCA Assessment Modernization Committee
Federation of Law Societies of Canada

View the notice in French here.

Posted: March 4, 2024