Lawyers




Upon completion of the LL.B. degree (or its equivalent), graduates are generally qualified to apply for membership of the bar or law society. The membership eligibility bestowed may be subject to completion of professional exams. A student may have to gain a further qualification at postgraduate level, for example a traineeship and the Legal Practice Course or Bar Vocational Course in England and Wales or the Postgraduate Certificate in Laws in Hong Kong.

In Australia some LL.B. graduates practice as a solicitor or barrister, while others work in academia, for the government or for a private company (i.e. not as a practicing solicitor or barrister). For LL.B. graduates who do choose to practice law, in some states of Australia (namely, Victoria and New South Wales), LL.B. graduates are required to undertake a 1-year articled clerkship or the Legal Practice Course (commonly Practical Legal Training or PLT) before applying for registration as a solicitor. In other states, (namely, South Australia) an LL.B. graduate is required to undertake a 6-week PLT course before applying to be admitted to the bar as a barrister and solicitor. Depending on the state where a lawyer is admitted to practice, membership in the Bar may be either restricted to barristers or open to both solicitors and barristers. In the states that maintain as split Bar system, barristers are a separate and distinct profession to that of a solicitor, and entry is attained through the successful completion of an exam and a 9-month reading period (in other words, tutelage) under a senior barrister.

In Canada, the lawyer licensing process usually requires the law graduate to (1) take further classroom law courses taught by the Law Society itself and pass a related set of written examinations, known as bar exams, and (2) undertake an articled clerkship, commonly known as articling, under the supervision of an established lawyer called a principal. The vast majority of law graduates article (i.e. work and learn) in a law firm, a government legal department, an in-house legal department of a business corporation, a community legal clinic or some other type of non-profit organization involved in legal work. However, a small minority of law graduates (with exceptional academic records) undertake instead a judicial clerkship with a specific court and under the supervision of a judge instead of working in a more "lawyer-type environment". In either articling or clerkship, there is the expectation that the law graduate will work in a variety of legal fields and be exposed to the realities of legal practice that are absent from law school's academic atmosphere.

For example, the licensing process for the Law Society of Ontario (the Province's governing law society) consists of three mandatory components: The Skills and Professional Responsibility Program with assignments and assessments, Licensing Examinations (a Barrister Licensing Examination and a Solicitor Licensing Examination), and a 10-month Articling term. At the conclusion of the licensing process, the law graduate is "called to the bar," whereby they sign their name in the Rolls of the Court of Appeal for Ontario and the Superior Court of Justice and swears lawyer-related oaths in a formal ceremony where they must appear in a complete barrister's gown and bow before judges of the local superior court and benchers of the licensing law society. After the call ceremony, they can designate themself as a "Barrister and Solicitor", and can practice law in that province.

Licensed lawyers may also exercise the powers of a Commissioner of Oaths. In the Province of British Columbia, licensed lawyers are automatically qualified to practice as a notary public subject to appointment. In Ontario and other provinces, a licensed lawyer must submit a form and pay a one-time fee to the provincial attorney general before they are appointed as a notary public.

Although not required by the licensing process, many first- and second-year law students work in law firms during the summer off-school season to earn extra money and to guarantee themselves an articling position (with the same law firms) upon their graduation from law school, because there is always fierce competition for articling positions, especially for those in large law firms offering attractive remuneration and prestige, and a law graduate cannot become a licensed lawyer in Canada if they have not gone through articled clerkship.citation needed

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