How To Become a Lawyer in Canada: A Step-by-Step Guide

Eager to reap the rewards of a prestigious and stimulating career in law? Canada has highly respected law schools and a fairly uniform set of steps you’ll need to follow to become a lawyer in your respective province. From getting into the leading Canadian law programs to obtaining licensure, this guide surveys career prospects for lawyers in Canada and fully describes key components of each of the 4 essential steps required to become a lawyer there.

If you’ve started college or you’re planning your college journey and have your eye on becoming a lawyer, you’ll need perseverance and commitment, so this may not be the path for just anyone.

However, if you love the law and have a passion for thinking analytically and want to research and understand case law, criminal justice, or constitutional issues, becoming a lawyer can open doors to a highly competitive but also very intellectually rich and stimulating career path.

On average, lawyers in Canada can earn about $125,000 a year, but there’s a very wide spectrum of salaries across roles and provinces.

According to Job Bank, prospects for lawyers range from Limited to Good, depending on the province.

An appealing feature of law careers is that there are many areas of law you can specialize in — like family law, criminal law, civil and constitutional law, intellectual property law, corporate or business law, and so forth.

There are also diverse roles to play, from conducting legal research, advising individual or organizational clients, assisting with case management, or advocating for clients in court proceedings.

Step 1: Obtain a Bachelor’s Degree

A degree in common law is called the JD. In Canada, your JD is regarded as an undergraduate degree as opposed to a postgraduate degree, but before enrolling in a JD program at an accredited law school you must first obtain a bachelor’s degree or equivalent in a regular university program of undergraduate study.

The good news is that you don’t need to feel restricted to studying law courses before you go to law school, so you’ll enjoy substantial leeway to pick from a variety of majors that will allow you to be well prepared for law courses and be a strong applicant to leading law schools.

To get the most out of Step 1:

• Lay a strong foundation during your secondary education so you can qualify for admission to a strong bachelor’s degree program at a high-ranking university
• Pursue a rigorous undergraduate education as you earn your bachelor’s degree
• Build a strong foundation — skills like critical thinking, reading, and research-informed expository and argumentative writing are more important than pursuing a pre-law curriculum (a pre-law track is not required)
• With an eye to your future law school applications, engage in relevant extracurriculars and maintain a strong GPA

Good majors for aspiring law students include:

• History
• Political science
• Psychology
• Criminal justice
• English
• Public Finance
• Philosophy

Good forward-looking extracurriculars will be ones that will help you:

• Flex your writing, research, and reasoning skills
• Hone relational and leadership skills
• Build a record of ethical integrity and reliability

Therefore, relevant extracurriculars to consider include:

• Activities related to journalism and communications
• Public policy research and advocacy
• Journalism roles with a public policy or civics focus
• Research assistant roles — in subjects such as history, sociology, political science, ethics, economics, business law, or criminal/social justice
• Debate and public speaking

By picking a major that will help you build your critical thinking and communication skills and expose you to ethical concepts and frameworks, you’ll build a strong foundation for gaining admission into a leading law school and for thriving once you get there!

Step 2: Take the LSAT

Obtaining a bachelor’s degree is one very big step on your path to becoming a lawyer — your stepping stone to earning your degree in law.

However, one more factor — your score on the LSAT (Law School Admission Test) — will also impact your standing for law school admissions.

The LSAT consists of a multiple choice (scored) portion and a writing test that provides an unscored, but important, law-oriented writing sample.

The multiple choice portion of the LSAT, recently updated (in August 2024), includes two key components:

• Logical Reasoning questions that assess your ability to analyze, critically evaluate, and complete arguments
• Reading Comprehension questions that measure your ability to read and understand examples of long-form, complex materials that are similar to those that you’ll encounter in law school

This portion of the LSAT takes 2 hours and 20 minutes (four 35-minute sections).

Keep in mind that the emphasis on logical reasoning in the LSAT can make the test challenging, and potentially unlike other scholastic tests you taken. Therefore, reviewing these and other LSAT question types and leaving time for practice tests is a good strategy as you anticipate the challenges this step will present on your path to becoming a lawyer.

The writing portion is now called the “LSAT Argumentative Writing” task.

This new writing task is intended to be less prescriptive and less narrowly focused on pure logical reasoning.

• The LSAT Argumentative Writing prompt presents a decision problem, and you will be asked to choose between two positions or courses of action and defend your choice.
• There are no “right” or “wrong” positions. Instead, the writing sample is designed to let you demonstrate your argumentative writing skills.
• The new format allows test-takers more discretion in their reasoning and more latitude in how they defend their arguments.

While unscored, the Argumentative Writing portion provides law schools with a sample of your argumentative writing and critical thinking skills.

The writing task takes 50 minutes (15 minutes for prewriting analysis and 35 minutes for essay writing).

The LSAT is scored on a scale from 120 to 180.

The average LSAT range is between 150 to 160, but for most law schools you’ll want a stronger score in order to be a competitive applicant, even though some schools are LSAT-optional and most law schools in Canada do not have a minimum LSAT score requirement.

A good LSAT score is 165 or higher. To be a top applicant at leading law schools in Canada strive to earn an LSAT score above 170.

Step 3: Earn a Law Degree (JD)

Before you can become a lawyer in Canada, you’ll need to earn a law degree — a JD (Juris Doctor) degree — unless you’ve already earned an equivalent degree, like the LLB, in another country, or you’ve already earned a JD in the US system.

The JD Degree

While the JD is typically considered a graduate degree in the US system, it is an undergraduate program in the Canadian system, even though you need to earn a bachelor’s beforehand.

The JD curriculum takes about 3 years and is designed to give students a solid foundation in principal areas of law and law practice, along with opportunities to take more specialized or advanced courses in topics students want to specialize in professionally.

Other law degrees — beyond the JD — that you can aspire to in Canada include:

• LLM (Master of Laws): Provides an avenue for intensive, specialized coursework that can help you enhance your expertise in specific areas of law or equip you for additional career opportunities
• SJD (Doctor of Juridical Sciences): This degree is an academic, research-intensive doctoral program for advanced theoretical or historical inquiry in the law field and for training and preparation to work in academia — as a faculty member of a law school, for example, or in advanced research roles in the private or public sectors.

You’ll find other degree pathways as well at some Canadian universities, such as combined degree programs, like JD/MA or JD/PhD or an academic masters in law, among others.

As you can see, Canada offers students many excellent law programs to consider across diverse provinces.

Here are the significant criteria for admissions to the leading Canadian law schools:

• GPA or CGPA
• LSAT Score (typically recommended, but not required by all of the leading universities)
• Personal Statement
• Additional Reflective Essays

Your JD Journey

Once you get over the hurdle of applying to law school and decide which law school to attend, you’ll be embarking on an intensive and stimulating quest for law knowledge!

Here’s a snapshot of the three-year curriculum path for obtaining a JD, a requirement for becoming a lawyer in Canada:

Year 1:

• Take foundational courses in key areas of law, such as contracts, torts, criminal law, constitutional law, property law, and more.
• Learn “how to think like lawyers do” as you study case law, legal research and writing, and so forth.
• Take part in relevant extracurricular activities or student-led clubs, or volunteer at a nonprofit organization or legal clinic.

Year 2:

• Take more advanced courses and electives in areas of interest and chosen specialization.
• Participate in moot trial activities (mock trials).
• Decide what type of law you want to specialize in before your third year, or sooner.

Year 3:

• Take additional specialized courses.
• Do specialized research in your area of specialization.
• Take on more prominent extracurricular roles in leadership, research, and writing or advocacy, such as in clubs, committees, with law or public policy journals, with public policy or nonprofit organizations or think tanks.
• Begin preparing for professional training (see Step 4 below).

Step 4: Complete Professional Training, Licensing Examinations, and Articling

After powering through law school, there are another few hurdles to clear. These make up Step 4:

Bar Admissions Courses and Licensing Exams

Typically consists of legal training study in the form of specified training courses or modules and licensing examinations, but durations and specific study and examination formats and requirements vary by the province or jurisdiction where you plan to apply to admission to the bar.

Articling

Before or after the professional course training and examinations, you’ll need to also complete articling — a kind of workplace apprenticeship — in a law firm or other legal workplace in order to get exposure to a range of real-life workplace duties and responsibilities, but under the guidance and supervision of a professional lawyer.

Admission to the Bar

After these components are completed, you’ll be ready to submit a comprehensive application that may include satisfying Good Character or Moral Fitness standards required for law licensing by the governing board in your province.

Specific Requirements Vary by Province

In all provinces, Step 4 involves licensing exam preparation, examinations themselves, and articling, but formats and durations vary from province to province. So your specific requirements will depend on the province or jurisdiction where you plan to apply for your law license.

The requirements for British Columbia (the Law Society of British Columbia) are broadly representative of the kinds of activities you’ll do in Step 4, your last step to becoming a lawyer in Canada. So, let's see what's required in British Columbia as an example:

• Complete 9 months of articling (working with supervision, full-time and continuously for nine months
• Complete a 10-week Professional Legal Training Course (PLTC).
• Pass two qualifying examinations covering the PLTC Practice Material — which covers some 10 different areas of law practice, such as civil litigation, family law, criminal procedure, commercial law, wills, real estate law, professional ethics, and more.

Remember, the content of study, the exam topics and exam formats, and articling requirements all vary from province to province, and those outlined above are just one example.

This is one more reason why it’s important to understand and stay up to date with the specific licensing requirements and provisions in the province, territory, or jurisdiction where you want to gain admission to the bar and practice law.

Bar Admissions

Upon finishing your articling and occupational training and examinations, you’ll be ready to apply for your law license and become a bona fide practicing lawyer in your selected province.

Alternative Pathways

For non-traditional law licensing pathways, reputable sources of information are the Federation of Law Societies of Canada and the National Committee on Accreditation (NCA).

If you fit any of the profiles below, it’s likely your steps to becoming a lawyer will be guided and governed by the NCA:

• You have a Canadian law degree but need additional steps to practice law in a different Canadian province, territory, or jurisdiction
• You studied law or are licensed in law from an outside country and want to study law or practice law in Canada
• You have plans to practice law in a Canadian common law province or territory but want to study law abroad

NCA has pathways for international students — including those still living abroad — to apply for and take bar examinations that qualify you for future admission to the bar in Canada.

NCA also connects students or lawyers from abroad with resources for required study programs and other steps for qualifying to practice law in Canada and applying for a law license to do so.

If you’re wondering what steps will be required for your individual alternative pathway, the NCA's uniform assessment process is designed to help.

The NCA Candidate Assessment

This assessment reviews your present academic and professional achievements and experiences and identifies any gaps between your current experiences and those you’d obtain from an approved Canadian law school program. With this in mind, the NCA then assigns relevant study or examination requirements for filling those gaps. The NCA also guides you with referrals to resources and courses that will help you reach your goal.

Final Thoughts

Becoming a lawyer requires time and perseverance but allows you to develop both expertise in law along with valuable transferable skills that can equip you for wider ranging careers, in public policy analysis and advocacy, public relations work, business, HR, and other consulting and advising roles.

However, to reap the most benefits, you'll want to be sure to anticipate, plan for, and excel in each step of your journey to becoming a lawyer.

From preparing to be a top applicant at the best law schools to making the most of your law program and law apprenticeship, excelling in each step will help you advance with more confidence and no doubt more success and satisfaction as well.

One surefire way to make the most out of the effort you put into becoming a lawyer is to get connected with our transformative law school admissions advisory services. You’ll get exceptional support from team members with their own impressive academic and law credentials and ready to help you achieve beyond your expectations.

Why not start working with an advisor today — one keen to learn about your law school dreams and help you map out a highly personalized roadmap for achieving your goals of getting a law degree from one of Canada’s top law schools.