Every year, Canada increases its annual immigrant intake, with plans to allow 1.2 million (12 lakh) newcomers into the country over the next two years until 2025. Its steady economic growth and easy immigration process have made Canada an ideal destination for immigrants looking to permanently settle abroad.
Canada also offers top-notch job opportunities, a world-class education system, and a high standard of living. Attracting thousands of skilled international workers, its unemployment rate as of July 2022 was just 4.9 percent, the lowest since comparable record-keeping began in 1976, according to a Statistics Canada labour force survey report.
The unemployment rate actually held steady at 5 percent in February 2023, despite market forecasts of 5.1 percent. Wage growth rate has also been steady, with average hourly wages rising 5.2 percent year on year.
Where does a foreign-trained lawyer fit into the scheme of things? According to the immigration website Arrive, the average salaries for lawyers in Canada vary by province. According to the Government of Canada’s Job Bank, lawyers in Canada earn a median salary of USD 116,940 (INR 97 lakh approx) per annum. Median salaries are highest in the provinces of Alberta (USD 140,808), Ontario (USD 131,654), and Newfoundland Labrador (USD 131,203).
According to a few other sources, the starting salary for a lawyer in Canada is CAD 72,000 (INR 44 lakh approx) a year.
Of course, that alone cannot be a deciding factor for a permanent shift to Canada, though it may act as a motivator. So here are a few other factors that might help you make up your mind.
The legal profession in Canada
Law is seen as one of Canada’s top occupations in the foreseeable future. In other words, a sunrise industry. Canada provides multiple career opportunities in different fields of law, and these opportunities are growing, thanks to a shortage of lawyers. Which means that lawyers in all categories, ranging from corporate to criminal law, are in high demand.
Across segments, here are some of the potential employers:
- Solo practice
- Micro and small-scale companies
- Large regional or domestic companies
- Large and multi-legal companies
- In-house counsel and attorneys
- Governments as well as NGOs
What is the actual demand like?
Just run a random Google search, as we did, and pick any job portal offering openings for lawyers in Canada. We found 813 lawyer jobs on Glassdoor alone (accessed March 18, 2023), while the Canadian Bar Association’s Legal Career Centre job board advertises vacancies ranging from Research and Policy Compliance Officer to Bilingual Digital Content Creator.
Likewise, Indeed lists over 1,000 jobs for lawyers in Canada, of which 230-plus are remote jobs.
A search on LinkedIn or similar portals paints a similar picture. On yet another portal, we found offers for such professionals as a Business Immigration Lawyer, whose job will be to support clients “in immigration program management and compliance”, and “assessing eligibility of corporate foreign national employees for non-immigrant and immigrant visa status in Canada”.
Not to stretch the point too much, the bottomline is that jobs for lawyers in Canada are plentiful and varied, and your decision to shift base is likely to pay rich dividends.
The NCA factor
To practice in Canada as a non-Canadian lawyer, you have to pass the National Committee of Accreditation (NCA) exams, so that you will be considered at par with law graduates in Canada. You can write the NCA exam sitting in India in fact!
Studying law in Canada can be expensive, and graduates from any field would require three or four years to do a Juris Doctor (JD) programme in Canada, so not the best idea to start studying law there if you already have a law degree in India.
If you are not a graduate already, you can’t do a JD program in Canada anyway.
It may be possible to appear in bar exams after getting an LLM degree in Canada, but that is still a more expensive path full of uncertainties.
In short, for Indian lawyers, it’s easy to get NCA qualification rather than acquiring a law degree in Canada.
After you clear the NCA exam, you are treated at par with Canadian law grads. Without doing any more studies in Canada at all!
After qualifying the NCA exam, you must pass the official bar examination in the Canadian province of your choice to become a legal practitioner. Ontario is the most common choice for Indian lawyers looking to practice in Canada.
I will go into details about the exams and their eligibility criteria in separate emails, but suffice it to say that the NCA assesses law qualifications earned from outside Canada and offers foreign lawyers the ability to speed up their career goal to become a qualified lawyer in Canada.
So how do you go about preparing for the NCA exams? For a detailed, comprehensive answer, all you need to do is attend our LIVE, FREE and online bootcamp on ‘NCA Exam for Indian Lawyers & Law Students who want to Practise in Canada – How to Prepare?’, from March 25-27, 6.00-9.00 pm IST daily.
In fact, I would recommend the bootcamp for lawyers who are migrating to Canada, law graduates who intend to do an LL.M. from Canada, and lawyers whose law firm or company is sponsoring their work visa in Canada, so see you there.
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