The Law Society of Ontario began consultations on plans to reform its licensing process in September.Sammy Kogan/The Globe and Mail
Ontario Attorney-General Doug Downey has come out against a proposal to eliminate the province’s bar exam for aspiring lawyers and replace it with a course-based licensing process.
In a statement posted Monday on X, Mr. Downey wrote: “An objective, written and rigorous test is an important part of proving new lawyers are ready to practise law. Any changes that water down standards by scrapping written exams simply aren’t acceptable.”
In a follow-up interview, Mr. Downey told The Globe and Mail that he isn’t opposed to the idea of sending law school graduates through additional courses before they are licensed. But, he added, there should still be an exam at the end of that process with clear, right and wrong answers. This is in contrast to other models under consideration, in which a trained lawyer would conduct evaluations, introducing the potential for subjectivity.
Law Society of Ontario considers replacing bar exam with skills-based course
When Mr. Downey was a young law school graduate, Ontario’s licensing program required candidates to go through a series of courses, but each section ended with a written exam.
About 20 years ago, Ontario transitioned to an exam-alone process. And for much of that time, questions have persisted about whether this is the most effective way to evaluate whether a candidate is actually ready to practise law.
In September, the Law Society of Ontario began consultations on plans to reform its licensing process, including a proposal that would see the bar exam replaced with a skills-based course. The move is in response to a number of concerns, including the fact the current, time-constrained bar can be “extremely stressful” and does a poor job of assessing legal competency, according to a law society report.
A growing number of provinces have already moved to a course-based licensing process, including Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Most jurisdictions that have moved away from the test-only process use a skills program called the Practice Readiness Education Program (PREP) from the Canadian Centre for Professional Legal Education (CPLED). In October, British Columbia announced it would be adopting the PREP course as well.
Liza Worthington, the CPLED’s chief executive officer, said the PREP system works with four modules. The first one involves foundational principles, such as ethics, practice management, legal research, oral advocacy and legal drafting. The next module workshops those ideas. The third is a “virtual law firm,” where students run simulations of real-life scenarios, such as client interviews, negotiations and court applications. And the final component is the “Capstone Evaluation,” in which students are tested on various skills by a trained evaluator who is also a lawyer.
But some in the legal profession have expressed concern that bringing a human into the evaluation process introduces subjectivity, potentially making it easier to pass and become licensed.
The Attorney-General expressed similar concerns.
“The job of the law society is to protect the public, not to promote lawyers,” Mr. Downey said. “So in their job, they need to make sure they have objective standards for admitting people to the bar.”
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Atrisha Lewis, the chair of the professional development and competence committee at the Law Society of Ontario, told The Globe that the goal is not to lower the standard.
The concern is that the current licensing process never tests core aspects of the job, such as an aspiring lawyer’s oral advocacy skills or their ability to draft a legal opinion. Ontario’s bar exam is a multiple-choice, open-book test, in which students are able to bring in study aides such as detailed indexes of the legal texts. Ms. Lewis said that means success can be more about whether someone has a good index than whether they know the material.
She stressed that in any course-based system, candidates would still be tested – just not necessarily in the form of a sit-down, multiple-choice test.
Consultations on the proposal are expected to wrap up in January, and the law society’s professional development and competence committee hopes to report back later in 2026.