Qualification in other jurisdictions– international benchmarking

September 2016

Introduction

Purpose of exercise

In order to provide points of comparison when developing our proposed routes to qualification, we have benchmarked relevant overseas jurisdictions to establish common international practice.

Key findings

The key findings of the exercise are:

• centralised assessment is commonly used
• a five to six year qualification route is most common
• a law degree is needed to qualify as a lawyer in most other jurisdictions.

We surveyed the following jurisdictions. They represent a range of jurisdictions (both EU and non-EU) and both civil and common law jurisdictions.

• Australia - New South Wales and Victoria*
• Canada** - British Columbia
• Canada** - Ontario
• France
• Germany
• Hong Kong
• Italy
• India
• New Zealand
• Nigeria
• Pakistan
• Poland
• Singapore
• Spain
• South Africa
• United Kingdom - Scotland
• United States - California
• United States - New York

* They now form one regulatory regime under Australian Legal Profession Uniform Law 2015.

** There is a mobility agreement across Canadian jurisdictions which means that any qualification benchmarked against these jurisdictions is acceptable across Canada.

The document is separated into two parts:

• Part A: benchmarks assessment routes.
• Part B: looks at the potential impacts of our proposed routes to qualification in other jurisdictions.