Putting Law Into Practice

Legal training at universities has changed very little over the past century. While degrees equip aspiring lawyers with a deep understanding of the intricacies of the law, law school does not always nurture the holistic set of skills that successful legal professionals need to apply in daily practice.

The Canadian Centre for Professional Legal Education (CPLED) is dedicated to helping bright minds in Alberta, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, and Saskatchewan successfully complete the Bar admission program and become practicing lawyers.

To achieve this mission, CPLED helps recent law graduates develop the practical knowledge, communication skills, and emotional intelligence required to thrive through its accredited Practice Readiness Education Program (PREP).

Andrea Rodic, program manager at CPLED, explains: “Rather than taking an exam, prospective lawyers in the four jurisdictions we represent must complete an articling requirement, which includes working for a firm for up to a year while completing PREP. PREP is designed to help students grow and develop throughout this articling term.”

Before the outbreak of the global coronavirus pandemic, PREP included a mix of online learning, in-person training, and workshops. When the Canadian and Provincial governments put strict measures in place to curb the spread of COVID-19, CPLED decided to deliver all phases of PREP online, which meant it needed to move existing program elements into an online environment as quickly as possible.

Carly Thompson, communications advisor at CPLED, comments: “During the development of PREP, we researched and took the time to invest in technology to be able to deliver phases of the program online. It was time-consuming to explore and invest in the technology, but we believe this investment was worth it as it helped us create an exceptional program and allowed us to shift to a fully online program during COVID. We were able to work on refining the use of technology in PREP to provide students with an engaging and interactive online educational program instead of scrambling to figure out what we were going to do now that social distancing is a way of life.” READ THE ARTICLE…