Providing students and firms greater flexibility

The Canadian Centre for Professional Legal Education (CPLED) received feedback from students of the challenges they experienced balancing competing priorities between their Bar admission program and their articles. To address this concern and offer students and firms greater flexibility in selecting the program delivery style that best suits their needs, CPLED is adding a full-time version of the Practice Readiness Education Program (PREP), called Accelerated PREP. Accelerated PREP is not replacing the nine-month program; it is an additional program intake.

Accelerated PREP is an online full-time 14-week compressed version of PREP. The program demands students to dedicate a full day (seven and a half hours) of study, five days a week. Due to the program’s fast-paced nature and heavy workload, firms should not assign work while students complete the program; it also does not allow time for students to go on vacation while enrolled.

CPLED first offered Accelerated PREP during the summer of 2021 to a small cohort of students. Firms reported that students who participated in the inaugural offering arrived prepared and confident on day one of their articles. After the successful inaugural offering of Accelerated PREP, CPLED is offering a soft launch of the program, with cohorts across all CPLED jurisdictions in the summer of 2022. As part of CPLED’s commitment to excellence, it will limit Accelerated PREP registration this year, allowing for the delivery of a high-quality program that meets the needs and expectations of our stakeholders.

The 2022 Accelerated PREP will begin on May 30, 2022, and conclude on September 2, 2022. Registration will open at cpled.ca on Wednesday, April 20, 2022, with limited enrolment, and it will operate on a first-come, first-served basis. To promote a fair and transparent registration process, CPLED will not hold enrolment spaces for firms or students. More information about the program and the registration process will be available on the CPLED website in the coming weeks.