The Canadian Centre for Professional Legal Education (CPLED) is committed to continuously enhancing and evolving the Practice Readiness Education Program (PREP) to be recognized as a “best-in-class” Bar admission program. To achieve this, CPLED is engaging with key stakeholders to gather information on potential skill gaps experienced by lawyers who have been called to the Bar in the last five years. CPLED has contracted ACT to facilitate and analyze the feedback received to provide a report that CPLED will use to update PREP for implementation in their Summer 2024 program.

On behalf of CPLED, ACT will conduct a series of virtual focus groups with lawyers from participating jurisdictions (Alberta, Manitoba, Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, Nunavut and Saskatchewan) who have been called to the Bar in the past five years, Principals and firm articling supervisors. The focus groups will be 90-minutes and take place in June of 2022. During the sessions, participants will have the opportunity to share their perspectives on PREP and the competencies necessary for success in early practice.

If you are interested in participating, please fill out a brief survey by Wednesday, May 25, 2022. The information provided will be used by ACT only to coordinate the virtual focus groups. The data will not be shared with CPLED. Due to limited capacity, ACT will notify individuals by Friday, May 27, with details for their participation. Care will be taken to balance representation in practice settings, professional backgrounds, and demographic characteristics.

About ACT

ACT is a mission-driven, non-profit organization with a 60+ year history of helping people achieve education and workplace success. Their expertise is in research to identify and validate the knowledge, skills and attributes essential for success in job roles or professions. Recent engagements include work with the Federation of Law Societies of Canada and the Law Society of Alberta.

Privacy considerations

The focus groups will be recorded for information gathering purposes. ACT will not share the recordings with CPLED, and the audio files will be deleted within a month of the meeting date.

In addition, all feedback obtained will be anonymized in the final report.

Reach out to Dr. Patricia Muenzen at patricia.muenzen@act.org with any questions.