 Hi guys welcome back to my youtube channel so I am so grateful to you guys that you guys are liking it, appreciating it and motivating me to put such more real insight. I am glad that today we are going to have a discussion on the Law Practice Program and the Law Practice Program is offered by the Ryerson University for all the candidates who are going to become lawyer in Ontario or who are going to immigrate to Ontario Lawyer or whatever your status may be but this is specifically to Ontario Lawyers. So this is like a substitute to Articuling which is offered by the Ryerson University in collaboration with the Law Society of Ontario when the process starts after you have enrolled with the Laws Licensing Candidate with the Law Society of Ontario and once you are done that then you can you know choose that you want to get your Articuling Exempted or you want to do your traditional way of Articuling or you can do the LPP so there are three options for you. So now we are today in discussion with Dragof Gen he is currently an LPP Candidate and a very cool guy who is very active with all the networking in downtown. So I am you know I am going to share some insights with you he is going to share some insights with you. I also did LPP back in 2018-19 it is an 8 month course and I hope that you get the real market, real picture and if you do then you know what to do you have to hit the like button because it makes the video recommending and then we can create more awareness by that and you can share and subscribe and do whatever you feel like so let's start. Hi Raghav. Hi Shireen how are you? I am good how are you? Good thank you. Raghav so I know about you but I want you to introduce yourself to my audience people who are listening to you and just give a brief about yourself. So I am a licensed lawyer from India I completed my LLB from Punjabi University in 2016 and I began writing the NCA's from 2017-2018. I began to write the bar examination of the Law Society of Ontario in 2019 and I finished my LPP this year and I should get called to the bar in Ontario by September this year. Okay that's great. So now you can start by telling us what is the Law Practice Program at what stage did you enroll yourself with the LPP. I have also done it but I want you to explain everybody the insights since you are an LPP candidate right now. So the LPP is an alternate pathway to getting licensed in Ontario. There are two ways to finish your training component in Ontario. You basically embark on this journey once you have finished your NCA's which is the National Committee on Apparition Examination and interestingly the LPP is only unique to Ontario. It's one of the kind program in Canada and residents of Canada or even any other resident worldwide who has a law degree can enroll into this program. This program began initially in 2014. The brain behind this program was Mr. Chris Bentley who is a former Attorney General of Ontario and that was his brainchild and throughout from 2014 to 2020 the LPP has gone through a lot of ups and downs. The Law Society of Ontario was not in favour of the LPP initially but the LPP did get a lot of support from the Ontario Bar Association and each year they would hold a particular analysis and assessment of how the LPP is doing. I'm just going to rewind a bit for your viewers Shereen right now just to tell the people as to why there was even a need for the LPP in the first place. Up to 2014 what was happening in Ontario is that the number of law graduates was increasing exponentially but the number of article positions at law firms were not increasing that much because of which a lot of law students would miss out on their articleing opportunities which would potentially lead to a year and Mr. Bentley saw this as a chronic problem and given the fact that our province in fact Canada in particular is committed to providing access to justice and which is why in order to fulfil that purpose we do need more lawyers out there right and which is why Mr. Bentley embarked on this program the LPP and in the first few years there was remarkable feedback from people with respect to the quality of candidates that were being produced in this program as a result of which these traditional articleing people they started like okay so what's wrong like they're all like oh we are the best like this is the second year and people started looking down upon the LPP that whoever could not secure traditional articleing went down to secure the LPP and the LPP does not have any fixed number that only that's a 50-60 people can do the LPP it's indefinitely whoever cannot secure traditional articleing you're all welcome in the LPP yeah brief history I wanted to share now I'm just gonna share what the LPP is with people it essentially is composed of two segments a training component of four months and a work component of four months which is a total of eight months and you end up saving two months on traditional articleing so now I'm gonna just stress a bit on what exactly each component is yeah the the training component essentially the LPP team would divide all the candidates into virtual law firms into groups of three or four people we have a real-life mentor who evaluates all our assignments and gives us feedback so a typical day in the LPP would be like you wake up at eight o'clock and you would be having your morning assignment you're just working from home pretty much like what the world is doing during this pandemic I think there's someone in an emergency but I think we just wait for that siren to go off yeah we good now so I was telling you about the the mentors in an LPP so yes so I wanted to you wake up at eight you get a morning assignment and you get pre-decided deadlines as to when it's supposed to be done the LPP makes you work in a virtual office there is a particular website that will be provided each person has an account you are connected to all the other people in the LPP in the LPP through that website on that website itself you have a separate component for the firm's legal resources and there's a particular component for you know the assignments that you that you will be submitting and those are called deliverables as far as the firm's resources are concerned practice areas that a person would be getting acquainted to which I've written a law civil litigation real estate Wilson estates business law administrative law immigration law and immigration law yes yes yes so in those firms resources you will find lots of precedents checklists even videos which have been recorded from top experts in those particular fields in Ontario and based on those videos and precedents and other texts available we are supposed to be working on assignments and based on those assignments we will be graded at the end of four months it's very critical that a person finishes their training component and qualifies all the parameters and expectations that are required for the candidate otherwise you will not be permitted to move on to the work component and while the training component is on we are simultaneously filing applications to work placements in the LPP and each day is very different you you you wake up and you have to talk at your time every day in the firm's resources there are links to the software that you would be using in the LPP Leo is one of those softwares which we use for docketing our time and and besides Leo you will also be getting acquainted with legal research softwares like we'll let Lexis nexus and so you will be imbibing all the skills that are necessary to become licensed in Ontario and those skills include professionalism and ethics analytical skills research oral and reconditioning communication skills client management and practice management and I must also categorically mention that one of the few things that the LPP gives us is client exposure we interview clients through an online software remotely and those clients actually actors and they it's all a script and we need to question them and accordingly we build our case we build a client twice and accordingly the rest of the LPP keeps on snowballing from there so it's very organic the way the LPP teaches you step by step and as you go forward you become more confident so basically that was about the training component so what about your work component how was your full work placement and what was your experience in the work placement also if you could just in this question only if you could just tell us that are the chances that that work placement becomes a permanent placement or does it only stay for four months right so there is a lot of competition in securing the best placement that you want because there is a good candidate who will high quality candidate who will be in the LPP and it's very tough to secure a placement in your area of interest so I encourage everyone to be very open and apply widely when they do and not be short-sighted and the skills that I learned during the training component were very very helpful while working at my work placement I ended up in real estate I was never inclined towards real estate at all in fact I was quite scared of it because I did not do very well in my solicitor examination previously and now it's actually going to helping me the LPP was very instrumental in clearing my basics and building that foundation which gave me the impetus to perform well during my placement and now when I will be writing my bar exam this June I feel much more confident that I will be able to crack it this time so yes the work placement was very helpful I have also been very fortunate that my employer extended my work placement in fact I encourage everyone to perform to the best of their ability during the work placement because this is your first and only chance in Ontario the moment you come here to create an impression impress your employer because you do not know if that employer can refer you to someone later and you do not know if that employer will be able to hire you back so it's very important that no matter where you get placed whether it's in your area of interest or not you give a 100% every day and the kind of pay that is that people can expect is variable there have been placements in the past where people were free they were not quite happy there have been placements in the past which went to as high 6400 dollars a month per TD so there is a whole variety and it's only as good as you are you will be getting that placement but I also want to mention at the point that the there's a petition pending in front of the laws I do want to argue right now to make pay mandatory for our technical students I don't know what's going to happen with that but let's see and also the LPP has been extended for another five years so congratulations everyone so one more thing that how difficult as a foreign trained lawyer you think is to get a work placement of your choice because I have also done LPP and in my opinion I would like to say that it was not that easy but it was not that difficult as well it was somewhere in between but it was not easy for sure because I had to you know send my CVs everywhere and apply widely I was very certain since the beginning which area I wanted to get into with each passing week and month I became more and more disappointed and getting one more disenchanted with my expectations because I just wouldn't get an interview call because the pool was so diverse and high quality but there is you can say there is a kind of preference towards Canadian graduates from what I felt yeah very difficult to convince someone over here that you have graduated from a very good university of course they will give preference to a candidate who has started from a Canadian university because who knows about our standards they have no idea they have no way to gauge what quality of law did we study so yes I encourage everyone to you know but if you have some work experience from your home country it does really matter while applying for a work placement okay and Raghav if you can throw some light on the fee structure for the law practice program I clearly don't remember but I would like you suggest something right so last year it was 2800 dollars plus HSE which is about three one six four dollars they may increase this year who knows but yeah it's just an estimate it will be more than three thousand dollars which is fair enough I believe because in three thousand dollars you are getting such practical experience and you know which is very helpful even today when I use Cleo or other softwares that I thank the LBB because the training component taught you a lot it's a massive bargain just to give some context to your viewers about the kind of expenditure people make over here for law an LLM at University of Toronto or York University would cost you 40,000 dollars for just a year at York University a specialized certificate for five days is just four thousand dollars if you compare those things with what the LBP is going to you three thousand dollars that's a steal right away so Raghav has a last recommendation can you suggest which people should do it like who should do it and who should not do it I mostly feel that everybody should do the LPP and that is also the opinion of a former attorney general of Ontario not naming him but he said that in public that in fact he was in favour of disbanding the entire article in program the traditional article in program and making everyone go through an LBP such is the chorus you know of the crowd and especially in the Ontario Bar Association people are very much in favour of the LBP so once I have a question who should be doing this I think everyone but I know there are certain people who want to you know just skip this whole training phase by getting their article of the regiment well you will end up saving eight months good for you but as soon as you enter the job market you just not trained in Canadian standards I mean how will you perform and as a lawyer you need insurance lawful insurance and if you you know mess up it's very bad it's gonna be bad to the extent that it's gonna your record is going to be public but I do want to see on the law side your website so you know it's better to train yourself get trained get a acquainted with the legal skills the kind of you know work that is expected of you and you know then go out of the profession like why just jump the gun I mean that's my personal opinion if people think that they are highly qualified and confident then you know go yeah I am also the opinion that if you have a practical experience in a law firm with the law as a law clerk or legal assistant that also gives you an edge so people who have like I took this interview of sorrow he is he's he was working as a law clerk and he got his article in exempted but the whole law clerk experience in a form gave him an edge to clear his bar exams and also he thought that he had met that kind of Canadian standard right so I think it is person to person for sure it is a very subjective thing but yeah LPP is for for that matter you're right for practical experience it's too good with hands-on experience thank you so much for the whole insight that you've given us about the law practice program I am sure the viewers maybe you know somebody get influenced and join the LPP or people who are who are asking me also about the LPP so also one thing I would like to clarify is that you can give do the LPP even before your bar exams yeah and you can do it even after your bar exam so there's no such a mandatory rule that you have to do it primarily alright thank you Raghav if you are last words you can share I would just encourage everyone to give their best in this program and extract the most that they can and it is often said that the LPP is only as valuable as the effort that you put in so just make the maximum use of the resources that are there at a disposal so guys I hope this whole thing was useful for you if you have any other query question or concern regarding the LPP put in the comment section I can address all of them also I would before I go I would like to say that in the future I'm going to very near future maybe I'm going to interview a very successful and accomplished lawyer here in Ontario she's also a Canadian law tutor like she teaches the barister for the bar exams of Ontario so I hope you stay tuned and subscribe to my channel bye bye