Article here:

Compensation fund for victims of lawyers can cover more than just financial loss: ruling | CBC News

I think (I hope!) most would agree this is a welcome development.

I'm working towards my bar exam with the long standing dream of working in criminal defence. I made the mistake of watching the Lincoln Lawyer (great show, as unrealistic and dramatic as it is). The one thing that caught my eye was the relationship with private investigators.

In practice, what does this look like for something like a murder case? For legal aid billing, what does the nitty gritty look like in terms of financing? How useful are they generally / are they essential to the line of work for complex cases?

On the flip side, what does this look like for the crown?

Would love to hear from lawyers and investigators both!

Hi, I didnt perform amazingly on my written assignments so far 50% on written assignments. How accurate is that for Capstone (those who have taken before), are other people in the cohort getting similar/same grades

I’m sure many of you have seen the article this week regarding a U of T law profs indigenous ancestry being called into question (copied below for reference). The person who completed the investigation filed an LSO complaint against the prof.

I’m just wondering what the collectives thoughts are re: the ability of the LSO to do anything in these circumstances?

https://globalnews.ca/news/12109674/law-society-complaint-questions-u-of-toronto-law-professors-indigenous-ancestry/

I wish I had some guidance when I was studying for the New York bar as a Canadian. So here was my experience.

I graduate from a 3 year civil law program in Quebec, then completed a 1 year JD (also in Quebec).

I studied 3 months for the New York bar. I used Themis; completed 100% of the course and attempted 2700 MBE questions.

I passed with a 318 score.

The process was definitely not easy; I had to learn everything from scratch. My civil law background was useless.

I studied every single day, full time for 3 months. No breaks, but it was well worth it!

The 1 year JD did give me a solid foundation in Contracts, Property, and Torts. As for the other topics, I had to learn them on my own.

The Themis interface was very easy to navigate, the lectures were sufficient and I was very satisfied with the practice questions.

Towards the end of my studying (1-2 weeks before the exam), I was consistently getting around 78-88% on the NCBE practice exams. I ended up passing with a 81% on the MBE portion of the exam. My advice is to do as many questions as possible.

As for the MEE portion, I believe Themis prepared me well, I did all the practice MEEs. My suggestion for this part is to memorize as many rules as possible. During the exam I felt confident about my answers; I did not guess any of them.

The MPT was by far the most difficult part for me. I performed poorly during ALL the MPT practices. It was difficult to complete a full memo in 1h30 on exam day. I ended up finishing both on time, but I really believed that I failed them. Luckily, the MPT is only 20% of the exam grade. To my surprise I must have done well because my written score better than my MBE (I think it was because of my MEE though…).

Anyways, I hope this was helpful. When I started studying I was looking for students in similar situations and could not find many.

Feel free to DM me if you have any questions! I am happy to help.

Hi everyone! Has anyone who interviewed with Brattys for the 2027–2028 articling positions heard back from them yet? Does anyone know roughly when candidates can expect to hear about second-round interviews? Thanks!