My comment was specifically about the career prospects of an NCA lawyer and not about the desirability of immigrating to Canada. BigLaw avoids hiring NCA lawyers, for multiple reasons, most of which are intuitive. The reasons are as follow:
-Domestic students from Canada opting for foreign degrees are usually those who cannot make it to a Canadian Law School, thus raising doubts about the competency of those who do not have non Canadian legal education in general. Is it fair? Probably not, but when you consider the fact that Australian unis like Bond have courses designed specifically for Canadian students who cannot make it into a law school there makes it justifiably suspect in the eyes of employers.
-Lack of familiarity with Indian Legal Education. This one should be fairly self-explanatory. Employers in Canada do not know anything about legal education in India. They cannot differentiate NLS from LPU, and you could see why that would reduce the employability of NCA lawyers in Canada.
-Lack of access to the formal hiring system. Most Canadian firms offer articling contracts to their 2L Summer Students. If you are out of this system of hiring, your opportunities reduce drastically, simply because firms wish to hire the best talent straight out of law school and fill all their slots accordingly.
Now, am I saying no one with an Indian Legal Education and with NCA Status has ever made a good career for themselves in Big Law? Absolutely not. The odds, however, are stacked against you, especially in the absence of any local contacts who can vouch for you. The high levels of immigration into Canada by lawyers in private practice from India has virtually made it impossible for firms to screen good candidates from bad ones, and so if you are sure about wanting to live in Canada, I would stick to my advice of getting a JD.
Sorry for any grammatical mistakes and hope this post is of some help.
a) This can be done via pursuing a JD at A Canadian institution. LSAT + CGPA + writing samples + LoRs are needed.
b) Alternatively, you may gain equivalency via NCA. They will ask you to clear additional exams specific to Canadian set up. You'll have to do atleast four. You may do these while in India itself.
2. Thereafter, you'll need to clear the Bar exam. There is a separate exam for barristers and solicitors.
3. Finally, you'll need to take up articleshow Canada. This is easiest to get if you studied at a Canadian institution.
...
Now regarding your specific question. You can not practice law in Canada after a LLM.
However, certain schools (UBC, UoT, Osgoode) have now begun offering Professional LLMs for foreign trained lawyers. These serve as fulfilling NCA equivalency requirements. So, you could go the PRO-LLM + Bar + Articleship route. It is absolutely possible for one to get into a top law firm via this method as well.
I once did back-of-the-envelope calculations when I was still in college and realised that the fees from the students just about covered the salary of the professors and not much was left for capital and non-recurring expenditures.
So, I did a quick google search (it took 5 minutes - and yes, I am free right now) and the numbers are all publicly available.
The college even today hardly has any money left after paying its staff. It weirdly takes pride in not receiving any "maintaining expenditure" from the UGC [see Para 19 of this judgment: https://indiankanoon.org/doc/180877490/]. I checked the latest budget and the difference between the income from the fees charged to the students minus salary of staff and utilities (water + electricity + internet) is ~INR 75L - that's not much for an institution and certainty leaves little for capital expenditure. I am not even accounting for the many other expenditures which would naturally arise. Another interesting piece is the absence of interest payments - which would indicate that the college didn't build its infrastructure by taking credit / loans.
The newer buildings: the moot court hall, auditorium, library, administrative block, second mess, badminton court, etc., the college couldn't have constructed them without Government / UGC grants. The grants released by the UGC are also publicly available. The annual reports for 2011-2012 and 2013-14 set out the amounts released to the college by the UGC - I reckon a fair amount of the newer construction took place from these grants.
So, you see, your education is also being subsidized by the Government.
If anything this is unfair, given that the typical student profile in most National Law Universities is upper middle class and upper class. The annual per capita income (accounting for the Indian billionaires) is INR 1.25L - and 99% of the students of NLUs can afford 1.25L, either directly or by accessing credit. I would reckon (and this is an admittedly anecdotal guess) 90% of the students spent more money in a year than the annual per capita income.
Hey, was just wondering about the avenues that are available to Indian lawyers to move out of the country after graduation. I'm aware of the Magic Circle route, but could someone please throw some light on the other routes?
-Domestic students from Canada opting for foreign degrees are usually those who cannot make it to a Canadian Law School, thus raising doubts about the competency of those who do not have non Canadian legal education in general. Is it fair? Probably not, but when you consider the fact that Australian unis like Bond have courses designed specifically for Canadian students who cannot make it into a law school there makes it justifiably suspect in the eyes of employers.
-Lack of familiarity with Indian Legal Education. This one should be fairly self-explanatory. Employers in Canada do not know anything about legal education in India. They cannot differentiate NLS from LPU, and you could see why that would reduce the employability of NCA lawyers in Canada.
-Lack of access to the formal hiring system. Most Canadian firms offer articling contracts to their 2L Summer Students. If you are out of this system of hiring, your opportunities reduce drastically, simply because firms wish to hire the best talent straight out of law school and fill all their slots accordingly.
Now, am I saying no one with an Indian Legal Education and with NCA Status has ever made a good career for themselves in Big Law? Absolutely not. The odds, however, are stacked against you, especially in the absence of any local contacts who can vouch for you. The high levels of immigration into Canada by lawyers in private practice from India has virtually made it impossible for firms to screen good candidates from bad ones, and so if you are sure about wanting to live in Canada, I would stick to my advice of getting a JD.
Sorry for any grammatical mistakes and hope this post is of some help.
1. a recognized law degree.
a) This can be done via pursuing a JD at A Canadian institution. LSAT + CGPA + writing samples + LoRs are needed.
b) Alternatively, you may gain equivalency via NCA. They will ask you to clear additional exams specific to Canadian set up. You'll have to do atleast four. You may do these while in India itself.
2. Thereafter, you'll need to clear the Bar exam. There is a separate exam for barristers and solicitors.
3. Finally, you'll need to take up articleshow Canada. This is easiest to get if you studied at a Canadian institution.
...
Now regarding your specific question. You can not practice law in Canada after a LLM.
However, certain schools (UBC, UoT, Osgoode) have now begun offering Professional LLMs for foreign trained lawyers. These serve as fulfilling NCA equivalency requirements. So, you could go the PRO-LLM + Bar + Articleship route. It is absolutely possible for one to get into a top law firm via this method as well.
I once did back-of-the-envelope calculations when I was still in college and realised that the fees from the students just about covered the salary of the professors and not much was left for capital and non-recurring expenditures.
So, I did a quick google search (it took 5 minutes - and yes, I am free right now) and the numbers are all publicly available.
The college even today hardly has any money left after paying its staff. It weirdly takes pride in not receiving any "maintaining expenditure" from the UGC [see Para 19 of this judgment: https://indiankanoon.org/doc/180877490/]. I checked the latest budget and the difference between the income from the fees charged to the students minus salary of staff and utilities (water + electricity + internet) is ~INR 75L - that's not much for an institution and certainty leaves little for capital expenditure. I am not even accounting for the many other expenditures which would naturally arise. Another interesting piece is the absence of interest payments - which would indicate that the college didn't build its infrastructure by taking credit / loans.
Budget: http://www.nlujodhpur.ac.in/uploads/23162009101146.pdf.
The newer buildings: the moot court hall, auditorium, library, administrative block, second mess, badminton court, etc., the college couldn't have constructed them without Government / UGC grants. The grants released by the UGC are also publicly available. The annual reports for 2011-2012 and 2013-14 set out the amounts released to the college by the UGC - I reckon a fair amount of the newer construction took place from these grants.
2011-12: https://www.ugc.ac.in/pdfnews/Annual_Report_2011-2012_English_Final.pdf
2013-14: (https://www.ugc.ac.in/pdfnews/7938259_Annual-Report-2013-14.pdf)
So, you see, your education is also being subsidized by the Government.
If anything this is unfair, given that the typical student profile in most National Law Universities is upper middle class and upper class. The annual per capita income (accounting for the Indian billionaires) is INR 1.25L - and 99% of the students of NLUs can afford 1.25L, either directly or by accessing credit. I would reckon (and this is an admittedly anecdotal guess) 90% of the students spent more money in a year than the annual per capita income.