Arizona State University’s law school has launched a new degree program that allows Canadian and American students to receive a joint degree to practice law in both countries.
The North American Law Degree is a three-year program will award graduates with their American Juris Doctor (J.D) and Canadian bachelor of laws (LL.B), according to the Sandra Day O’Connor Law School’s website.
“I was talking to a number of organizations here in Arizona that focus on cross-border business, and in these conversations, we kept talking about how important it was to have lawyers who could practice in both countries,” said Douglas Sylvester, dean of the university’s law school and a dual citizen of Canada and the U.S.
According to Sylvester, this program would have the same admission requirements as a Canadian law school, which primarily consist of scoring high on the Law School Application Test, or LSAT for short.
Siobhan Saravanamuttu, a third-year political science and law student at Carleton University and former student of law at the South Hampton University in England, said the program is attractive because practicing in both the U.S. and Canada is difficult since the two systems are quite different.
“If I wanted to come back here and practice, I would have to do some extra courses and interviews with the Law Society [of Upper Canada]. So the fact that this university teaches Canadian law and legislation in the U.S. is really unique.”
Similar programs exist at the University of Windsor, which has a partnership with the University of Detroit’s Mercy School of Law, Saravanamuttu said.
A similar joint degree program also exists at Bond University in Australia, where students can receive both their Australian and Canadian licenses, Sylvester said.
“If you go to a U.S. law school however, your pathway to practicing law in Canada is much easier than in other countries practicing common law, but coming to our North American Law Program is of course, a step beyond that,” Sylvester said.
For out-of-state students however, the tuition fees are close to $40,000 per year, according to Sylvester.
“That is the lowest tuition of any top law school in the U.S. We have a huge advantage over most other law schools. But for Canadian law schools, that would be an expensive proposition,” Sylvester said.
However, Sylvester noted that the university would take care of the mandatory work placement at a law firm, known as articling, for all of its graduates, as well as giving them several prominent workplace connections.
“If the university has links with big firms in the States and in Canada and is willing to help students find placements for their articling, that’s definitely a plus,” Saravanamuttu said.
“The articling process is brutal for students, who are trying to find a place for themselves and get their career started,” she said. “It’s really tough to find a spot in a good firm, so if your university is willing to help you get that spot, then that’s amazing.”
