Ontario bar exams back on, but candidates still face hurdles taking it
Posted March 14, 2022 8:49 pm.
To the relief of hundreds of aspiring lawyers, the Ontario bar exams are back on after being cancelled this month while an investigation into a possible leak is underway.
Passing the exam is the final hurdle to becoming a lawyer in the province, and although rescheduled for April, candidates still face hurdles to take the tests.
“Most candidates have been preparing for months, if not a year for this exam, and so the cancellation was quite devastating,” Ocean Enbar, the president of the Law Students’ Society of Ontario, told CityNews.
The barrister and solicitor exams were to be written online this month but cancelled just days before they were set to begin, after the Law Society of Ontario (LSO) said it received information that “strongly indicates” portions of the exam may have ended up in the hands of some candidates, compromising the integrity of the licensing process and reputation of those not involved.
About 1,100 people will now write the barrister exam from April 5 to 8 and the solicitor exam from April 26 to 29.
“We are thankful to see that the rescheduling is for April and not the summer and will not involve new material,” said Enbar, whose organization represents Ontario’s undergraduate law students. But he added that the cancellation has caused those impacted “tremendous amounts of anxiety and stress even by just one month.”
In another blow, the rescheduled examinations will be paper-based and held in-person in Toronto, leaving candidates who live outside the province, or in some cases the country, to wonder what they’re supposed to do if they cannot get to the April exams, Enbar said.
The LSO acknowledged the in-person format will mean “unexpected logistics and some inconvenience,” but contends, “It is the most effective solution which balances the need for confidence in the examination process with the needs of candidates to continue their licensure journey.”
Also dealing with uncertainty: candidates who have had their call to the bar pushed back, pending an assessment of the exams they’ve already written and passed, to ensure they did not cheat.
“At this point, no conclusions should be drawn from any delay in a candidate’s licensure,” the LSO assured. But it gave no indication how long the investigation would take, meaning those waiting for their licenses remain in limbo and possibly without a job.
Enbar hopes the LSO will address these concerns but stressed innocent candidates who have already spent years making sacrifices to get to this point are facing the consequences.
“How do we come out of this without a financial implication as well as not upset our employers… For many, the answer isn’t very clear.”
