New pre-law program aims to tackle shortage of lawyers in northern Manitoba

Post-secondary schools in Manitoba are partnering to help boost the number of lawyers working in the province's north.

The University College of the North will offer a new pre-law program starting this fall, the school announced Wednesday.

The program was created in partnership with the University of Manitoba's law faculty, along with the Northern Bar Association, the Law Society of Manitoba and Legal Aid Manitoba, UCN said in a news release.

It will first be offered at UCN's main northern Manitoba campuses in Thompson and The Pas, with plans to expand it in the future through distance learning and other methods, according to the post-secondary school.

Doug Lauvstad, UCN's president and vice-chancellor, said the program aims to address a shortage of law professionals in remote northern communities.

The shortage is felt in "almost all occupations, whether it's lawyers … clerks, paralegals," he said. 

"We anticipate there would be significant demand. I think … that the program's time has come."

Hope to increase Indigenous representation: judge

The course will get students ready for the rigours of law school, including how to prepare for the Law School Admission Test, or LSAT.

Manitoba provincial court Judge Todd Rambow, one of the people who helped design the program, said he's wanted an initiative like this for years. The program will be aimed primarily at mature and Indigenous students, he said. 

With many retirements coming up, there will be a significant challenge to finding proper legal counsel and representation throughout rural Manitoba in the coming years, he said.

"The plan here is to find a cohort of learners from northern Manitoba who would go into this program being from the north, understanding the north," he said.

The hope is that once they're done their legal training, they'll return to northern Manitoba to work, "where they'll want to stay, where they're from, where they have family, where they have roots … and most important of all, where they can promote reconciliation as Indigenous lawyers, working with Indigenous clients and communities and understanding the issues and the history," said Rambow.

The curriculum is still being developed, but it will span multiple disciplines, including sociology, psychology, criminology and philosophy, he said.

Students still have to go to law school elsewhere if they want to complete their studies, but Rambow hopes the pre-law program serves as a "baby step" toward partnerships that will eventually allow people to get a law degree in the region.

"I feel quite strongly that if we get a decent-sized cohort, we're going to get a number of people coming back," he said. 

"Any number right now will help because we're so low — especially with the criminal bar — all throughout northern Manitoba that any numbers we get will be of benefit."

The Law Society of Manitoba said in a statement it's optimistic the program will increase the number of lawyers practising in the region.

"We are hopeful that the offering of this program also will encourage members of our Indigenous communities to consider law as a career," it said.

UCN's Lauvstad said the foundational skills the students will learn in the pre-law program will be useful regardless of whatever profession they end up in.