Council of the Law Society recognized in 2011 that the Society should provide assistance to young lawyers entering the practice of law, especially those who would become sole practitioners.  Particularity, Council discussed how running a business requires different skills and knowledge than the practice of law.  To assist young lawyers to transition from law school to running a law firm, Council proposed the development of a “Business of law” course.  A Committee was formed with the following mandate: 

 

To develop a mandatory program to provide law students with practical tools to assist in the operation of a law firm.

 

This online course is intended to help achieve that goal.  The course was created by the Law Society of British Columbia and adapted by the Law Society of New Brunswick. The course does not attempt to provide a complete knowledge base for each topic covered, but rather attempts to capture highlights and to provide a review of core concepts.

 

Designed to be self-paced and self-testing, the course offers concise modules on key practice issues of interest to sole practitioners and small firm lawyers, ranging from practice management to trust accounting to technology issues and discusses various pitfalls of practice. Each course module is made up of written material, a self-test, and additional resources. The entire course takes approximately six to eight hours to complete.

 

The Law Society of New Brunswick thanks the Law Society of British Columbia for providing the source material for the course and for its assistance throughout the project. 

Any member of the Law Society can use the course as a resource to help strengthen their own law practices. The Task Force believes all lawyers and articled students can benefit from taking the course regardless of the size of the firm where they practice.

In order to receive CPD credit for the course a lawyer must complete the Quiz section of each module.  Members are not required to obtain any particular grade on the quiz and the quiz portion can be retaken.

 

Test questions are drawn from the written material of each course module, and not the Appendix material or Additional Resources sections. However, lawyers should refer to these sources, as necessary, if you experience difficulty completing the quizzes.

The course is designed in concise modules that can be done at your own pace. The modules feature written material, a self-test, in some cases links to additional resources.

No email or other confirmation is sent out when you complete the Business of Law course. Once you have completed the course on the Law Society website, you should then log in to the CPD section of the Law Society website and record your completion of the course

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