Lawyers
Job description
These individuals provide legal advice to their clients and draft legal documents. They plead cases, represent their clients, and prosecute cases in court. This group also includes articling students.
Environment
- Controlled ambient temperature
Main tasks
- Inform clients of their rights and any legal issues.
- Research previous judgments (case law) and gather evidence.
- Plead clients’ cases before courts and commissions.
- Negotiate settlements in civil litigation.
- Draft legal documents (notices, real estate transaction contracts, wills, divorce petitions, etc.).
- Act as mediator, conciliator, arbitrator, liquidator, trustee, or guardian, as required.
- Act before the courts as plaintiff or defendant in civil and criminal matters.
- Negotiate agreements in criminal and penal matters.
Advancement and mobility
- Provincially sanctioned bar exams allow lawyers to practise in another province.
- Foreign-trained candidates to the profession can benefit from the Regulation respecting the standards of equivalence of diplomas and training of the Quebec Bar.
Training and requirements
Formation
Most training programs are offered in French only.
University
Law
Bachelor’s degree
Placement rate: 62.5%
32% of graduates pursue further studies
Master’s degree
Placement rate: 87.8%
9.4% of graduates pursue further studies
Also required
- Licence to practise.
- Membership in the Quebec Bar.
- Successful completion of the professional training program of the École du Barreau.
Main skills and characteristics
Skills
- Data collection
- Active listening
- Oral expression
- Reading comprehension
- Critical thought
- Information processing
- Judgment and decision-making
- Solving complex problems
- Written expression
- Negotiation
- Persuasion
- Active learning
- Time management
- Social perception
- Result evaluation
- System analysis
- Coordination
- Teaching
- Service oriented
- Learning strategies
Abilities
- Verbal skills
- Written comprehension
- Oral comprehension
- Speech clarity
- Written expression
- Deductive reasoning
- Inductive reasoning
- Awareness of issues
- Information organization
- Near vision
- Classification
- Idea generation
- Originality
- Selective attention
- Speech recognition
Knowledge and attributes
- Capacity to establish and maintain interpersonal relations
- Capacity to work under pressure
- Critical thinking
- Autonomy
- Capacity to adapt
- Spoken and written bilingualism (French and English)
- Rigour
- Capacity to be discrete
- Capacity for synthesis
- Knowledge of laws and policies
Interests
- Draft, communicate, and inform
- Watch, defend, and secure
- Work in an office
- Self-employment
- Assist and advise
- Collect, verify, sort, and classify data or information
Personality profiles (RIASEC)
- Enterprising
- People with this profile prefer having responsibilities, influencing others and responding to challenges.
- Social
- People with this profile prefer to be in contact with others, in particular to entertain, help or teach them.
- Conventional
- People with this profile prefer specific, well-defined tasks. They like to respect the order of things and follow established rules.
Appellation d’emploi liée (à traduire)
Lawyers and Quebec notaries (CNP 41101)
Skill type
Education, law and social, community and government services
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Last update: January 29, 2026