NCA Graduate Interview Series: Liran Kandin
“There’s nothing more comforting than someone who actually gets it. Really gets it. Because they’ve been to the same hell as you have and can verify you’ve not made it up.” (Holly Bourne)
While NCA process isn’t “hell” exactly, it can certainly be isolating, lonely, and challenging. Whether you are considering law school abroad and wondering what obstacles you will face upon your return to Canada, or already facing the NCA process, it can be helpful to get insight from other internationally trained law students who have successfully completed the NCAs and/or fully qualified in Canada.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be running a mini-interview series aimed at giving you some insight into the various ways NCA candidates approach their Canadian qualification and where they end up afterwards. We’ve selected NCA graduates who have pursued diverse NCA completion routes and careers both before and after sitting the Bar. Our hope is that you will find their insights and experiences helpful, encouraging, and eye-opening.
This week, we start with our very own Liran Kandin — CEO & Executive Director of NCA Tutor™.
Where did you go to Law School and what kind of program did you complete (e.g. 3yr LL.B, 2yr LL.B, etc.)?
I went to school in the UK. Originally I had applied to five universities and was accepted to all of them. I narrowed my choices down by looking at the "redbrick" universities. My top two choices were University of Manchester and University of Liverpool. Liverpool offered a two-year accelerated program which at the time (in 2007), was pretty rare. After consulting with the NCA, they advised against taking a two-year program as they were reforming their policies and weren’t sure how a two-year LLB would factor into my assessment. Ultimately, I decided that the three-year LLB at the University of Manchester would be the better option for me. Today a two-year LLB program is fairly common in the UK and the NCA has come to accept these degrees. If all the other boxes are checked (that’s a big if), then a 2-year LLB degree merely adds an additional two exams to your assessment.
After qualifying in both New York and a year later in Ontario, I applied to the Master of Laws program at the University of Toronto. I was fortunate to land a scholarship that was that was much greater than my tuition fees. It really was an offer I couldn’t refuse. I left private practice in New York to pursue my Masters with a specialization in Business Law. I had a really wonderful experience at UofT that shaped my pursuit for teaching and admiration for constitutional law. My thesis advisor was incredibly supportive and easy to talk to. We co-authored an article in the Toronto Star together and it was a great learning experience. All of the courses in the program, apart from one, were third year JD courses. Many were taught by practitioners and two of the courses were taught by judges! For me, the masters was a stepping stone into the field of academia. I would not have taken the Masters program to fulfill NCA requirements. I saw the LLM as a way to specialize and master an area of law and to learn to write and publish.
How many NCA Exams were you assigned?
I was assigned the 5 core NCA modules: Foundations of Canadian Law, Constitutional Law, Administrative Law, Criminal Law, and Professional Responsibility.
How did you complete the NCA process and how long did it take you?
There wasn’t much of an NCA process to speak of when I got back. For example, the administrative law syllabus was pretty much non-existent. It referenced a textbook and told us to read the whole thing. There was one tutor available for criminal law and there were pretty much very little in the way of resources being shared or sold. After preparing notes for the 5 core subjects, I shared them for free with over 3,500 NCA candidates. After multiple revisions to the syllabi, candidates kept requesting that I update the notes to reflect the new textbook readings and cases. I completed my NCA process relatively quickly. I did my exams in two consecutive exam sittings writing three exams in the first sitting and then two exams in the final one.
What are you doing now?
Today I run a legal education company called Lex Professional Development Group Inc. We have two distinct divisions in the company. LexPD offers continuing professional development courses to licensed Canadian practitioners as well as tutoring services for Ontario bar licensing candidates and consulting services. NCA Tutor™ provides coaching, mentoring, tutoring and notes to foreign trained lawyers. We’ve been in business for over 8 years and have worked with over 1900 candidates from over 55 countries. I’m incredibly proud of the company we have built. The team of lawyers that we have partnered with are second to none. They are genuine and develop lasting relationships with their students. We put students at the focus and built our brand around honesty, transparency and integrity. Outside of LexPD and NCA Tutor, I also work as a business consultant to other companies, I do public speaking engagements, and have sat as a board member of a publicly traded company. I am also a full-time husband to my beautiful wife Léa and father to two lovely girls.
What is something critical you learned through the NCA process?
I learned that teaching was a way for me to learn and absorb information rather quickly. When I wrote my NCAs I studied with a group of Canadian friends that went to the University of Manchester. During law school, we studied together for all of our exams and so it was only natural for some of us to form study groups for the NCAs. A typical study session consisted of me summarizing the materials and then teaching them to my friends. That was my way of learning and it was their way of studying. A win-win for everyone. This is where NCA Tutor™ was born as my friends invited their friends and things grew from there.
In hindsight, would you do anything differently?
The one thing I wish I had done differently was writing all my exams in one sitting rather than separating them into two. Initially, I was worried that it would be too much work to attempt five exams in one sitting. In hindsight, the exams were not as scary as I thought they would be. After all, I had already completed a demanding undergraduate business degree at the University of Toronto and had been through three years of law school. On top of that, the NCA considers a grade of 50% or above as a pass. Had I attempted all the exams at once, I would have completed the entire process in just a couple of months. In the grand scheme of things, splitting up my exams did have a big impact on my life all that much, but at the time, those extra months seemed very crucial to me. I was in the process of moving to New York and preparing for the New York bar exam. I could’ve used the extra time to prepare and search for jobs.
That wraps our interview for this week! Join us next time for more perspectives from recent NCA grads!
- Tiffany
Tiffany is an LLM candidate at NYU Law. and a regular blogger for NCA Tutor™.