The Canadian Centre for Professional Legal Education (CPLED) is a non–profit organization that delivers pre-Bar call legal education for aspiring lawyers in Canada.
The Legal Research and Writing (LRW) course was developed to help aspiring Canadian lawyers develop fundamental legal research and writing skills. In 2022, the National Committee of Accreditation (NCA) amended its NCA Assessment policy to require applicants to complete the CPLED LRW course or another approved course in legal research and writing to demonstrate basic competence in legal research and writing as part of its accreditation requirements.
CPLED’s LRW course combines knowledge and experiential learning to help students develop foundational skills in legal research and writing. Students progress through online modules, complete assignments, and receive feedback from experienced lawyers.
The LRW course is currently being redeveloped. The new version is anticipated to be offered starting in September 2024 and will be offered six times per year in 2025.
Course Overview
The redeveloped LRW course will run over approximately ten weeks and include two written assignments in the areas of legal research and writing, both of which will be assessed.
To pass the course, students must also complete multiple-choice quizzes and obtain an overall grade of 60%. The course is completed online through the Desire2Learn (D2L) platform.
Assessor Responsibilities
Assessors will be assigned approximately 35 to 45 students per course and will use an online competency-based rubric to assess two written assignments per student. They will also provide inline, criterion-based, and overall feedback on each student assignment. Constructive feedback is integral to student development, so it is expected that Assessors will identify where students have performed well, where there are opportunities for improvement, and how improvements can be made.
Your Commitment
- LRW Assessors must commit to assessing between 35 and 45 students in an LRW course intake. Assessments are completed during weeks six and nine of the course. It is estimated that each student assignment will take approximately 45 minutes to one hour to assess. Availability to assess all six courses per year is not a requirement. However, preference may be given to those with greater availability.
- Complete an online training course for Assessors.
- Attend a 90-minute virtual orientation session on the course requirements, assessment criteria, rubric completion, and feedback expectations.
- Submit practice assessments for review by Assessor Lead(s) and receive feedback.
- Attend two calibration/training sessions for each LRW course. For this process, Assessors are expected to review assignments that are benchmarked with other Assessors to ensure consistency.
Requirements
- 3 + Years of experience in the practice of law.
- Successful candidates must have either practicing or non-practicing status with their law society and be in good standing.
- Excellent written and verbal communication.
- Experience assessing/marking legal research and legal writing for internationally trained students is considered an asset.
- Experience using D2L is considered an asset.
- Legally eligible to work in Canada.
- Access to a computer with a reliable high-speed internet connection.
CPLED will also offer optional one-on-one tech sessions in D2L for LRW Assessors to support those who are new or may require a refresher with the D2L platform.
The LRW course Assessors are not employees of CPLED. LRW Assessors will receive $150 for each student or $75 per assignment they assess. Please note that all training and calibration processes are required for the position and are included in the compensation.
We acknowledge that our community of students is very diverse, reflecting different identities of gender, race, faith, ethnicity, ability, sexual orientation, and others, and we aim to reflect these differences with our contractors.
Preference will be given to those candidates who offer demographic diversity (including, without limitation, gender and age diversity) and those who collectively bring the strongest combination of knowledge and experience and understand the concepts of diversity and equity and how those come into play in the education and training of entry-level professionals.
We thank all applicants for their interest and effort in applying for this position; however, only those being considered will be contacted.
Apply for the position on the CPLED website.