Me: 

Partner: what’s your capacity like? Can you do these 5 things by tomorrow?

Me: I have capacity

We start out the same. You have to have a University degree (although some schools will accept you with only three year’s of a degree so there are in fact a handful of students who never finished their Bachelor’s prancing around with JD’s). 

Then three years of law school. 

Then after that you have to complete the competency requirements to be called to the bar. These are: 

Articling, which is basically working as an apprentice under a certified lawyer for 10 months; OR 

In lieu of articling, some provinces have introduced practicums whereby you work in a classroom environment mocking a real law firm / do unpaid internships to gain the experience everyone else gets while they’re articling. It’s a pilot program to address the “articling crisis” which remains ongoing. 

Regardless of which of those avenues you choose, you still have to write the bar exams. In Ontario you self-study and write the Barristers Exam and the Solicitors Exam in separate sittings. Some provinces have bar-ad courses that you take instead for a few weeks and then write a test at the end. They also wrap our Rules of Professional Conduct up into these exams so we don’t take a separate (how ethical are you) test

After all of this has broken your soul, you’re eligible to be called to the bar.