Scrapping the bar exam won’t fix Ontario’s licensing problem

By Jacob Murad ( January 14, 2026, 2:10 PM EST) -- The Law Society of Ontario is considering removing the written barrister and solicitor examinations as part of the lawyer licensing process. They published a report on the subject and asked members of the legal community to comment. While I agree that the licensing process and especially the examinations require modernization (and I’ve written about this at length before), I disagree that completely replacing standard written examinations will accomplish this goal but rather will be costly and will lower the standards for entry into the profession....