Bachelor of Legal Studies - Paralegal

The Bachelor of Legal Studies - Paralegal is a four-year degree with practicum and the most academically selective program in CapU’s catalogue — entry requires 80% at Class 12, against 60% for most other programs.

The curriculum covers Canadian legal systems and constitutional framework, civil litigation procedure, corporate and commercial law, real estate and conveyancing, family law, wills and estates, employment and administrative law, criminal procedure, legal research and writing, evidence, and legal technology and practice management. Legal research and drafting are assessed continuously, and a practicum places students in law firms, corporate legal departments or government offices.

The distinctive thing is the credential level. Most Canadian paralegal training is a diploma; this is a four-year degree, which raises the ceiling in-house and in larger firms and keeps a law school application open as a later option. It also means, unlike diploma-level paralegal training, graduates hold a bachelor’s and sit outside the PGWP field-of-study restriction.

CapU is a fully public teaching university on Vancouver’s North Shore — a Designated Learning Institution (DLI O19280078102) with university status since 2008. Classes are small, faculty teach rather than delegate to assistants, and tuition sits well below the big Vancouver research universities while the credential carries the same public-institution standing.

Its field maps to CIP 22.0302 (Legal assistant/paralegal). As a bachelor’s degree, graduates are exempt from the November 2024 PGWP field-of-study restriction and may qualify for a Post-Graduation Work Permit of up to three years. Full-time on-campus study and graduation remain the conditions, and final decisions rest with IRCC.