Graduate Certificate - Paralegal

The Paralegal graduate certificate is a one-year accredited postgraduate program with a field placement, leading toward licensing with the Law Society of Ontario.

Because students arrive with a prior credential, the program moves quickly through the licensable scope: the Canadian legal system and constitutional framework, civil litigation and Small Claims Court procedure, provincial offences and traffic law, landlord and tenant matters, employment and human rights law, administrative law and tribunal advocacy, evidence and trial preparation, legal research and writing, legal accounting and practice management, and professional ethics. Advocacy is practised through moots and mock tribunals, and the placement is in a firm, clinic or tribunal setting.

This is the fastest route to an independent licensed legal profession in Canada, which is why it is priced at $26,329 — the second most expensive program at the North campus. Ontario licensed paralegals represent clients in their own right in defined forums rather than assisting lawyers, and licensing follows through the Law Society examination.

The work placement is a graded part of the program, so you finish with documented Canadian experience and a referee rather than only a transcript.

Humber Polytechnic — formerly Humber College — is Ontario’s largest public college and a Designated Learning Institution (DLI O19376943122). The North campus in Etobicoke is its main site, running technology, engineering, health science, business and skilled trades programs in purpose-built labs and shops rather than lecture halls, with three intakes a year and the deepest employer network in the Greater Toronto Area.

Its field maps to CIP 22.0302 (Legal assistant/paralegal). Important: this is a college credential rather than a degree, so it is not exempt from the November 2024 PGWP field-of-study restriction — eligibility depends on this CIP field appearing on IRCC’s eligible list when you apply. Humber publishes a PGWP-eligible program list with CIP codes; check it, and confirm with an Apply Study Visa counsellor before committing. IRCC makes the final decision.