Presenter/s: Lynn Gaudet B.A., LLB., RCIC
Date: 11 April 2023
Time: 11 am to 2:15 pm Pacific
Location: webinar
Type: webinar and recording
Price: $75.00
CPD approval:
- CICC 3 hours - 3 CPD hours approved, recording valid until 10 April 2024. Includes 3 hours of professionalism/Code of Professional Conduct.
- LSBC 3 hours - 3 CPD hours approved, expires 31 December 2023. Attendance to this course will provide you with 45 minutes of ethics and professional responsibility component for your BC Law Society reporting.
- For Alberta lawyers, consider including this course as a CPD learning activity in your mandatory annual Continuing Professional Development Plan as required by the Law Society of Alberta.
This series focuses on the new RCIC Code of Professional Conduct and will appeal to both experienced RCICs as well as those starting out. A very practical “how-to” approach will be taken to help RCICs fulfil their professional duties to their clients and to the College. Some seminars span several Code sections to cover a wide-ranging topic like client service; others take a deep dive into one key section such as service agreements. All have a practical focus on common ethical pitfalls with examples, solutions and opportunities for participants to engage in resolving these issues with a view to operating your practice properly, and preventing client complaints.
Outline:
The new Code of Professional Conduct imposes more clearly defined obligations when it comes to being competent to advise the client on any matter you undertake. All RCICs need strategies for assessing their own competence to take a case in the first place, or to continue with a file once a new issue has arisen that may be outside the scope of your practice or your competency. Often this will be an inadmissibility issue that arises in the middle of the file. Learn how to minimize these problems and understand how to manage the option to get assistance from another authorized rep in appropriate cases.
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Section 19(1) of the Code – obligation to refrain
- Section 19(2)(a) – knowledge and experience required
- Other elements of competence in s 19(2)
- When a competency issue can arise
- Assessing your own competence: when you can get “up to speed” and when you cannot
- Examples of inadmissibility issues arising causing competency headaches
- Best strategies to prevent inadmissibility issues arising mid-file
- Mandatory termination and the referral obligation in s 35
- Whether Section 20 (involving another authorized rep) makes sense or not
- Section 20 requirements if involving another authorized rep
- Section 24 (service agreement) implications where co-counsel is an RCIC
- Professionalism
- Q & A
College of Citizenship and Immigration - Essential Competency mapping
RCIC
Case Management
2.2 Engages in a process to ensure the client is fully informed and able to make a decision whether to proceed with the RCICs professional services and enter into a retainer agreement.
2.2.4 Advises the client of the RCICs scope of practice, personal competence and practice limitations.
2.9 Maintains accurate and current client records and documentation according to regulatory requirements.
Business Management and Leadership
4.1 Demonstrates leadership skills in the immigration and citizenship consulting practice.
4.1.3 Acts as an expert in the Canadian immigration and citizenship filed by providing advice and consultation to clients and other professionals.
Professionalism
6.1 Demonstrates and maintains competence in practice
6.1.2 Stays current and complies with legislation, regulation, professional standards, policies and guidelines.
6.2 Demonstrates accountability and integrity in professional behaviors and in practice.
6.5 Recognizes and maintains professional boundaries in practice.
Speaker/s:
Lynn Gaudet B.A., LLB. RCIC
Lynn is a Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant (RCIC) who operated her own business as a sole practitioner in Calgary, AB for 17 years from 2004-2021, is now semi-retired in Nanaimo, BC. Her practice areas spanned a broad spectrum of immigration and refugee applications with a focus on Permanent Resident applications and criminal inadmissibility issues. She also has decades of experience in adult education - teaching, writing and developing instructional materials such as the Immigration Practitioner’s Handbook published annually by Thomson Carswell Ltd. from 2006-2012.
Lynn is currently an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Law at Queens University teaching in the Graduate Program in Immigration and Citizenship Law [GDipICL]. She has taught the Ethics and Professional Responsibility Course for the Program since its inception and has also served as the Coordinating Instructor with responsibility for the curriculum.
She has a B.A. in Communications from Simon Fraser University and an LL.B. from the University of Victoria. She is a licensee in good standing of the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants (CICC) and a member of the Canadian Bar Association, National Immigration Section.
While speakers and topics are confirmed at the time of publication, sometimes things happen which are beyond the control of ImmSeminars. If that happens substitutions or cancellations to speaker/s and/or topic/s may be necessary. In those cases, ImmSeminars will advise all registrants by email as soon as possible. We will also
