Bachelor of Law (LLB) ECA

[FormaggioVolante]

My wife is a registered lawyer in Brazil, and her ECA was "Bachelor's Degree (four years)", and that's what we used in our Express Entry. If you notice, the IRCC uses this exact same nomenclature, and you should not pick "Professional Degree" unless your ECA says so. We figured this happened because unlike Canada, Brazil is a civil law country. People said IQAS was handing out "Professional Degree" ECAs even for brazilian lawyers, but we opted for WES because they're considerably faster and since she's not the Principal Applicant, the 2 points difference would not matter.

 

[V_s]

Kindly add me to this wassup group.. I have the same query regarding evaluation if 3 year LLB degree from WES as professional degree.. My contact no. 9888908509

Hey did you got your degree assessed
If yes than what report did you got ?

 

[V_s]

I can't say about him but I am in a simikar boat too.
I did B.A,LL.B (5 years integrated) and was given a dual bachelors (4 years) evaluation by WES.
It freaked me out originally because I expected my ECA to give me a 'professional degree' evaluation. So, what i did intialy was that i while applying through EE, i mentioned both my B.A, and LL.B as separate degrees (i.e both as bachelors). And though i made though eligibility, my CRS was lowered by 8 points.
Then i did some research and realised that a dual bachelors evaluation by WES doesn't imply that you have two degrees. So, that put me in another fix, because the EE profile doesn't give you an option to fill dual bachelors (unless you put them separately, which is not proper).

So, I did some more research and found out this.
No matter what WES evaluation says, if it gives you an assessment of Bachelors in Law, it will be considered as a professional degree. Thereby implying that it is not up to WES to give you a professional competency. It's up to CIC.
Also, WES is just an advisory body. There decisions are not binding on CIC.

And there by, I amended my education history section accordingly. I removed the two bachelor degrees and in their place just added LAW as a professional degree.

(I am currently waiting for the ITA, and most probably will get that in the next draw, my CRS post revision being 453.)

As a corroboration to what i said, I am attaching a link to the CIC chart which compares with ECA wordings with what they actual mean for CIC. (Just write bachelor of laws in filtering and you ll see what i mean.

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry/documents/education-assessed/read-report.html

I hope that would clear the doubt in your mind.

Though i must agree, the lack of clarity on this matter is really annoying.

P.S - Once you receive ITA and start submitting documents, don't forget to write a simple letter of explanation, explaining the entire situation and why you have entered your law degree as professional (cite reason as the CIC chart.)

You have got PR ?

 

[mapleleaf523]

Hi everyone,

I am in the same boat as well. I have an undergraduate law degree from UK and ICESC assessed my degree as 4 year bachelors degree, I am thinking about reassessing it from IQAS but it takes a very long time. I contacted CIC on Facebook and they replied the following: ''Hi. Since a Bachelor of Law is one of the degrees we consider a professional degree, it will count as one even if WES assesses your education as a four-year bachelor. You can find out more about degrees and how we classify them here: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry/documents/education-assessed/read-report.html Hope this helps!''.

Any suggestions on this and has anyone experienced it and does it actually work?

 

[Silversurfer1]

Hi everyone,

I am in the same boat as well. I have an undergraduate law degree from UK and ICESC assessed my degree as 4 year bachelors degree, I am thinking about reassessing it from IQAS but it takes a very long time. I contacted CIC on Facebook and they replied the following: ''Hi. Since a Bachelor of Law is one of the degrees we consider a professional degree, it will count as one even if WES assesses your education as a four-year bachelor. You can find out more about degrees and how we classify them here: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry/documents/education-assessed/read-report.html Hope this helps!''.

Any suggestions on this and has anyone experienced it and does it actually work?

This is excellent. Thank you for this message

 

[Aurangzeb Maqsood]

Hi everyone,

I am in the same boat as well. I have an undergraduate law degree from UK and ICESC assessed my degree as 4 year bachelors degree, I am thinking about reassessing it from IQAS but it takes a very long time. I contacted CIC on Facebook and they replied the following: ''Hi. Since a Bachelor of Law is one of the degrees we consider a professional degree, it will count as one even if WES assesses your education as a four-year bachelor. You can find out more about degrees and how we classify them here: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry/documents/education-assessed/read-report.html Hope this helps!''.

Any suggestions on this and has anyone experienced it and does it actually work?

So you're saying that CIC has said - that while applying on the CIC profile where they ask: "level of education (Canadian equivalent) shown on ECA report...", one can write "master's degree, or professional degree" even if the ECA body (WES) has actually evaluated it as a "Bachelor's Degree". If that were the case, they would have already handed out invitations where one mentioned in the CIC profile that their degree is a professional degree (in the local country).

In other words, do you mean one should ignore the WES result, and just go ahead and write an ECA result which they did not receive?

 

[mapleleaf523]

So you're saying that CIC has said - that while applying on the CIC profile where they ask: "level of education (Canadian equivalent) shown on ECA report...", one can write "master's degree, or professional degree" even if the ECA body (WES) has actually evaluated it as a "Bachelor's Degree". If that were the case, they would have already handed out invitations where one mentioned in the CIC profile that their degree is a professional degree (in the local country).

In other words, do you mean one should ignore the WES result, and just go ahead and write an ECA result which they did not receive?

Yes, absolutely I agree with you! The message I got is from CIC's official facebook page and what's said by them is accurate or not but definitely, it doesn't make sense. I am going to go ahead with my application and I am going to furnish them with screenshots of my question and CIC's response as evidence. Fingers crossed for the outcome!

 

[gokani.ishita]

I have a friend who got evaluated this as First professional university degree. He sent to WES. If you want to confirm, PM me your whatsapp number, and i will add you in our group. You can talk to him.

Hello
My WhatsApp number is
91+9619250801 plz add me in the WhatsApp group

 

[BillyWescott]

Yes, absolutely I agree with you! The message I got is from CIC's official facebook page and what's said by them is accurate or not but definitely, it doesn't make sense. I am going to go ahead with my application and I am going to furnish them with screenshots of my question and CIC's response as evidence. Fingers crossed for the outcome!

I am in the same situation with a French LLB and my WES report reads "Bachelor's Degree (4 years)". I am not going to take any chances and file my LLB as a "Bachelor" but I am nonetheless going to write a paragraph about how I believe it should be assessed as a "professional degree" as per IRCC's guidelines in my cover letter.

 

[BenjaminW]

Hi everyone - I have a similar situation and am stuck.... my wife's law degree has been evaluated as a Bachelors Degree by WES. My understanding from CiC is that it will be awarded the same points as a Masters, but there is no way of entering this on the profile, so when I submitted it we were awarded 412 points instead of the 451 we were expecting. There doesn't seem to be any way of 'flagging' in the express entry profile that it's a law degree (and so should be getting the same points as a Masters, despite the WES classification), so I don't really know what to do. Feels like there's no way forward with it, unfortunately.

 

[BillyWescott]

Hi everyone - I have a similar situation and am stuck.... my wife's law degree has been evaluated as a Bachelors Degree by WES. My understanding from CiC is that it will be awarded the same points as a Masters, but there is no way of entering this on the profile, so when I submitted it we were awarded 412 points instead of the 451 we were expecting. There doesn't seem to be any way of 'flagging' in the express entry profile that it's a law degree (and so should be getting the same points as a Masters, despite the WES classification), so I don't really know what to do. Feels like there's no way forward with it, unfortunately.

Hey, given the fact that you "only" have 412 if the degree is qualified as a mere bachelor's degree, I would advise you to get your wife's law degree reviewed by IQAS instead of WES. As explained by people above, IQAS qualifies LLBs as "professional degrees" in their report. However, it seems that the process takes a long time (up to 6 months or something).

If you don't have enough time, you can still try to fill the Express Entry form as follows: insert "Bachelor" in Level of Education (as shown in WES report) and then "Professional Degree" in Level of Education (Canadian Equivalent). Then, in your cover letter, write a paragraph about the fact that the IRCC guidelines clearly state that Bachelors of Law are professional degrees (with specific references to said guidelines). I will send you a wording that I did for my own letter (even though I eventually opted to keep it as a simple bachelor because I have 2 masters degrees and hence it doesn't change anything for me).

I can't guarantee this is the best course of action, but given that in your situation all points count, you HAVE to get the professional degree points.

 

[V_s]

Any1 knows about credentials for LLB from Punjabi university Patiala,India?

 

[nklrwt]

Yes, absolutely I agree with you! The message I got is from CIC's official facebook page and what's said by them is accurate or not but definitely, it doesn't make sense. I am going to go ahead with my application and I am going to furnish them with screenshots of my question and CIC's response as evidence. Fingers crossed for the outcome!

Hey Buddy, can you share a copy of the screenshot with us also. We're also in the same boat and could use this screenshot also. Thanks!

 

[Afshan011]

Hi, I am new here. Pls guide. I have completed my B. Com, M. Com, Llb and Llm all from the Mumbai university. I am really confused as to which degree to use to get the required points. While checking with Wes on their website and after entering my details, I have received a mail from Wes that my degree is Bachelors and masters degree for each (commerce & law). What does that mean. Pls explain.

Pls add me in ur what’s app group. My no is 9833627953.
Thanks for the replies....

 

[Afshan011]

Hello
My WhatsApp number is
91+9619250801 plz add me in the WhatsApp group

Please add me too in the group. My no is 9833627953