Defending people charged with crimes. Mostly solo or in tiny firms, often paid by legal aid, and in court almost every day.
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Programs in the fields this career usually comes through. Each has its own page: what it takes to get in, the courses you need and what it costs.
The median pay is about $124,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $63,000 at the lower end to about $223,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
7 to 8 years after high school, on the usual route.
$62,500 to $154,500 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
Yes. It is a regulated job, so you need a licence or registration before you can work.
Moderate demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$124,000
Lower end
$63,000
Upper end
$223,000
Job Bank's figures for all lawyers and Quebec notaries in Canada, 2023 to 2024, worked out as a year at 40 hours a week. Job Bank does not publish a separate figure for criminal defence lawyers, and many of them are self-employed, so their own pay can sit well away from this. Legal aid rates set the floor for much of the field.
$126 to $158 an hour
What Legal Aid Ontario pays a defence lawyer on a certificate, rising with years of experience (rates from April 2025)
Complex cases pay about $186 an hour. That sounds like a lot until you subtract office rent, insurance, staff and the hours legal aid will not pay for. Many people charged with crimes cannot afford a private lawyer.
Paid up front
Fee for a privately paid case, which grows with the charge, from a first impaired driving charge to a murder trial
The money is paid before the work starts, because a client who has just been convicted rarely pays afterwards. Many defence lawyers run a mix of private and legal aid files.
Roughly, all in
$62,500 to $154,500
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The schooling is identical to any other lawyer: the low end is a three year undergraduate degree and three years of law school at the cheapest tuition, plus the LSAT (Law School Admission Test) and your own licensing fees. The high end is a four year degree and a law school near $35,000 a year. Small criminal firms rarely cover licensing exam fees the way large corporate firms do, so those fees sit inside both numbers here. Articling pay at small criminal firms varies, and the debt is the same.
There is no big firm to cover your licensing fees. Many new defence lawyers article at small criminal firms while carrying the same student debt as anyone else.
Mostly none in private practice
Solo and small-firm lawyers buy their own health and dental coverage.
No pension unless you build one
You are self-employed. Save early.
Duty counsel jobs
Legal Aid Ontario employs salaried staff lawyers with a pension and benefits.
Control of your schedule
In theory. In practice the court sets your schedule.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Same licence as every lawyer, then a specialty you mostly learn on your feet in court. These steps are for outside Quebec, which has its own route: tap Quebec route to add it.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
English and anything that makes you speak in front of people.
Bachelor's degree
3 to 4 years
Criminology, psychology, philosophy and political science are common. Any subject works. Write the LSAT (law school admission test).
Law school (JD, juris doctor)
3 years
Take criminal procedure, evidence, trial advocacy and the Charter. Join the criminal law clinic if your school has one.
Articling
About 1 year
8 to 10 months with a criminal defence firm, a legal clinic, or a Crown attorney office, plus the barrister and solicitor licensing exams. Ontario's Law Practice Program is the alternative to articling.
Called to the bar, then the legal aid panel
First year of practice
Most new defence lawyers join a small firm or go solo, and apply to Legal Aid Ontario's panel so they can take certificate work.
English
Cross-examination is language under pressure.
Drama, debate or public speaking
You will be on your feet in court most days.
Law and civics
How charges, courts and the Charter fit together.
Psychology
Clients, witnesses and juries are all people.
Your provincial law society licenses you and disciplines you. To take legal aid cases in Ontario you must also be accepted onto the Legal Aid Ontario panel, and the most serious cases, such as murder and sexual offences, require a separate panel with more experience. Anyone charged with a crime can also represent themselves, and many do.
A small criminal firm
The classic route. Fast learning, your own files within months.
Duty counsel
Salaried Legal Aid Ontario lawyers who help unrepresented people in bail and plea courts.
A Crown office first
Some article or work as a prosecutor, then switch sides.
Student legal clinics
Law school clinics handle minor charges under supervision.
Quebec runs on civil law and has its own bar. You go to law school straight from CEGEP (public college), with no LSAT (Law School Admission Test), then do the bar school and a 6 month internship.
Finish Secondary V
Age 16 or 17
Any Quebec high school diploma opens the pre-university CEGEP (public college) programs that lead to law school.
Pre-university DEC (Diploma of College Studies)
2 years
Usually 2 years, often Social Science, at a CEGEP (public college). Law schools rank Quebec applicants by R score (cote R, a ranking of college grades). Montréal had 196 places for 1,319 applications from CEGEP students for 2026.
Civil law degree
3 to 4 years
An LL.B. (Bachelor of Laws), 3 years, at Montréal, Laval, Sherbrooke, UQAM (Université du Québec à Montréal), Outaouais or Ottawa. McGill teaches in English and gives civil and common law degrees together in 3.5 to 4 years.
École du Barreau (the Quebec bar school)
About 9 months
Courses and three exams, then a supervised legal clinic, in Montréal, Quebec City, Sherbrooke or Gatineau. Tuition is $6,065 for 2026 to 2027, with three tries at each exam.
6 month internship (stage)
6 months
Full time, supervised by a lawyer or a judge. You do most of a lawyer's work under their responsibility. For criminal law, look for a stage at a defence firm.
French, oath and the Roll
A few weeks
The permit needs French. A Quebec high school diploma or 3 years of study in French counts. If not, you pass the OQLF (Office québécois de la langue française) exam. Then the oath.
The Criminal Code is federal, so the law is the same as in the rest of Canada. Charges are approved and run by the DPCP (Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales, Quebec's prosecution service). Legal aid is a mixed system: a client can pick a salaried legal aid lawyer or a private one paid by the legal aid tariff, and the Barreau du Québec reports that private lawyers handle 54% of accepted legal aid requests.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Jury trial experience
Lawyers who can run a jury trial are rare and get referred the serious cases.
The serious-matters panel
Legal Aid Ontario's panel for murder and other major cases.
Appeals
A narrow specialty. Appeal lawyers write more than they talk.
Reputation
Word of mouth from past clients and other lawyers brings private retainers.
A second language
Clients and witnesses often do not speak English as a first language.
A criminal law clinic or moot
Real cross-examination practice before you have a client.
A summer with a defence firm or the Crown
Shows you can handle the material, including disturbing evidence.
Comfort with jails
You will visit clients in custody often.
Crown prosecutors are the lawyers you argue against. They are government employees with a salary, a pension and no need to find clients. Defence lawyers switch to the Crown, and back, more often than you would think. Both sides spend years in the same courtrooms, and many defence lawyers eventually become judges.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Court opens at 9 or 10. You might handle a bail hearing, set a trial date and enter a guilty plea before lunch, sometimes in different courtrooms. Afternoons are jail visits and reading disclosure: police notes, body camera video, witness statements. Evenings are cross-examination prep. Clients and their families call at all hours.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Canada has a single Criminal Code that applies in every province and territory. Unlike the US, where each state writes its own crimes, a defence lawyer in Halifax and one in Vancouver argue the same statute.
Since the Supreme Court's Jordan decision in 2016, a case that takes more than 18 months in provincial court, or 30 months in superior court, is presumed too slow and can be thrown out. Defence lawyers watch that clock closely.
The large majority of criminal charges in Canada end with a withdrawal, a diversion program or a guilty plea. A defence lawyer spends far more time negotiating with the Crown than cross-examining witnesses.
Every defence lawyer gets this question at dinner. The answer: the Crown has to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and the defence lawyer's job is to test that proof. If nobody tests it, innocent people go to prison too.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Lawyers first, then the rest of the field. See every career in law and public safety.
Last checked October 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in Canadian dollars, based on Government of Canada Job Bank wage data and published salary grids. They vary by province, employer and experience. Tuition is for domestic students. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
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