Presenter/s: Lynn Gaudet B.A., LLB., RCIC
Date: 06 May 2026
Time: 11 am to 2:15 pm Pacific
Location: webinar
Type: webinar and recording
Price: $75.00
CPD approval:
- CICC 3 CPD hours approved. Video recording will expire on 06 May 2027. Attendance will include 3 hours of professionalism.
- LSBC 3 CPD hours approved. Video recording will expire on 31 December 2026. Attendance will provide you with 45 minutes of ethics and professional responsibility component for your BC Law Society reporting.
- Law Societies of Alberta, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, and the Barrister's Society of Nova Scotia
- For members of these Law Societies, consider including this course as a CPD learning activity in your mandatory annual requirements.
TALKING ETHICS: A Four-Part Series
This series focusses on many nuances of the Code of Professional Conduct that will help you in your practice. The Code, along with key College Regulations, provides a blueprint for how to do things properly and stay out of trouble with your clients, colleagues and the College. All sessions are geared to both experienced RCICs as well as those relatively new to the profession. Both will pick up useful tips from expert guidance. The focus is very practical, providing sound advice on how to handle typical practice issues and prevent client complaints.
OUTLINE
Session 2 – Reducing Stress in Client Relationships
The immigration environment is a stressful workplace for practitioners. Effective practitioners learn strategies to reduce stress caused by their clients’ conduct, both for their own well-being and to prevent client complaints. RCICs cannot control government disruptions due to continual program changes and platform issues. But it is possible to manage client relationships in a habitual way, relying on proper protocols rather than luck to minimize the stresses caused by client actions. This seminar presents the concept of defensive practice, offering practical ways to manage client relationships and deal with difficult client behavior while meeting obligations in the Code of Professional Conduct.
TOPICS TO BE COVERED
- Defensive practice explained: What it is, and why it’s key
- Managing stress in client relationships through specific strategies:
- Knowing your professional boundaries
- Effective use of service agreements
- Managing client expectations
- More attention to proper communication, less work fixing things
- A payment system that rewards you fairly
- Enforcing the service agreement
- Seven types of difficult client behavior and how to deal with them
- When to fire a client and how to do it properly
- When the client discharges you; avoiding escalation
- Your turn: Experiences with stressful client relations
College of Citizenship and Immigration - Essential Competency mapping
RCIC
Business Management and Leadership
4.8 Employs conflict resolution Skills to effectively manage conflict or disagreement with others.
Professionalism
6.1 Demonstrates and maintains competence in practice
6.1.2 Stays current and complies with legislation, regulation, professional standards, policies and guidelines.
Communication, Counselling and Advocacy
8.5 Manages client expectations through effective communications.
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). In 2025, she was the recipient of the inaugural award for Teaching Excellence in the Graduate Diploma in Immigration and Citizenship Law at Queen’s University.
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 update the Imm Seminars website. We appreciate your cooperation in these cases.
