Presenter/s: Lynn Gaudet B.A., LLB., RCIC
Date: 20 May 2026
Time: 11 am to 2:00 pm Pacific
Location: webinar
Type: webinar and recording
Price: $75.00
CPD approval:
- CICC 3 CPD hours approved. Video recording will expire on 20 May 2027. This event includes 3 hours of Professionalism.
- LSBC 3 CPD hours approved. Video recording will expire on 31 December 2026. Attendance to this course 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
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- 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.
Session 3 - Writing your Service Agreements
Writing a proper service agreement is not just a requirement or formality under the Code of Professional Conduct. It is the key to managing client expectations and conducting your practice in a way that best protects you and reduces stress in client relationships. This seminar takes a deep dive into the clauses of service agreements under section 24 of the Code and the College's Guide for Your Service Agreement. Sample clauses, including clauses describing the client's obligations and consequences of breach, are covered along with the Section 24 requirements.
TOPICS TO BE COVERED
- The role of the service agreement in defensive practice
- Technical matters: wording; review; signing; amending service agreements.
- Implementing the College Guide on Service Agreements
- Key considerations in drafting clauses.
- Defining the services; drafting the billing provisions
- Essential terms for RCIC obligations, with samples
- Essential terms for client responsibilities, with samples
- Enforcing the service agreement; consequences of client breach
College of Citizenship and Immigration - Essential Competency mapping
RCIC
Business Management and Leadership
4.7 Reviews business practices and performance to ensure efficient and quality service
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.
