Karen Gross

Meet five new members of the Class of 2022 at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law. They are women who took very different paths to end up at the same destination – law school.

Hunter Carlson

Growing up in Domain, Man., a tiny rural town just south of Winnipeg, Hunter Carlson never considered studying law.

“Absolutely not,” she says. “For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be a biologist. I didn’t think much beyond that while I was doing my undergrad.”

She was so serious about biology, she pursued an honours degree and spent a year researching the impacts of environmental change on vulnerable aquatic species in Manitoba’s Delta Marsh. The strength of her thesis and high academic standing earned her two prestigious undergraduate prizes, including an Aboriginal NSERC award for her research in biology. Carlson is a Red River Métis.

“I really enjoyed the data analysis. I loved doing the stats and I loved writing the thesis, but I wanted to see where it would go afterwards, because I did find some statistically significant results during my research,” Carlson says. “I was interested in the application on policy and conservation management. But what I learned was that as a scientist, that was beyond my jurisdiction.”

That revelation threw Carlson’s lifelong plans into disarray. Knowing that just doing research would never satisfy her and that she wanted to see how her research would effect change forced her to carefully consider other options. “That led me to become interested in law school,” she says. “I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make the switch. It was about a year-long process of deciding that’s what I wanted and studying for the LSAT.”

At the same time, Carlson began working as a research associate for the Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources — a First Nation-directed nonprofit supporting sustainable Indigenous communities. “That was a really nice segue into switching out of science and into law,” she says.

Ifrah Farah

While most of her future law school classmates were working on their undergraduate degrees, Ifrah Farah was working to help her single mother support her seven younger siblings. The eldest daughter of parents who came to Canada as refugees from Somalia, Farah did a variety of jobs, including answering phones at a call centre, and handling security at shopping malls.

“I was raised in a single-parent household, and while school was a priority for me, helping out with my family took precedence,” she says.

Farah’s focus changed when she turned 23. She’d been a good student in high school, but felt anxious about returning to university after so many years away. With the help of U of T’s Academic Bridging Program, she completed one introductory summer class and enrolled in a bachelor’s program the following fall. She chose political science as her major.

“Hearing stories from my mom and relatives about what they experienced in Somalia, I always had an interest in figuring out how that happened,” she says. “I wanted to learn what contributes to a state’s collapse. I felt like it was a problem I wanted to solve, and hopefully go back to Somalia and be a part of the change and try to fix it.”

Farah, who’d grown up in a devout Muslim community in suburban Toronto, decided to double minor in anthropology and religion. She became involved at the campus Multi-Faith Centre, where part of her work shone a light on anti-Black sentiment within the Muslim community. “I encountered a lot of racism when I was in Islamic school as a child,” she says. “That surprised me and hurt me, because my identity as a Muslim was always so important to me.”

Among the issues that came up was the lack of Black student representation on the executive team of the Muslim Students’ Association and a general sense of under-representation among Muslim students on campus clubs. That led to the creation of a new community, the Muslim Justice Collective.

Julia Pimentel

As the only child of a Brazilian diplomat and his wife, Julia Pimentel has lived an adventurous life. Her father’s job took the family from Italy to Brazil to the U.S., India and South Africa.

Even as a child, Pimentel was keenly aware that she was lucky and that her life could easily have been very different. “I was 12 and going to school in India, at an American school that had gates,” she says. “From the car going to school, I could see people outside who could have had even better opportunities than I had, but didn’t have them.”

That upbringing and its inherent privileges and pitfalls shaped the core of what drives Pimentel today. While her life as a “citizen of the world” left her more fluent in English than Portuguese and more familiar with European history than that of Brazil, it also left her unsettled and searching for a country she could really call home. “It has felt a bit rootless at times,” Pimentel says. “It’s sometimes hard to say I’m 100 per cent Brazilian because I just haven’t had the same experiences as someone my age in Brazil has.”

Pimentel’s sense of dislocation continued after she completed an undergraduate degree in London, and a master’s in journalism in New York. It also fuelled her desire to help refugees and immigrants – especially women – because in her own way, she identified with them.

Law school offered a way to make an impact. Canada’s open and diverse society appealed to her. And she came to know and love Toronto while her parents were posted here.

“U of T was my number one choice by far,” she says. “The clinics and the practical experience that the law school offered, not just on campus but all over the city, got me most excited.”

Alina Valachi

For Alina Valachi, the second time was the charm. Valachi, 37, had applied to the Faculty of Law once before, drawn by its specialized joint JD/MSW (Juris Doctor/Master of Social work) program. And although she wasn’t admitted, she was determined to try again.

“I truly pursued this joint degree because of the opportunities it offers to collaborate,” she says, referring, in her case, to the field of domestic violence, and the disconnect she observed in the professions involved. “I wanted to do a law degree to be able to bridge that gap.”

The roots of Valachi’s passion are deep and personal. She spent her childhood in Romania, ruled by a dictatorship that criminalized birth control and abortion. Both her mother and grandmother went to dangerous lengths to terminate unwanted pregnancies – her grandmother jumped off a roof. “They performed self-induced abortions. They didn’t feel safe visiting a doctor,” she says.

When she was 12, the family immigrated to Canada, settling in Montreal. But resettlement was difficult and both her parents began experiencing mental health challenges. By the time she enrolled in an electrical engineering program at McGill, Valachi’s father had become emotionally and physically violent with her and her mother. She found solace and support in her job at the university chaplaincy service, and in extracurricular volunteer positions.

“I guess as I was experiencing these challenges in my personal life, community work and the opportunity it offered me to build healthy relationships and create space for me to feel valued and respected, that became a lifeline for me,” she says.

Valachi completed her engineering degree but never pursued the profession. Instead, she moved to Ontario and began working in the social services field, first with the John Howard Society and then the Coalition for Persons with Disabilities. She earned a bachelor’s in social work and went to work at the Rexdale Women’s Centre, helping victims and perpetrators of domestic violence.

“I realized many of the victims were newcomers and didn’t have the legal knowledge they needed to safely exit the violent situations they were in,” she says. “As a social worker, I felt like I didn’t have the ability to support them with their legal issues.”

After volunteering at Toronto’s Barbara Schlifer clinic for abused women, Valachi decided she liked its collaborative model, but she wanted to improve on it. The JD/MSW is her path.

“I have a dream of taking it further,” she says. “I want to help agencies build collaborative approaches to ending domestic violence. I would love to see doctors and lawyers and social workers coming together in a close network to help members of this disadvantaged community.”

Elsie Tellier

A life-threatening diagnosis would knock plenty of people down. Elsie Tellier, who got hers at age 12, aimed for the stars instead.

“I was pretty single-minded,” says the Harvard graduate who learned she had cystic fibrosis after years of battling debilitating, misidentified illness. “My life expectancy is better than what I thought it would be when I was 12. But on that first day, when I was told most people with CF don’t live past 30, I decided I needed a goal.”

Telllier’s mother died at her birth. She and her sister were raised by their father and their aunt, a physician who moved to Winnipeg from Mexico to help care for them. Growing up, she’d miss long stretches of school due to sickness, but she flourished nonetheless.

“When you’re sick I’d say you’re out of sync all the time. I dedicated myself to doing my school work and being home with my family,” she says.

A supportive community and modern technology helped. “Our school had one iPad from the library and my teachers would Skype me into class. My classmates would literally pass me down the hallway, transferring the iPad from class to class.”

At Harvard, Tellier resurrected and rebranded the school’s Disability Alliance after she learned, first-hand, that the university’s accommodations were severely lacking, and in some cases, illegally so. “Every other disabled student I found had a similarly bad experience. People were suing,” she says. “My first week, I ended up speaking to the dean of the college. I went straight to the top.”

Her leadership was so consequential, Tellier was recognized with a Harvard Foundation Award last year. She’s a force on social media as well. Her posts, tweets and snaps address everything from faith in the LGBTQ community, to travelling while disabled and to how to make a fashion statement with a wheelchair.

“My two main interests are child protection and disability rights,” says Tellier, who addressed both in her undergraduate thesis, which studied Manitoban foster parents and their experiences fostering Indigenous children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. “I’ve always seen law as a really helpful way of being an activist. I want to sink my teeth more directly into the issues I care about.”

Exactly how she’ll do it, Tellier isn’t sure. But her track record proves she’s pretty good with goals. “If I can just work on specific cases and help even a few people, that’s enough for me.”

Faculty of Law's Global Professional Master of Laws program launches concentration in law of leadership

noreen.rasbach — Tue, 23 Apr 2019 17:44:37 +0000

Faculty of Law's Global Professional Master of Laws program launches concentration in law of leadership

noreen.rasbach Tue, 04/23/2019 - 13:44

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(photo by Geoffrey Vendeville)

Topic

Navigating today’s ever evolving, increasingly complex human rights and health and safety legislation can be treacherous for even the most informed employers and managers.

“The legal obligations on employers are much more robust than they used to be,” says Faculty of Law alumna and adjunct professor Emma Phillips. “Employees are much more aware of what their rights and protections are, particularly in the wake of #MeToo.”

Phillips, an expert in labour law with Goldblatt Partners, will be co-teaching Harassment, Discrimination, and the Duty to Accommodate, as part of the Global Professional LLM program's new law of leadership concentration, curated for executives and leaders in industries such as corporate, non-profit, public service, education and health management.

“It actually is very well-suited for people who aren’t necessarily doing everyday HR, but are a step removed. They need to have a broad understanding of what the rights and obligations are in the workplace,” she says.

The law of leadership concentration offers seasoned professionals – lawyers and non-lawyers – with the opportunity to learn from the top legal minds in North America and global industry experts. Launching in September, the one-year executive graduate degree is offered in the evenings and on weekends, and provides flexibility in course selection across four concentrations offered in the Global Professional LLM program.

In addition to her day job handling complex grievances, labour arbitration cases, collective bargaining and Charter litigation, Phillips frequently conducts workplace training on harassment and discrimination prevention and implicit bias, working with new employees as well as managers and executives.

“They’re the ones who are ultimately responsible under the law for ensuring their organization is meeting its obligations,” she notes, which is why Phillips believes participants will find the class extremely helpful. “I want to provide them with enough information so they understand where there are red flags, so they have a legal framework they weren’t previously aware of, so they know when to call general counsel or outside counsel. That’s ultimately what the course is designed to do, because not everybody goes to law school.”

To illustrate her point, Phillips cited a case she recently handled involving an employee at a large, unionized organization in Toronto. The woman developed a medical condition that required surgery. The residual symptoms left her unable to stand for long periods of time, making a subway commute during rush hour difficult. What should have been a straightforward request for a modified work schedule of 7 to 3 instead of 9 to 5, instead brought an avalanche of easily avoidable consequences.

“Her manager regarded her with a lot of suspicion, didn’t think she needed the accommodation, thought that this was all just a way to get a schedule that was more preferential and favourable rather than something that was actually medically necessary,” Phillips recalls. “The employee was sent back to the doctor on numerous occasions for additional medical reports. She ended up feeling mistrusted and harassed and ultimately brought a harassment complaint against the manager and a grievance under her union’s collective agreement, based on the employer’s failure to accommodate.”

The fallout affected all sides. Psychological stress exacerbated the employee’s medical condition, and left her on long-term disability. The employer was deprived of a competent and experienced employee, along with having to bear the financial costs of her disability and grievance arbitration. Employee morale was eroded. “That’s the kind of case where I would hope by providing those in senior management positions with an understanding of the duty to accommodate, we could avoid the harms done both to individual employees and to the organization,” Phillips says.

It’s the kind of case she sees fairly frequently and which Phillips believes managers should be able to identify and handle appropriately. Other potential pitfalls for managers may include disclosed or undisclosed mental health issues, and implicit bias – where what starts as misunderstandings can often lead to misery.

“There are all kinds of interactions in the workplace that people might feel were well-intentioned, but that others might perceive as harassment or bias,” Phillips says. “There’s a common myth that you have to have intended to make an offensive comment for it to constitute harassment. In fact the test is that you knew or ought to have known your conduct would be unwelcome.”

Phillips will co-teach the course with Pamela Chapman, a labour lawyer, former vice-chair of the Ontario Labour Relations Board and former member of the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal. She’ll bring an entirely different point of view to the discussion. “We’ll get to hear her insights from the perspective of an adjudicator,” Phillips says. “That too will be of enormous benefit to the students.”

Emily Orchard, assistant dean of the Global Professional LLM program, says in today's political and social climate, the law of leadership concentration is more important than ever.

“Privacy, human rights, employment, and dispute resolution are among the many issues leaders grapple with on a daily basis, and it’s becoming increasingly necessary to understand how to manage them from a legal perspective. The first of its kind in Ontario, we launched the law of leadership concentration because we saw a need in the market for a program that could provide leaders with the legal knowledge necessary to make sound decisions for their organizations.”

Applications to the program are currently being accepted.

One Ls: Meet four of the Faculty of Law's first-year students

noreen.rasbach — Thu, 06 Sep 2018 04:00:00 +0000

One Ls: Meet four of the Faculty of Law's first-year students

noreen.rasbach Thu, 09/06/2018 - 00:00

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“It’s a frustrating and complex situation, though the people I spoke with bear it with resilience and grace,” Rebecca Barclay says of a Tibetan refugee camp in Nepal. “I want to help them, and I cannot think of many better solutions than legal recourse”

Karen Gross

Topic

City & Culture

Back To School 2018

Faculty of Arts & Science

Faculty of Law

Global

Mentorship

Subheadline

Four different paths lead to the same destination – U of T law school

Rebecca Barclay

Born and raised in Vancouver by a mother who blazed her own impressive trail, Rebecca Barclay grew up curious and compassionate. When she encountered those who were less fortunate, she empathized and wished she could be of more help. The law, she thought, might be a good way to do it.

So after completing a degree in international relations, Barclay worked as a legal administrative assistant. She broadened her world view by continuing a tradition of travel that was initiated early on by her mom. “She really prioritized it. Every year we would go on at least one trip that required our passports,” Barclay says.

Over time, Barclay would cover some 38 countries spanning six continents; twice, she travelled with a service team to China. Several adventures were solo, or with a friend she met while backpacking through Europe. What she saw solidified her determination.

“We visited a Tibetan refugee camp in Nepal,” Barclay says. Residents there are trapped in a life of limbo, with no citizenship, and no practical way to participate in the economy, she says. “It’s a frustrating and complex situation, though the people I spoke with bear it with resilience and grace. I want to help them, and I cannot think of many better solutions than legal recourse.”

So of all her adventures and eye-opening destinations, Toronto may well be the most impactful one. “All the opportunities I get at U of T will really cement where my skill set can best be used to impact change,” she says, adding that she envisions a career focused on defending and expanding human rights, either as a lawyer or at a United Nations organization or an NGO.

Among the law school’s many offerings that excite her, Barclay is intrigued by Law in Action Within Schools (LAWS), an educational and mentorship program that encourages youth from cultures under-represented in the legal profession to consider careers in law.

Although more women of colour are climbing to the top of their professions, such success stories were especially rare when Barclay was growing up. “I would feel so privileged to be able to be that example to younger girls who are searching for their reflection in the world around them.”

Ahmed Elahi

For Ahmed Elahi (pictured left), law school is just another challenge in a lifetime filled with them, starting with his childhood in Lahore, Pakistan. He was educated in English, but spoke Urdu everywhere else. “I felt like there was kind of a split between what I was learning in school, how I was articulating it, and how a lot of my personal life went,” he says. “It was difficult to relate what I was learning in school to the personal life I had.”

When Elahi was 17, his parents took their four children to Canada, hoping to open their world to better opportunities than they’d had at home. But life in Brampton, Ont., was difficult. Although his father was an engineer and his mother a nurse, neither could get licensed to work in their professions. “It was very hard for them,” he says. “They thought they’d have an easier time perhaps re-establishing themselves in their careers and also adjusting culturally. But in the first few years they couldn’t find steady jobs anywhere. So there was economic insecurity too.”

Elahi completed an undergraduate degree at U of T, majoring in political science and philosophy. Along the way he collected a string of scholarships, honours and awards while also working as a teaching and research assistant on campus and as a copy editor for the undergraduate political science journal. Still, he didn’t consider law school as a realistic option. “At that time, I just pictured the perfect law student, and I thought maybe I was too weak in my extracurricular activities. It just seemed like a daunting task,” he says.

Elahi attended the Law School Access Program (LSAP) for low-income students the summer after third year. “I realized that lawyers were asking the same sorts of questions about institutions and society that I was,” he says. “I saw that law could be quite an interesting career.”

Elahi is still intimidated by the road ahead, but he’s excited too. “I’m really interested in constitutional law and the rights and freedoms of individuals,” he says. “I really want to improve life for people in Canada who face disadvantages. Whether they’re immigrants or people with disabilities, or other marginalized communities.”

Venky Feng

Venky Feng (picture left) is the first to admit law school was never on her radar. Not as a young girl, growing up in Shanghai. And definitely not once she arrived in the U.S. at 14 to attend boarding school, followed by an undergraduate degree at the elite Mount Holyoke College. She majored in chemistry with a minor in engineering and graduated summa cum laude in three years.

“There were definitely expectations from my professors, who wanted me to go to a great PhD program,” she says. “It was like that was my only choice.”

Her promise as a bright young scientist led her to Oxford University. But two terms there made her realize she did have other choices. And she wanted a chance to pursue them. “Trump got elected while I was at Oxford and it was pretty intense,” she recalls. “It forced me to think about things I take for granted. About my freedom of mobility and how there are immigrants who have to fight to stay in Canada or the U.S.” That led to a deeper level of soul searching.

“It made me realize if I’m not fighting for myself as a minority, then who will fight for me? I started looking into things I could do to change the situation, and I realized that law school might be a good option.”

Feng decided to leave Oxford and take a gap year. Her focus on scientific research had obscured a list of other, widely varied interests. She’d long been fascinated by divinity, for example, and had intended to study Buddhism along with chemistry in college. She volunteered at the campus Chabad House, hoping to learn more about what she suspects might be her own undiscovered Jewish roots. Feng was also involved with Machik, a non-profit whose chief mission is expanding educational opportunities in Tibet. “In all those years, I was doing things for human rights, but because I was in science there weren’t really opportunities to pursue that,” she says.

So during her year off, she applied to law school. She also began learning Hebrew, and plans to earn a certificate in Jewish Studies while she’s at U of T. Now it’s science that’s dropped off her radar, at least for the time being. “I want to keep my options open,” Feng says. “But in my wildest dreams, I would hope to be a professor of humanities and law, or be an advisor to politicians.”

Sarah Feutl

Think all law students come from the same mould? Look no further than Sarah Feutl (pictured left). A theatre kid since middle school, she has spent most of her young life in the performing arts. She majored in theatre as an undergraduate.

Her favourite role? “I played Puck (from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream) in my final year. I loved it,” she says. “It was such a fun, mischievous role. Really physical.”

In fact, when you ask Feutl why she decided to go to law school, her answer is pretty blunt. “That’s a question I’ve asked myself a lot too,” she says with a laugh. “I love theatre. I always will and I’ll always advocate for the arts. But there was only so loud and so useful my voice could be without more training. I needed better skills to effect the change that I wanted to.”

Feutl grew up in Edmonton. Both her parents are journalists who encouraged their kids to ask questions, have opinions, and be curious. She launched and ran a free after-school drama program at a nearby elementary school when she was in Grade 12, which continued into her university years. She also volunteered with an employment-readiness program downtown, helping new immigrants and homeless people find jobs.

“People were feeling completely overwhelmed by the system. They had no advocate and no person to guide them,” she says, with obvious frustration. “It’s my hope that by going to law school, I will have more of a chance to find the tools to effect real change.”

In order to make it happen, Feutl is counting on student financial aid from U of T, which she’ll supplement with provincial and federal loans. “I don’t want to be stuck in a hole with debt for the next 20 years,” she says. “I’m hoping for as much aid as possible. Especially since the type of work I’d like to go into after law school will likely be a much lower paying job than one on Bay Street.”

Her dream scenario? “I’d like to be working for an NGO or not-for-profit foundation that supports international human rights. But also, still be creating theatre on the side or having time to take breaks to create theatre or do shows,” Feutl says. “It’s not necessarily grounded in reality. But I’m going to work really hard to keep both those passions going.”

Law students step outside the classroom, step up for the probono Wills Project

sgupta — Fri, 21 Mar 2014 12:14:16 +0000

Law students step outside the classroom, step up for the probono Wills Project sgupta Fri, 03/21/2014 - 08:14

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Katy O'Rourke says working for Pro Bono Students Canada helped define her career path. (photo courtesy of Faculty of Law)

Karen Gross

Author legacy

Karen Gross

More News

Students

Law

Subheadline

Project tackles planning for low-income clients, students gain practical skills

Although he had been living with HIV for about 20 years and had survived a serious car accident that left him with some long-standing injuries, Dakota Marks had never given much serious thought to writing a will. Not until his close friend and longtime adviser Corena Debassige suggested he attend a workshop at 2-Spirited People of the 1st Nations, a non-profit social service organization which supports Aboriginal members of Toronto's LGBTQ community. Debassige is a client care coordinator at 2-Spirits and has handled palliative and respite care there for two decades.

"To be honest, I think if you don't have a will then it's time to write one," she says. "That's one of the major setbacks I have. When people pass away and there is no will or power of attorney, it's very difficult to manage their remains and follow their wishes."

Several years ago, Debassige discovered a probono legal program that offered a route to ease her burden and calm the anxieties of her ailing clients. The Wills Project, founded originally and exclusively to serve low-income people with HIV/AIDS, is now coordinated by Pro Bono Students Canada (PBSC), a national non-profit born at the University of Toronto almost 20 years ago. Its reach has expanded beyond the AIDS umbrella, to serve low-income clients from a range of backgrounds. Debassige contacted PBSC and has been working with them ever since. "It's an informal partnership but it has worked wonders for people's peace of mind," she says, "as well as for me and the remaining families."

Currently, PBSC’s Toronto chapter dedicates some 12 law students to the program every year. They help draw up as many as two dozen wills, not just for clients of 2-Spirits, but also for people referred by Legal Aid Ontario and the 519 Church Street community centre. At 21 law schools across Canada, hundreds of PBSC volunteers work on the Wills Project and other probono programs, with the help of local lawyers who mentor them on their own time. Not only do these volunteers fill a critical void in the legal system, says PBSC's executive director Nikki Gershbain, they add a layer of value to their legal education that could never be accessed via the classroom.

"Law students are just the perfect group because they're learning, they want to learn even more, they're very compassionate as a rule and there are large numbers of them," Gershbain says. In fact, although probono work is not a mandatory piece of the law school curriculum in Canada, PBSC recruits some 1600 students every year, and keeps a waiting list of about 700. But the organization is seriously strapped for cash, and Gershbain is a tireless fundraiser. A consistent cash flow and more resources would bolster programs and opportunities, she argues, better serving an already robust dual purpose.

"If we create really engaging opportunities for students in all areas of the law, students will do it because they see value in it," she says. "I truly believe they can make a difference. There just aren't enough lawyers out there who are able to do the kind of probono work that needs to be done to fill the gap."

For Katy O'Rourke, a U of T Law alumna, PBSC was a source of inspiration, experience and income during law school. She volunteered in several of its programs and was employed by the organization as a program coordinator. She ran the Wills Project in her final year. Now an articling student at the union-side labour firm Ursel Phillips Fellows Hopkinson, O'Rourke says PBSC helped define her career path. "I can't imagine trying to seek out my own opportunities to volunteer and contribute," she says. "PBSC offers so many opportunities that students wouldn't be able to do otherwise."

It also fills a critical need for people like Dakota Marks, who didn’t have the means to pay a lawyer to write up his will, but who needed one even if he hadn't realized it. Adopted and raised by a loving Caucasian family in Montreal, Marks is a Split Lake Cree. He was born to a First Nations mother in Thompson, Manitoba. After reconnecting with her several years ago, he wanted to make sure both his families were looked after in the event of his death.

"It was very important to me to know there wouldn't be any funeral expenses for my parents," he says. Marks plans to leave some mementos for siblings, nieces and nephews. And his will ensures that after his cremation, his remains are divided between loved ones in Montreal and Winnipeg. It's given him a totally unexpected sense of relief.

"It's an awesome thing that people should have done right away, as soon as possible," Marks says. "I'm just happy I don't have to use mine yet."

Karen Gross is a writer with the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto.

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These three women will make you regret every lawyer joke you ever told

sgupta — Fri, 07 Mar 2014 11:15:44 +0000

These three women will make you regret every lawyer joke you ever told sgupta Fri, 03/07/2014 - 06:15

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Karen Naimer works with doctors, nurses, lawyers, police and judges in Africa and Syria, teaching them how to work together in local and international cases involving sexual violence

Karen Gross

Author legacy

Karen Gross

Topic

Subheadline

Lawyers take on international criminals, sexual violence in conflict zones, Indigenous rights

Every year, as International Women's Day rolls around again, organizations puzzle over how to mark the event.

For 2014, Google's animated doodle will show an 80-second video showing more than 100 women from around the world – from Malala Yousafzai to Dora the Explorer – offering "Happy International Women's Day" in a variety of languages.

The United Nations has assembled an array of dignitaries including Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary-General, John W. Ashe, President of the UN General Assembly and Hillary Rodham Clinton, Former United States Secretary of State.

Across the University of Toronto, the week leading up to March 8 has seen a number of events including a celebration of First Nations women and a look back at the milestones for women in sport and physical education at the university.

U of T News is pleased to share an article from the Faculty of Law that takes a look at three graduates who are inspiring change in the world with their remarkable careers: Danika Billie Littlechild, Karen Naimer and Fabia Wong.

For Danika Billie Littlechild, a regular workday can easily begin in a hotel room far from her Alberta home, sometimes at the crack of dawn. Littlechild, who is Cree from the Ermineskin Cree Nation, became the first woman lawyer from her nation when she graduated law school in 2000. Since then, she has crisscrossed the globe as a champion of Indigenous rights, and an expert consultant in the laws that affect First Nations people.

Littlechild, 39, grew up on the reserve in Maskwacis, formerly Hobbema, some 70 kilometres south of Edmonton. Her parents were survivors of residential schools and while her mother pursued a career as an artist, her late father spent much of his life working to promote his and other First Nations.

Littlechild drew her much of her inspiration from her parents and from her uncle, Wilton Littlechild, who in 1974 became the first Indigenous person from Treaty No. 6 to earn a law degree. He went on to serve in Parliament and has spent much of his life tirelessly promoting and advocating for Indigenous peoples around the world.

"When I was growing up, I saw the trajectory of his career," his niece says. “I saw him and people like him being such strong advocates for our treaty relationship and our treaty rights."

(Photo below: Littlechild's grandmother, Justine Littlechild, with her father Chief Dan Minde; image courtesy Ermineskin Cree Nation)

Littlechild also saw something else. Her people were having to quickly adapt to a new way of life and a new reality but were overwhelmed by rules and regulations that were cumbersome and often foreign to them. She decided to pursue a law degree as well, to figure out how to navigate the complex puzzle that governs her life and the lives of everyone in her immediate and extended community.

"Our lives are so entirely regulated, it's quite unbelievable," Littlechild says. "If Canadians could understand how regulated our daily lives are I think they'd be quite shocked."

Today, she divides her time between her solo practice in Maskwacis and an avalanche of external commitments and responsibilities.

"I'd have to say that one of my most active areas of work has been around governance," Littlechild says. "I've tried to be as creative and innovative as possible to really allow Indigenous people to fully express their identity."

Littlechild also acts as consulting legal counsel for the International Indian Treaty Council and works with a host of First Nations and Indigenous organizations, representing them and their causes at the United Nations and other international forums. She is the deputy vice-chair of the board of the North South Institute, and has developed a special interest in all matters relating to water and its spiritual and material roles in the lives of Indigenous peoples. It's a full and demanding life, but Littlechild is clearly up to the challenge.

"I'm very pleased and privileged that over the course of my career I've been able to work so extensively with Indigenous peoples on such a wide variety of issues," she says. "I'm so appreciative of everything I've learned."

In addition to her conventional job description, it's tempting to add magician to Karen Naimer's resume. The 40-year-old lawyer and human rights trailblazer is also a married mother of two young children, and spends more than a third of every year traveling overseas from her Boston home to run programs and meet with funders in Africa and Europe. Since 2011, Naimer has worked for U.S.-based Physicians for Human Rights, as founder and director of its program on sexual violence in conflict zones.

Along the way, the Montreal native earned an LLM and taught at New York University, clerked for the president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, worked as an associate at a New York law firm, and served as deputy counsel at the Independent Inquiry Committee into the United National Oil-For-Food Programme, also known as the Volcker Commission. During that time, Naimer played a key role in collecting evidence and uncovering an intricate web of corruption and deceit among officials and contractors involved in the $64-billion program, administered in Iraq.

It's a breathtaking career path that Naimer says she carved with no blueprint to follow.

"I was very interested in international criminal law (at law school) but that didn't really exist at the time," she says. "As I was emerging as a young professional, so was the realm of law that I was interested in."

So new was the field, that U of T only offered its first course in international criminal law at the start of Naimer's second year as a law student.

"There was no jurisprudence to teach us," she remembers. "The Yugoslavia tribunal existed but barely had a case come out of it. That December, the Rwanda tribunal issued its first major decision."

Today, Naimer runs a burgeoning program that brings together doctors, nurses, lawyers, police and judges in East and Central Africa and Syria, teaching them how to work together in local and international cases involving sexual violence. She and her staff train participants on the best and most effective ways of collecting, documenting and preserving evidence to support successful prosecutions.They've even piloted a mobile application to help clinicians perform these tasks more efficiently. While she doesn't have any formal data yet on whether the program has led to a higher conviction rate, she is firmly convinced of its initial success.

"What we have done already is we've changed the way doctors, nurses, police, lawyers and judges work together and respect each other," Naimer says. "This ultimately helps survivors who dare to come forward and seek justice through the formal legal systems in their countries."

Naimer has also accomplished something personal, but just as important: She has proven to herself and others that you don't need a map in order to find your way.

"Follow what's really interesting to you," she urges current and prospective law students. "Because even if it doesn't exist yet, the world is changing quickly. We have to open up our minds and imaginations to think about all the different possibilities."

Fabia Wong is a long way from the Toronto suburb of Scarborough where she grew up. The daughter of Hong Kong immigrants, Wong has been living in the Netherlands since 2011 with the Dutch husband she met in Canada. It's an international life that seemed to sprout organically from her open-eyed upbringing in a household that Wong describes as very socially conscious.

"My decision to go to law school was influenced by my father," she says. "He was involved in community activism, in particular race relations. He was a big inspiration for me to pursue a career in law."

Fuelled by an interest in social justice and equality, Wong was drawn to the law school by its International Human Rights Program. And after four years as a commercial litigator in Toronto, she decided to follow her husband back to the Netherlands and pursue her own aspirations in international law.

She began working as an unpaid intern at the Special Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia based in the Hague and soon after joined the prosecution in the trial of Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb military leader accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. For the past year and a half, Wong has been attached to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon where she is involved in another notorious case: the 2005 explosion in Beirut, Lebanon that killed the country's former prime minister along with 22 others, and injured hundreds of Lebanese. The five accused have absconded. They're being tried in absentia.

"A law degree is an incredibly empowering tool that you can use to pursue any number of different careers," Wong says. "That's what I took most from my experience at U of T. And while it might seem at times that there is pressure to pursue a particular career path, there really is no limit."

Now 31, Wong hopes to carve out her own path in international criminal law or humanitarian law, using the skills and experience she's acquiring now and also drawing on her training at U of T and as a commercial litigator.

"Get your litigation skills domestically first," she advises current law students who aim for international careers. "It's a great foundation. It teaches you what you need to know about prosecuting extremely complex cases."

Karen Gross is a writer with the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto.

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Picking winners: citizenship and the Olympics

sgupta — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 12:05:36 +0000

Picking winners: citizenship and the Olympics sgupta Mon, 07/09/2012 - 08:05

Cutline

Professor Ayelet Shachar argues passports are becoming a powerful form of international currency (photo by Michelle Yee)

Karen Gross

Author legacy

Karen Gross

Features

Olympics

Law

If you were born and raised in a country like Canada, chances are you don't wake up every morning and celebrate your luck. Citizenship is something we tend to take for granted, unless we had to fight for it, relocate for it, spend years pursuing it, or prove ourselves in other ways in order to obtain it. And that's why it's so fascinating to Ayelet Shachar, Canada Research Chair in Citizenship and Multiculturalism, and professor of law, political science and global affairs.

Shachar, born and bred in Israel, earned her doctorate at Yale. She and her husband, Prof. Ran Hirschl, then came to the University of Toronto, where they gained their Canadian citizenship the traditional way—living, working, creating a home, and forging an enduring connection with their new community. It was a seminal experience for Shachar, whose research route has been carved in its wake.

"I think precisely because I didn't take citizenship for granted, because I had gone through the process of immigration and naturalization, I became much more aware of how difficult it might be to acquire, how precious citizenship is, and how lucky people are to have it as a natural born right," she says.

Shachar took on the issue of citizenship by birth in her 2009 award-winning book, The Birthright Lottery: Citizenship and Global Inequality (Harvard University Press). Now, she's turned her attention to the touchy concept of citizenship as a recruitment tool, and its increasing use and abuse in the worldwide hunt for triumph. Setting her sights on the Olympic Games, Shachar argues passports are becoming a powerful form of international currency. Elite athletes who have no real ties or connections to the countries that covet them are being wooed and enticed—offered the precious prize of citizenship in exchange for a whiff of gold.

"There's something deeply ironic about the notion of saying 'We grant you citizenship precisely because we care about our nation's position in the world,' even if you have not actually complied with what is typically required of someone applying for citizenship," she says.

Shachar offers several striking examples of this phenomenon, as part of an extensive article she published in the Yale Law Journal last year. In "Picking Winners: Olympic Citizenship and the Global Race for Talent,” she outlines the egregious case of an Ethiopian runner, who says she was rejected three times by her home country's team due to her Christian religious affiliation. The runner was ultimately hooked by Bahrain and won gold on the world track stage in 2007 and 2009. She has since said she is supported by Bahrain’s government "morally and financially" despite hardly having lived there. Shachar also tells the tale of the two "Canadian" hockey teams at the 2006 Turin Olympics. One was actually Italy's team, but featured at least nine Canadian players, some of whom had scant previous ties to the host country.

“These players had strong ties to Canada, but because Italy needed players for its national team, they were selected over native-born Italians to represent Italy as its citizens, ”she says.

In another case, a Canadian-born ice-dancing champion obtained her U.S. citizenship through a special bill signed by former president George W. Bush, less than two months before the Turin games opened. The skater, Tanith Belbin, had been living in the U.S. and representing it at other international events, but she couldn't skate for the Americans at the Olympics without the U.S. passport.

And that's what makes the Olympics stand out, Shachar says. It's one of the few entities that holds citizenship as an absolute prerequisite to participation, and the ultimate example of what Shachar sees as a striking shift in the meaning of citizenship itself. From an ideal whose essence traditionally implied membership, social attachment and a sense of community, the concept is evolving into a much more strategic and opportunistic transaction between national governments and human capital.

"When you think of this notion of people being parachuted, or really fast-tracked into membership without having these other components," she says, "that traditional ideal becomes very tricky."

The issue has been brewing for decades, with glory-hungry countries poaching each other's highly talented citizens over everything from scientific, academic and intellectual prowess to Oscar-winning acting excellence. Shachar's captivation with the Olympics was born out of a broader study of changing immigration patterns involving highly skilled migrants. Even as many countries are tightening their immigration requirements and making it more difficult for refugees and family members to gain residency, they are finding more ways to bring in migrants who might enhance their standing on the world stage, or otherwise contribute to their long-term prosperity.

Often, it's a wealthier country raiding a relatively disadvantaged nation, and that's a big concern for immigration rights advocates, such as prominent Canadian lawyer Barbara Jackman, LLB 1976.

"I am uncomfortable with the concept because I think it's not fair," she says. "It may be fair to the individual who's being parachuted in because that person is going to get opportunities and advantages they may not get in their home country. But it's not fair to anybody else."

Jackman has practiced immigration and refugee law for more than three decades, arguing a number of Charter of Rights cases before the Supreme Court of Canada. Tilting the balance in favour of those with special talents, she argues, is unjust at almost every level.

"It's not fair to the country they're coming into, the country they've left, or the other athletes in the country they are coming into, who've worked hard to get to the top, and who might be displaced as a result," Jackman says.

That's one side of the argument. The other involves that crucial shift identified by Schachar, and what makes an immigrant desirable to a country in the first place. Every year, more than half of the 250,000 immigrants Canada accepts are selected based on their skills and education, and how they might contribute to the country's long-term economic needs and growth. The other half is made up of humanitarian and family reunification cases. Like many other countries, Canada reserves a special spot for the super-skilled: immigrants with "extraordinary talent," whose residency requirements are sometimes shortened and who are granted citizenship on a highly expedited basis. The government does not publish the data for that segment, so the number of cases expedited in any given year is not clear.

Shachar says that elite group is relatively small, but overall, the immigration numbers are shifting in a troubling way.

"The trend in the last few years has been to shrink down the refugee category and expand other categories," she notes. "I personally think that's not the ideal balance. Canada has multiple commitments to humanitarianism and family reunification, in addition to its commitment to economic migrants."

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In fact, Canada recently temporarily suspended part of its family reunification program, in an effort to clear a backlog of sponsored parents and grandparents waiting to come in to the country. At the same time, the government has slightly expanded the overall number of people it admits.

"The trajectory has been to change the categories internally," Shachar says, "not just in terms of getting in more immigrants under the skills category, but they've also changed the definition of skilled migrants under the federal program. So it's not as easy to come in as it was before."

Other countries are now looking to Canada as a model for reshaping their own immigration policies, with economic migrants increasingly targeted as the recruits everyone wants. This growing global strategy of picking winners, whether in business, academia or athletics, has simply been highlighted by the Olympic examples Shachar raises. What to do about it is a question that has confounded scholars, politicians, and sporting officials for years.

It's one of the few entities that holds citizenship as an absolute prerequisite to participation, and the ultimate example of what Shachar sees as a striking shift in the meaning of citizenship itself.

"We think about it with a tremendous sense of sadness and regret," says Bruce Kidd, professor and former dean of the Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education. "The sports community has worried about this and wrestled with it for a very long time."

But Kidd, a champion runner who competed on Canada's 1964 Olympic team and one of the country's most ardent promoters of amateur sport, says it's a very tough issue to tackle. The world is changing and so is the notion of what constitutes national representation. In the case of athletes, matters are further complicated by the fact that where they reside is often not where they train.

"Canadian athletes train all over the world," he notes. "Domicile is a very hard one to nail in a way that would be fair to everybody." It's also impossible to tell an athlete where they can and cannot compete, especially when their Olympic dreams may be at stake and an eager country is willing to take them in.

"I know Canadians who, if they could have skied in the Olympics for Ghana, would have gone to Ghana and done that," Kidd says.

Andrea St. Bernard, JD 2005, immigrated to Canada from Grenada with her family when she was a baby. A citizen of both countries, St. Bernard will represent Grenada in taekwondo at the London Olympics this summer. Although she grew up in Canada, St. Bernard spent most of her summers in Grenada. She took up the taekwondo after completing her undergraduate degree, training at a club in Toronto and reaching the competitive stage while she attended law school. St. Bernard amassed a stack of regional and national medals. But when it came time to compete internationally, she found Canada's training demands clashed with her budding career as a corporate lawyer at McMillan LLP in Toronto.

"There was more opportunity for me to reach international level competition through Grenada," she says. "At the time, it was like having two full time jobs and I couldn't keep up with the schedule of Canadian competition the way I would have needed to in order to make the team."

In fact, St. Bernard will be the first taekwondo athlete to represent Grenada at an Olympics. Her dual nationality and her desire to contribute made hers an easy choice. But, she says, if another athlete wanted to swap citizenship for the sake of Olympic glory, that wouldn't bother her “because changing or gaining nationality is often about the pursuit of opportunities that may not otherwise be available. To the extent that the country is willing to call them a citizen and make them an ambassador of sport, I can't say I think there's a major issue," she says.

But as passport-swapping becomes more popular, some amateur sports federations are tightening their own rules. FINA, the international swimming federation, requires that athletes must have resided in a country and been affiliated with its national federation for at least one year before they can represent it in competition. The IAAF, which governs international track and field, now mandates that an athlete be a citizen of a country for at least two years prior to competing internationally. This new rule was instituted expressly to prevent countries from "buying" medal contenders.

Confronting the issue at the federation level is a good start, Shachar says. She also supports the idea of mutual responsibility, whereby a country that scoops up another's human treasure reciprocates by making some sort of return investment.

"If another country takes them away," she says, "our current international system doesn't have a way to say perhaps this is unfair, perhaps the recruiting country has some obligations."

Bruce Kidd agrees, and says payback should extend far beyond the world of sport. "The First World should do this, but we should do this for way more than just athletes," he says. "We should do it for physicians, for nurses, and for everybody else."

Looking for remedies to this modern-day dilemma is one approach. The other involves figuring out what's causing it. Why, wonders Shachar, are countries so willing to undermine their own increasingly stringent immigration rules, to upend the traditional ideals of citizenship and nationality, all in the ironic pursuit of achieving international success and glory? And what does that say about the future of citizenship itself?

Barbara Jackman is skeptical. Picking winners, no matter what the category, is no way to build a community, she says. Not unless a government is also willing to welcome the pick's family members, and truly commit to their future.

"It's a very segmented way to look at a person when you're just looking at the person as a cog that's going to help us in the wheel of development," she argues. "The whole concept of family is lost."

But Shachar, who describes herself as an optimist by nature, says she sees this moment not as an end, but as an opportunity. With the true nature of citizenship arguably at a crossroads, perhaps states and leaders will be forced to find a better way—one that feeds the needs of individual nations, while still satisfying those people whose sense of community, connection, and self are tied to the country in which they live.

"We're at a juncture. Traditional concepts of identity and membership still matter greatly to individuals," she says. "They matter to countries as well. Citizenship is in flux. It's hard to predict how this will come out in the end."

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