Sooner or later, it’s a choice almost every Osgoode student stares down. And with more clinical education programs than any other Canadian law school, there’s lots of choice to go around.

That range of selection was on full display Oct. 18 during the law school’s annual Clinical Education Fair. At tables spread throughout Gowlings Hall, students and directors representing 17 clinical programs were on hand to field questions from eager 1L students contemplating which offerings to apply for.

“It’s incredible – there are so many options,” said 1L student Jeremy Vyn from St. George, Ont. “For someone like me who has no idea what area of law to pursue, it’s so interesting to go from station to station and see the passion in people for what they’re doing.”

Vyn said he was leaning towards applying to the Intensive Program in Criminal Law or the Intellectual Property Law and Technology Intensive Program. “I have a lot to think through now,” he added after surveying the options.

Osgoode’s wide range of clinical programs weighed heavily in his decision to apply to the law school, he noted. “Seeing the vast amount that are here was a big factor,” he explained, “especially not knowing the direction I want to go in in my legal career.”

With an undergraduate degree in microbiology, Brandon Connor from Mumbai, India said he’s counting on Osgoode’s strength in experiential education to provide him with the kind of front-line legal experience he can show to future employers.

“I look at these clinics as an opportunity to fill that gap and give me the background I need,” he said.

In between fielding student questions at the Osgoode Business Clinic table, 2L student Carissa Wong said that working with clients has been one of the most fulfilling aspects of her involvement in the clinic.

“It’s very practical and a lot of our clients are people who can’t afford legal services, so it’s really rewarding,” she said.

Wong added that one of her current clients is a new immigrant to Canada who is starting a business. “She’s putting everything she has into it,” she said, “so it’s nice to play a part in that.”

In selecting students, a strong work ethic and a passion for the clinic’s specific area of law is more important than marks or legal experience, said Scarlet Smith, program director for the Community and Legal Aid Services Program (CLASP).

“Students sometimes think that you’re supposed to come with all the legal knowledge, but that’s not true – we train you,” she said. “Our focus is more on students showing a commitment to the kind of work we do through different avenues like lived experience or community work.”

Serving mostly low-income clients, CLASP students carry out work related to criminal law, immigration law and administrative law – and have even been involved in cases that have risen as high as the Supreme Court of Canada. Last year, said Smith, the clinic received well over 200 applications and ultimately hired 64 junior caseworkers and 70 interpreters.

The clinical programs, some of which are combined with course work, range in length from one semester to a full 12 months. In many cases, students are supervised or mentored by practicing lawyers.

As Ontario’s under-resourced courts struggle with the impact of delays, Professor Palma Paciocco hopes a recent $51,000, three-year research grant will help her uncover insights that could improve the system’s efficiency and fairness, especially when it comes to the use of often time-consuming expert evidence.

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms enshrines the right to a timely trial – and the Supreme Court of Canada’s landmark R. v. Jordan ruling in 2016 imposed a presumptive limit of either 18 or 30 months between the time charges are laid and when a trial is concluded, depending on the court.

But issues like legal-aid cuts, limited court resources and the rising number of self-represented litigants have contributed to court delays. And the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic only exacerbated the problem.

“It continues to be a huge issue that looms in the background of all cases,” said Paciocco. “And we do from time to time hear of cases where very serious charges are stayed because of delay.”

Funded in part by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Grant, her current research will focus on the court system’s competing demands for efficiency and the need to carefully assess expert evidence. In several high-profile cases in the past, reliance on faulty expert evidence resulted in wrongful convictions, but the process for screening out such evidence can be time-consuming.

Paciocco’s project is titled The Gatekeeper and The Timekeeper: Regulating Expert Evidence and Trial Delay in Criminal Courts.

“The process for assessing expert evidence is very time consuming, but very important to ensuring accurate outcomes,” she explained. “At the same time, judges are aware of the need to ensure that the trial is moving along efficiently. Sometimes those goals can be in tension, and judges need more support figuring out how to navigate that tension on a case-by-case basis.”

While most criminal cases do not involve expert evidence, she said, it is more likely to arise in trials involving particularly serious charges, where it can play an important role in the fact-finding process. Paciocco said that she chose to focus on expert evidence and trial delay because of the very high stakes for serious criminal cases and because the interaction of these two legal issues can result in especially pronounced tensions between the needs for efficiency and accuracy in the court system.

As part of her research, she plans to delve deeply into theoretical literature on these competing justice goals, which also relates directly to plea bargaining – another research interest of hers. She will also look at case law from across the country to see how judges have balanced the need for expert evidence with the desire to avoid undue delays. Finally, she will review best practices recommended by commissions of inquiry and other bodies to see how well best practices designed to promote sound expert evidence align with best practices for avoiding or minimizing trial delay.

She said she plans to translate her research findings into scholarly articles, including a practice-oriented article for judges and lawyers and a slide deck that could be used for continuing professional education.

“I’m hoping the project will contribute to ongoing conversations about improving the efficiency of our courts and ensuring that expert evidence is being carefully assessed,” she said, “and that it will do so in a way that’s alive to the real tensions and challenges that judges face.”

It’s the multibillion-dollar mineral bonanza in Ontario’s far north that treasure-seekers say will unlock the untold wealth of the new green economy. But master’s student Julia Brown hopes she can play some part in making sure that development of the so-called Ring of Fire on First Nations land in the environmentally sensitive Hudson Bay Lowlands does not take place without the free, prior and informed consent of the First Nations who live there.

As the 2023-2024 Fellow with Osgoode’s Environmental Justice and Sustainability Clinic (EJSC), Brown will work with leaders of Neskantaga First Nation in an effort to draft the terms of a workable partnership with the Government of Canada as it prepares to undertake a regional environmental assessment prior to any mineral development. The assessment is taking place under Canada’s Impact Assessment Act, which replaced the Environmental Assessment Act in 2019.

Brown said the original terms of reference for the regional assessment gave First Nations in the area only token participation in the process.  After strong pushback from the First Nations, the federal agency involved agreed to review the terms.

“That was disappointing,” she added, “because this legislation was supposed to be a real improvement in terms of the roles that First Nations would play.

“That was a glaring omission,” she said. “Whether development should go ahead really should be up to the people who live there and whose land it is.”

While various levels of government have recognized the importance of reconciliation, they are still reluctant to give up control – especially when it comes to mineral wealth, Brown remarked.

The federal assessment will be among the first to look at a whole region. Environmental assessments are typically project specific. Brown said that the Ontario government has to date declined to participate in the federal process and is carrying out separate assessments focused only on proposed roads connecting the area to the provincial highway system.

“There is no precedent for the federal government in terms of how this regional assessment has to be structured,” she explained. “So we’ll be working on how it could be structured so there is a real partnership between First Nations and the federal government.”

Last year, Neskantaga First Nation marked its 10,000 day of being under a hazardous drinking water advisory, despite federal commitments to fix the problem. Located 463 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay, the fly-in community is situated amid a vast wetland that acts as a huge carbon sink. Some have called the region the “lungs of Mother Earth,” and the First Nations there call the region the “Breathing Lands.” In total, the Ring of Fire region spans about 5,000 square kilometres and is rich in chromite, nickel, copper, platinum, gold, zinc and other valuable minerals – some of which are required for battery production.

Brown, who previously worked as a lawyer for Toronto-based OKT Law, the country’s largest Indigenous rights law firm, said she feels fortunate to be working with the Environmental Justice and Sustainability Clinic and its current director Professor Dayna Nadine Scott.

“We feel very fortunate this year at the EJSC to have someone with Julia’s depth of knowledge and experience to be stepping into the role of Clinic Fellow”, said Scott.

As part of her graduate research, Brown will focus on the issue of emotion in judicial reasoning and how that influences Aboriginal title cases. Her research adviser is Professor Emily Kidd White.

Six Osgoode alumni have been honoured by Canadian Lawyer magazine as being among Canada’s Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers for 2023.

Lisa Mantello ’02, Partner, Financial Services with Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP, was recognized in the Business category. She practices in all areas of financial services, with particular expertise in domestic and cross-border financing transactions, structured finance and derivatives.

Yaman Marwah ’18 (LLM), Founder, President and Managing Lawyer with Ottawa-based Marwah Law, was recognized in the Governments, Non-Profits and Associations category. He holds a PhD in law, is a serial entrepreneur in the tech industry and leads the business and real estate departments at Marwah Law.

Janice Rubin ’89, Co-Founder and Co-Managing Partner for Toronto-based Rubin Thomlinson LLP, was recognized in the Human Rights, Advocacy and Criminal Law category. She is a highly accomplished employment lawyer, one of Canada’s foremost experts in workplace investigations and a trusted advisor to senior human resource professionals.

Laura Salvatori ’10, General Counsel with Anson Funds, was recognized in the In-House category. She oversees all legal, litigation, risk and regulatory matters for Anson’s Canadian and U.S. operations. She previously served as vice-president, assistant general counsel, for Goldman Sachs and general counsel and senior vice-president, human resources, for Toronto-based Match Marketing Group.

Karl Tabbakh ’97, Managing Partner, Region of Quebec, with McCarthy Tétrault LLP, was recognized in the Business category. He is also co-leader of the firm’s International & Business Strategy Group and a member of its senior leadership team. He specializes in private equity, mergers and acquisitions, securities and capital markets.

Muneeb Yusuf ’09, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary for Toronto-based health-technology firm League Inc., was recognized in the In-House category. He is responsible for managing and evaluating risks facing the corporation, leading its legal department and acting as a key negotiator for strategic transactions.

Canadian Lawyer conducted this year’s survey between March 13 and April 7, calling for nominations from legal groups, readers and a panel of writers and editors. From reader nominations, magazine staff selected those who have influenced the legal system over the past 18 months in specific categories. A long list was posted online and readers were invited to vote and comment. Canadian Lawyer editorial board members created the final list of 25 Most Influential Lawyers based on the 21,724 votes cast.

The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on Saturday, Sept. 30 was marked at Osgoode this week with a special guest lecture by one of Canada’s foremost experts on Anishinaabe Law, along with a fundraising event organized by the Osgoode Indigenous Students’ Association (OISA).

On the evening of Sept. 28, Osgoode students gathered in the Junior Commons Room for a bingo and raffle event, raising more than $200 for the Orange Shirt Society. The B.C.-based organization works to raise awareness of the individual, family and community inter-generational impacts of Indian Residential Schools and to promote Indian Residential School reconciliation. Many of the items donated for the raffle were from Indigenous artists and businesses.

Sage Hartman, OISA’s Director of Cultural and Community Relations, said her work in organizing the event was supported by OISA President Aleah Lavalley-Lewis and OISA Director of Finance and External Affairs Hannah Johnson.

The association’s executive this year is putting a priority on community building, she noted.

“What I’ve noticed,” she said, “is people want to participate and they want to understand but they don’t know how.

“These social events,” she added, “are a way for people to get more involved and give them an opportunity to engage with the day and keep the conversation going. These are hard topics.”

In an event organized by Osgoode’s Office of Indigenous & Reconciliation Initiatives, Elder Fred Kelly, a citizen of the Ojibways of Onigaming, a community of the Anishinaabe Nation in Treaty #3, spoke to a packed room at the Helliwell Centre Sept. 27 about Anishinaabe Laws and how they are practiced today in the country’s bi-juridical legal landscape.

Also know as Kizhebowse Mukwaa (Kind Walking Bear) of the Lynx Clan, Elder Kelly is an Elder in Midewin, the Sacred Law and Medicine Society of the Anishinaabe. As such, he is a Keeper and Practitioner of Sacred Law. He is also the Grand Chief Emeritus of the Anishinaabe Nation in Treaty #3 and is a survivor of Indian Residential Schools in Kenora, Ont., and Lebret, Sask. He was a member of the Assembly of First Nations team that negotiated the historic Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement and continues to advise individual victims on their healing journeys.

The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation – originally and still colloquially known as Orange Shirt Day – is intended to honour the children who never returned home and First Nations, Inuit and Métis Survivors of residential schools, as well as their families and communities. It was made a federal statutory holiday in 2021 in response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Call to Action number 80. The impact of the residential school system has been recognized as a cultural genocide and continues to this day.

Celebrating its sixth anniversary, the Osgoode Investor Protection Clinic (IPC) opened the Toronto Stock Exchange on Friday, Sept. 29 amid a shower of red ticker tape and enthusiastic applause.

“It is such an honour to be here to open the market!” said clinic founder and Professor Poonam Puri, who launched the pioneering program in 2017.

“We know that investor protection is the foundation upon which markets can attract capital and grow,” she added. “Without the confidence that there are rules and processes in place that will protect their investments, retail investors will not have the trust needed to put their hard-earned savings into the capital markets.”

The Osgoode IPC and the TMX Group, which operates the Toronto Stock Exchange, are aligned in advancing investor protection in Canadian capital markets, she noted.

Puri prefaced her remarks with a land acknowledgement and recognition of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on Sept. 30.

She was joined for the festive market opening ceremony by Dean Trevor Farrow, IPC associate director Brigitte Catellier, IPC administrative coordinator Ruby Soriano, the current class of IPC students, the clinic’s supervising lawyers, IPC alumni, IPC community partners and Cheryl Graden, chief legal and enterprise corporate affairs officer and corporate secretary for TMX Group. Market open ceremonies take place at the TMX Group’s Market Centre in the heart of downtown Toronto’s Financial District and are broadcast live on the BNN Bloomberg business channel.

“The IPC is one of the finest examples of Osgoode’s world-class experiential education program,” said Farrow in his remarks. “From the launch of Parkdale in the 1970s to today, Osgoode’s experiential education program is providing students with important skills while allowing them to study the law in context and give back to the community.”

The Osgoode Investor Protection Clinic, the first of its kind in Canada, provides pro bono legal services to individuals who have suffered financial harm through investing. The clinic also engages in investor education initiatives and collects anonymized data to inform public policy decisions and contribute to regulatory reform. It is funded by the Law Foundation of Ontario and has a community partnership with Toronto-based FAIR Canada, which champions the rights of individual investors in Canada through advocacy, education and regulatory advancements.

For Patricia Cavalhier, it was an opportunity she thought she’d never see again.

When the Toronto resident immigrated to Canada from Brazil with her family in 2010, she assumed that giving up her career as an accomplished lawyer was simply a sacrifice she’d have to make. Her legal background in a civil law jurisdiction like Brazil, she believed, would not translate to Canada, so she pursued a career in banking instead.

But as the family settled into their new home and she explored her options, she discovered Osgoode Professional Development’s full- and part-time Professional LLM in Canadian Common Law program for internationally trained lawyers. With her employer’s support, she enrolled as a part-time student. In 2021, she was hired as legal counsel for TV Ontario (TVO), the province’s publicly funded educational television network, and was promoted in March 2022 to TVO’s director of legal services.

It’s a happy ending that’s been repeated hundreds of times since the program’s inception in 2013. Over the past 10 years, the unique offering has helped more than 1,000 internationally trained lawyers from more than 60 countries launch or re-start their legal careers in Canada, literally changing the face of the profession.

“It’s really made a massive impact in diversifying the legal profession in Canada,” says Meghan Thomas, the director of professional graduate and international programs for OsgoodePD. “It’s good for each individual graduate, it’s good for the population-at-large because there’s access now to more diverse representation, and it’s good for the profession.”

With its full-time, part-time and distance-learning options, Canadian Common Law LLM courses are accredited by the Federation of Law Societies of Canada’s National Committee on Accreditation (NCA), enabling students to move on to lawyer licensing after completing their NCA requirements. While other routes to accreditation existed prior to the program’s launch, they were often too difficult or impractical for many lawyers trained outside of Canada to pursue, she noted.

“This program and its expansion over the years has really provided a lot of opportunity for people,” she adds.

The program’s success will be celebrated at a special 10^th anniversary event on Oct. 24 from 5 to 8 p.m. at OsgoodePD’s downtown Toronto campus. The gathering will give graduates from across the years a chance to reconnect, reflect and toast the fruits of their hard work.

The program originally stemmed from OsgoodePD’s Professional LLM in International Business Law program, recalls Executive Director Victoria Watkins. Established in 2009, it quickly began attracting international visa students, many of whom wanted to stay and qualify to practice in Canada.

“So we decided that we should create a program that would help people get the Canadian law courses to qualify to practice,” she says. “And that’s where it started. It basically came out of student needs.”

Osgoode Hall Law School Professor François Tanguay-Renaud, the program’s academic director, says the students’ richly varied backgrounds and perspectives make for an exceptionally stimulating classroom environment.

“People come from common law jurisdictions, civil jurisdictions and jurisdictions that vary in all sorts of ways,” he notes. “And that knowledge on the part of the students really contributes a lot to the classroom in terms of being able to situate norms and concepts in Canadian law in relation to what’s happening elsewhere in the world.”

Tanguay-Renaud says the quality of instruction is equal to Osgoode’s mainstream JD program – but is actually more advanced in some respects because the LLM students already have years of training and experience under their belts.

The result? “It really helps generate very creative thinkers and law graduates,” he says – “people who are able to deal with legal problems from more than just one perspective.”

After graduation, the varied career paths students typically follow has helped shatter the myth that career opportunities for internationally trained lawyers are limited, says Thomas. An analysis of graduates from 2015, 2017 and 2019 found that 93 per cent were licenced and were employed across the full spectrum of practice areas. Forty-nine per cent were working for solo or small firms, 12 per cent for boutique firms, 11 per cent in house, nine per cent for mid-size firms, nine per cent for the government or public sector, seven per cent for big firms, and three per cent for regulatory bodies.

“Just because you’re internationally trained doesn’t mean you don’t have access to a wide range of opportunities professionally,” says Thomas. “That was the myth that was out there – that you won’t get to choose.”

The 174 graduates from those three years had an average age of 37 and came from 43 countries. Historically, many have traced their roots to nations like India and Nigeria, which are connected to Canada through Commonwealth ties and a shared common law tradition. But in recent years, she notes, students from countries like Brazil and the Philippines have been on the rise.

The program has been purposely designed by OsgoodePD to provide the widest range of pathways to internationally trained lawyers coming from a variety of circumstances. In a partnership with the York University English Language Institute, for example, it offers the Intensive Advanced Legal English Program. Its full-time or part-time Graduate Diploma in Foundations of Canadian Law, which is described as the only program of its kind in Canada, can be an attractive option for students who want a stronger foundation in the Canadian legal system before pursuing the Canadian Common Law LLM. Through OsgoodePD, students also have access to career and wellness counselling.

“We’ve done a lot of stuff that’s really different from what other schools are doing – and in a student-focused way – because we want people to be successful in the profession,” says Thomas. “There’s no one else who has the size or range of options that we have.”

Over the past 10 years, internationally trained lawyers have become one of OsgoodePD’s core client groups. Their importance is reflected in special events like Osgoode’s Internationally Trained Lawyers’ Day, an annual event when legal employers, lawyers and law graduates from different countries – and those who may be going through the process of accreditation or licensing alone – gather to learn, share and celebrate internationally trained talent across Canada.

Going forward, Watkins says, OsgoodePD is planning to add more experiential learning opportunities to the program, with a focus on practical lawyering skills. And the introduction of several significant entrance scholarships for internationally trained lawyers in 2021 has made the full-time and part-time programs more accessible than ever. The $30,000 OsgoodePD International Entrance Award of Excellence is awarded to six students annually, and the $10,000 OsgoodePD International Entrance Award of Merit is awarded to 12 students each year.

“So we now have another pool of people that we’re drawing – people who couldn’t have otherwise afforded to come,” she adds. “It’s really been great for the program and for Osgoode. Overall, it’s a group of students who have accomplished amazing things despite formidable obstacles.”