phughes's blog

My blog

Law School Curriculum Modules - Part II

12/03/2012

In my last blog about my visit to Queen's Law, I said I would write a bit more about the law school curriculum modules for teaching about violence against women developed by the LCO and funded by the Ontario Women's Directorate. We retained Pamela Cross who has worked with the National Judicial Institute to create curriculum materials to work with an advisory group to draft the modules and accompanying background information. The advisory group included reps from every Ontario law school, individuals from front-line organizations, government, defence and Crown counsel, the OCJ and NJI and others.

Our objective in preparing the modules was to provide a means by which every law student will graduate with some degree of information about issues arising out of violence against women. Of course, they will not become experts, but they will acquire sufficient knowledge to raise flags about when they need additional assistance. We believe that understanding basics about violence against women is a competency all lawyers should have to enable them to interview clients who have suffered abuse or clients who have perpetrated or been accused of perpetrating abuse, to be able to provide information about finding help and to address ethical issues that might arise. Many areas of law can raise substantive issues affected by the existence of abuse, not only the obvious areas of criminal, family or tort law, immigration law, dispute resolution or social welfare law.

By creating modules, we think that law schools or individual professors will be able to use them in the way most convenient to them. Courses already addressing this content may benefit from inclusion of some of the material presented. A school could use some of the foundational modules to offer an intensive program. Individual modules can be taught as a seminar or joined together to be taught as a full course. In short, we've tried to make them as flexible as possible.

One module of particular interest may be the ethics and professionalism module, since all law schools are expected to include a mandatory ethics and professionalism course in their curriculum by 2015.

The modules are not meant to be the final word - we expect that they will evolve, be added to, revised by those who use them. We know that there are profs who are already teaching about violence against women and we'd be pleased to post any materials they would be willing to share, giving credit for their source. Just send materials to law commission@lco-cdo.org.

Reminding me of what I miss & spreading the word about the LCO - my visit to Queen's Law

11/16/2012

I had a terrific visit to Queen's faculty of Law - from my perspective, at any rate! Lots of opportunities to spread the word about the Law Commission of Ontario and a reminder to myself about what I miss about teaching.

One of the main highlights was the launch of our law school curriculum modules on teaching about violence against women. There was a good crowd of students, profs and people from the community whose work deals with these issues. It wasn't all positive - not acknowledging the work done by everyone at the law schools already was a source of criticism - but overall, this initiative was welcomed. The modules are available at http://www.lco-cdo.org/en/violence-against-women-modules-final-report. I'll write later about the modules and how they can be used - and added to through the LCO's website.

The reminder about what I miss about teaching came through being a "guest lecturer" in two classes, one in Public Law and the other in a combined Gender Law and Mental Health Law class (and through meeting a moot team). I spoke about the LCO - its mandate, its processes and its projects - in the Public Law class, as well as about "policy", including different types of policy development. In the Gender Law and Mental Health Law class, I focused on our framework for law, policy and practice affecting persons with disabilities, but also spoke more generally about the meaning of "equality" and compound grounds of inequality. The students in both classes participated - some of them had some very smart, difficult questions. (The final report in the project relating to persons with disabilities will be released on December 10th, Human Rights Day; we'll be following it up with a major symposium in January. On the project to date, see http://www.lco-cdo.org/en/content/persons-disabilities and if you want to included on the distribution list for the report, let us know at lawcommission@lco-cdo.org.)

I had also been asked to talk about the equality jurisprudence with the Wilson Moot team - a fun discussion for me and I hope useful for the students, but a bit limited in value I suspect by the fact that we didn't have the actual problem. Covering the equality waterfront meaningfully is a challenge!

Spending time with Dean Bill Flanagan and Associate Dean (Graduate Studies and Research) Sharryn Aiken raised some interesting ideas for future arrangements with Queen's, as did my meeting with students. One of the students asked if we'd entertain an internship arrangement and I've now been talking to Jane Emrich, Assistant Dean of Students, about doing exactly that. Leann Beggs, Director of Career Services, took the opportunity to chat about how to increase the number of Queen's law students applying for summer and academic term positions with the LCO.

Leanne Wight, the President of the Frontenac Law Association and a family law lawyer, graciously came to Queen's so we could meet. She was able to confirm that the concerns we've expressed in our family law project are still concerns with the system (hope we are able to release the final report in that project in the spring). We talked about the possibility of an invitation for the LCO to attend the Frontenac Law Association's conference next October.

And a final special touch - a chance to have a coffee with Christine Ward who writes our newsletter, Liaison (and who helped us with media exposure for the VAW modules launch - and see http://www.canadianlawyermag.com/law-commission-calls-on-schools-to-instruct-students-on-realities-of-violence-against-women.html). The next issue of Liaison is in preparation, and after I finish this blog, I'll be reviewing a story for the fall 2012-winter 2013 online issue.

We'll be planning visits to other law schools over next term, as well as discussing with members of the advisory group for the VAW initiative and the members of the LCO's Law School Research and Liaison Group for each school how their school might be able to incorporate the modules (already started with a very helpful discussion with the Osgoode members).

I was back in Kingston a week and a half later to present at the Adjudicating Human Rights in the Workplace conference organized by the Centre for Law and the Contemporary Workplace at Queen's - an excellent opportunity to hear from people immersed in human rights issues in different fora, including some quick responses to the Pinto Report reviewing the "new" human rights system in Ontario which was released the afternoon before the conference began. (Should mention, too, that Andrew Pinto is a member of the LCO Board of Governors.)

LCO staff Janice Williams and Amanda Rodrigues are concentrating at the moment on the release of the final report in the project relating to persons with disabilities in December and the organization of the symposium in January. Next up: most likely the vulnerable workers final report, going to the Board for approval at the end of the month and early December under the guidance of project head MAG Counsel Norine Nathanson, with an anticipated release date in February. The Forestry Workers Lien for Wages Act project is moving along in the capable hands of project head Sue Gratton. And in addition to her work on the January symposium, Lauren Bates has begun intensive preliminary interviewing for the LCO's new consent and guardianship project.

Lots going on as the Board considers the future direction of the LCO at its retreat next week!

LCO beginning 2012-2013 law school visits

10/19/2012

About every 18 months or so I try to make a round of visits to all the Ontario law schools - they are parties to the agreement creating the LCO.

My first visit is to Queen's Faculty of Law the week of October 29th. Professor Bev Baines has invited me to speak to two of her classes, Public Law and Gender Law and for the second, she's invited the Mental Health Law class to join us. Professor Kathy Lahey has invited me to speak to the Feminist Studies Group - I'll be launching our law school curriculum modules on violence against women.

These are great opportunities to speak to students about the LCO, its projects, its processes and its approaches. And it forces me to think about what we do and how we do it - and opportunity for reflection that often doesn't come with the rush of day to day work. More on those classes when I return.

My visits to the law schools also include time with the dean and associate dean research, faculty members and students, giving me a chance for a personal update on what we're doing and particularly new projects, as well as let students know about LCO research opportunities. I'll be talking to Dean Bill Flan agan about a new LCO scholar in residence program for faculty members on sabbatical.

I'm pleased that I'll also get time with Christine Ward who writes the copy for our newsletter, Liaison (Christine is preparing the Fall 2012 issue more or less as I blog). We speak often on the phone around Liaison, but rarely can enjoy an in-person chat!

We'll be organizing the visits to the other laws schools for the winter - sometimes, there's a chance to participate in a conference being held at the school, sometimes to be a guest in a course, and we're certainly open to other possibilities. The important thing is that the LCO and law reform become part of the law school landscape.

LCO staff as guest lecturers

09/28/2012

Last week, Ida Bianchi, the project head in the family law project, and I were guests in Osgoode Professor Mary Jane Mossman's class in advanced family law. We went to talk about the family law project and the LCO's processes more generally, and Ida explained how her own experiences as a practitioner and at Legal Aid Ontario (to which she, unhappily for us, returns next week) told her that what we were doing in this project made sense.

We also heard a student's presentation on unbundled services, something we talk about in the family law report. As a former university professor, I'm always pleased to visit classrooms and talk about our work. As in this case, it's a pleasure to participate in the lively and helpful discussions among the students that occurr.

We want students to know about our work - and about the fact that law reform is a particular kind of activity. I've also taught a law reform seminar at Osgoode and find students are often surprised at the kind of work we do and how we do it.

LCO staff have been guests in classrooms before at several Ontario law schools to discuss our projects. Mostly we're invited to law school courses, but not exclusively - we've spoken in a political science class and in a course on public policy.

I'm off to Queen's University in late October for one of my regular law school visits when I'll meet the dean, faculty members and students, but I'll also be giving three class presentations about our work, specifically about the disability project and the law school curriculum modules on violence against women initiative. The LCO makes a serious effort to make our work inclusive of different approaches and different communities, whether reflecting characteristics such as ethnicity, age, sexual orientation or geographical location (urban or rural residence), among others and so one of my presentations will be about how we seek to incorporate gender into our work.

If you're teaching, give some thought to "using" us as a resource for your course - it's great for us and, we hope, give the students a direct insight into the process of law reform.

LCO Board approves framework re persons with disabilities final report

09/07/2012

This past Thursday (September 5th), the LCO Board of Governors approved the final report in the project on developing a framework for law, policy and practice relating to persons with disabilities. In one sense, this is the culmination of a lengthy and complex project.

Project head Lauren Bates is celebrating now that she has completed the sister project on the development of a similar framework regarding older persons (the final report was released on July 11th with a launch at which the Attorney General received the report and involving numerous legal celebs) and has almost completed the framework project re persons with disabilities.

Why "almost completed"? Much of our project work is carried out in public - the consultations, the posting of papers and reports for feedback, presentations at conferences - and, of course, much is done otherwise - the initial planning, the research, the writing, the Board approval process. Once the report has been approved, there remains much to do "behind the scenes", some the responsibility of the project head and a great deal the responsibility of our administrative staff.

After approval, there are still a few changes to make following the approval discussion, as well as points that are noted on yet another "read through". Endnotes must be finalized. Occasionally, updates will be made, although this will be infrequent after the report has been approved - we have to stop adding, deleting and otherwise changing the report sometime! The document must be proofread (by several people). The project head will select the margin quotes we include in all final reports.

The translation into French is arranged (usually tentatively scheduled in anticipation of approval - from time to time the schedule must be changed) and carried out once we're satisfied with the "final" product. A translator may raise an issue that makes us question how something was written in English. At the same time, the graphic designer is developing a cover design and this may take two or three efforts (in this case, the cover will parallel the cover of the older adults framework final report and framework document). In all these cases, there will be back and forth to ensure accuracy (most of us have had experience of reading something we have written after it has been printed and groaned at the typos or poor styling - somehow this happens regardless of how many people look at it!) Once translation and graphic design is complete and we've had one more run through, off the report goes to printing.

We will have decided what kind of release the final report warrants. In this case, we are planning a major full day event that will involve not only this project, a reminder of the sister older adults report, discussion of our new capacity and guardianship project (arising out of both the older adults and disabilities projects) and a symposium. While all the previous work is being completed, we will be planning this event.

A report of this size may take two or three months to translate. We have to decide when to release the report, taking into account that delays may occur at any of the above stages. We would have liked to have released this report on the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, December 3rd, for example, but this is not realistic.

So expect to see an announcement of a major launch of the final report in the project developing a framework for the law, policy and practice as they relate to persons with disabilities in early winter, likely mid-January.

In addition to the project head and our admin staff, many people have been involved in bringing the project to this point and more will be involved as we plan and hold the launch - the advisory group, those we consulted, the researchers who prepared commissioned research papers, our students and research lawyers, our translators and graphic designer and our board members - we are grateful to you all.

LCO seeks feedback to vulnerable workers interim report

08/19/2012

The LCO released its interim report in its project on vulnerable workers and precarious work - and we're looking for feedback on the analysis and the draft recommendations.

The interim report was based on research, the input of an advisory group and consultations. The interim report is just that - we want to hear from everyone involved in providing work, in working and in regulating it.

By vulnerable workers, we mean those who are engaged in "precarious" work, work that lacks stability, that offers low wages and few benefits. This might be part-time, contract or temporary work or own account self-employment, although that kind of work does not always involve low wages or few benefits. The workers who are the subject of the project include those in certain foreign worker programs. Our project is focused on the extent to which women and recent immigrants are particularly involved in precarious work, but most of our draft recommendations are relevant for anyone who does this kind of work.

We welcome feedback from employers, workers and regulators, all of whom we recognize have different perspectives and interests in the organization of work. We hope to hear from constituencies that were less inclined to participate during the project process because it's important to us to take into account all viewpoints. You can find the interim report at www.lco-cdo.org.

We'd appreciate receiving your feedback by October 1, 2012. The LCO's final report will be released following approval by the LCO Board of Governors.

#LCO off to the Uniform Law Conference of Canada!

08/10/2012

I'm off to the Uniform Law Conference of Canada tomorrow to represent the Law Commission of Ontario.

The ULCC's purpose is to develop uniform laws with the goal of harmonizing legislation across Canada. Attendees from the justice ministries of the provincial, territorial and federal governments, along with representatives of organizations such as bar associations (and guests from sister organizations in Mexico and the United States), meet annually at a different location in Canada. This year it's being held in Whitehorse. I've attended meetings in Charlottetown, Quebec City, Halifax and Ottawa. The conference lasts from early afternoon on the Sunday to noon on the following Thursday - several days of intense consideration of new proposals, research and proposed uniform statutes that have been developed over the preceding year. In this the process is very different from that of the provincial law commissions which to some degree or another undertake consultation with respect to their law reform projects.

The law reform agencies are invited to send representatives as part of the provincial delegations and there is usually at least one representative from each of the commissions. Some law reform agency representatives have played an active role in the ULCC over a period of many years.The ULCC sits in two groups, one for criminal law, the other for civil law, and the law reform agencies reps sit with the civil group. There are one or two sessions with both groups.

Since its inception in 1918, the ULCC has created a long list of uniform (or model) statutes. While some of the proposed uniform acts inevitably sit on the books, there have been many that have been adopted by at least some jurisdictions, sometimes in modified form.

So I'm off on my first visit to Whitehorse tomorrow to see what we can learn from what is going on in the world of uniform law!

The LCO's Older Adults Project and Seniors' Month

06/15/2012

June has been designated Seniors' Month in Ontario. Of course, this means paying particular attention to "seniors", not ignoring them and issues that have particular resonance for seniors the rest of the time! The Law Commission of Ontario has been paying particular attention to older adults almost since we began through our project developing a framework for the law as it affects older adults. This project is almost completed (although that is not true of our attention to older adults!), with a planned release date of July 11th.

The project was approved by the LCO Board of Governors in November 2007 and work began in the summer of 2008. Lauren Bates is the project head whose attention to the project has not flagged throughout the course of the project and will not flag even after July 11th (although she will breathe a huge sigh of relief). The project's Advisory Group is composed of a range of experts who have been invaluable in their collaboration with us, generously sharing their knowledge, experience and contacts. For the views of Advisory Group members on the potential impact of this report, see the story in the Spring/Summer 2012 Liaison.

The project's objective is a very broad one and we began by consulting on its scope in May 2009. This was followed by a Consultation Paper in January 2009, consultations and the resulting Interim Report in June 2011. We continue consultations throughout our projects, not only during the time "allocated" for the primary consultations, and we receive feedback on all our documents. For this project, in addition to our regular process, we used an online questionnaire to which we received some 300 replies and held a stakeholder event in November 2011. To enrich our own research, we also commissioned three research papers on particular issues. We co-hosted the 2010 Canadian Conference on Elder Law with the Canadian Centre for Elder Law and the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly. The papers from the Conference are posted on the LCO's older adults project website, as are the commissioned research papers.

The Board of Governors has now approved the Final Report which is currently being translated into French, the graphics designed and the printing scheduled. The Framework will be released as part of the Final Report, but also as a separate document. Even after its release we will not be finished. We intend to develop a plain language Framework that will make it easier to apply.

Although the Report talks about the "law", we're clear that we designed the Framework to apply to policy and practice, as well. It may also be useful for anyone whose work affects older adults particularly or who wants to be sure that what they do doesn't disadvantage older adults: advocacy groups, service providers, the courts and private actors. The Framework is adaptable to different contexts.

This isn't a Report that offers recommendations for particular areas of law. It discusses many circumstances facing older adults, those that are positive and those that are challenging. For example, it makes it clear that many older adults are healthy, financially secure and full participants in their communties. At the same time, other older adults find themselves in ill health and poverty, having to deal with disabilities of various kinds, cut off from their communities or the world beyond a long-term care home. Of course, life is more complicated than those two extremes and for most older adults, life is a mix of good times and difficult ones, as it is for us all.

We also recognize and respond to the reality that older adults come from the same communities that young members of society come from: they live in different parts of the provinces, they may be immigrants or associate with different ethnic communities, they are members of First Nations, they may have lived with disabilities all their lives or as part of the aging process, they may be gay or straight, they have experienced different life courses from childhood to older adulthood, influenced by changing societal circumstances as well as their own, and on and on.

We cover many different circumstances in older adults' lives in the Report, but I'll mention only one because today (June 15th) is the United Nations World Elder Abuse Awareness Day. It illustrates how we discuss various issues. We identify elder abuse as one of the problems facing some older adults, discussing the type of abuses, the sources (too often family members), the special efforts to address it by policy and Crowns and mediated forms of dispute resolution, all affected by the reluctance in many cases of older adults who have been victimized by family members to pursue charges against them, as well as the reality that achieving a remedy might take too long.

With the release of the older adults final report, the LCO will have completed one of its original and most challenging projects (to date, anyway). It will be joined in a few months by the final report in the sister project developing a framework for the law as it affects persons with disabilties. More on that later. And it will join the four final reports we have previously released, on division of pensions on marriage breakdown, charging fees for cashing government cheques, joint and several liability under the Ontario Business Corporations Act and the Modernization of the Provincial Offences Act. You can also expect releases in the vulnerable workers project in August and the family law project in the fall.

For now, check out the older adults final report when it's released in July!

The LCO begins a new project!

05/15/2012

The LCO is starting a new project this summer, on the law around capacity and guardianship, giving me a good opportunity to talk about the process we follow with our projects in a concrete way.

The source of this project is unusual. Our projects usually start with proposals from individuals and organizations, from the legal community, from communities providing other services, from academics and from the general public. In this case, though, we decided that we wanted to further what we had learned and the relationships we had developed through our two "framework" projects, relating to older adults and to persons with disabilities. Neither of these projects deals with a particular area of law; rather, each involves the creation of a set of principles to apply to the law, policy or practice with respect to older adults, on the one hand, and persons with disabilities, on the other.

The first step was to seek the approval of the Board of Governors for the project. Lauren Bates, who has headed both the older adults and the persons with disabilities, and I developed proposals in the law around home care and the law relating to capacity and guardianship. Working on the other projects, Lauren had concluded that both these areas (among others) could benefit from review. Board approval is sought in two stages: first, I bring a proposal to the Board to see whether they think it merits further development and if so, I create a small expert group to help me develop a more comprehensive proposal. In this case, it wasn't hard to create the group through the people Lauren had worked with on the initial projects. The group came from organizations relevant to both communities and individuals with expertise in these particular areas of interest. Of the two proposals, the Board approved the one on capacity and guardianship. This particular approval process is new for us and this was the first time we had used it.

Once it had been approved by the Board, I assigned the capacity and guardianship project to Lauren, the obvious choice given the wonderful work she had done on the two framework projects and the expertise and relationships she has developed through those projects. As she works through the final stages of the older adults final report and drafts the final report in the persons with disabilities project, and as summer begins, she is starting to turn her mind to this new project.

Lauren has already assigned work in the project to Jordan Birenbaum, one of our summer students. She will begin to assemble the project advisory group and will work with them to map out the project. We are now taking longer at the front end of a project to define the parameters of the project, to consider whether we require commissioned papers and if so, in what areas and to develop a consultation plan. She will likely engage in some preliminary consultation even to realize these objectives and will then draft a consultation paper setting out the issues for feedback. We distribute consultation papers (and interim and final reports) to our stakeholders electronically and post them on the website, in French and English.

The next stage will be the pro-active consultations, in different parts of the province and with a variety of groups, and interviews with particular individuals. We plan our consultations to ensure they are accessible and that they are with a range of communities. They may involve focus groups or questionnaires or other formats. With the research, the results of the consultations and the assistance of the advisory group, the next stage is the creation of an interim report.

Our interim reports include draft recommendations to show what we are thinking. We look forward to feedback - sometimes it corrects errors, it often gives a fuller picture now that we are more precise about an issue, it may identify issues that despite our best efforts have not previously surfaced and it provides a good indication of the reaction to what we are thinking. The Board also discusses the interim report, in part a way of ensuring
greater familiarity with the project in advance of their consideration
of the draft final report and in part giving us a sense of where changes might
be required, depending on public feedback to the interim report. It is
important that there be no perception that issues are closed at the interim report stage and that it is clear that we are open to making changes. Although the interim report includes specific recommendations, we believe that this allows people a greater appreciation of where we are tentatively going and makes it easier for people to focus their responses than a general issues discussion. It is called an "interim report", rather than a "draft final report", for a reason: it is only part of the process to creating the draft final report for the Board's approval.

Based on the feedback, as well as any additional research and consultation, sometimes required because of changes in the law or circumstances that have occurred as we have progressed through the project and sometimes because of issues raised in response to the interim report, the penultimate stage is the preparation of a draft final report.

The Board reviews the draft final report, making changes as they consider appropriate. When the Board is asked to approve the final report in the capacity and guardianship project, Lauren will attend the meeting to respond to questions and hear Board members' comments. Once in its final, final form, the final report will be sent to translation, we will turn to our graphic designer for the cover and we will plan a launch and finish development of a post-dissemination strategy.

Of course, as Lauren engages with this project, she will have other work to do and inevitably there will be unanticipated delays. Still, we think we've learned quite a bit from our first round of projects that will help us with our new projects.

The capacity and guardianship project is a mid-size project that will take considerable effort to limit to reasonable parameters if it is to be completed within the next two years. I'll keep you informed as we progress.

Summer Students Learn about the LCO

05/09/2012

The Law Commission of Ontario's summer students joined us this past Monday (May 7th) and spent Tuesday in a day-long orientation session, along with LCO legal staff.

As always, our students come from different Ontario law schools, this year from the University of Toronto, Osgoode Hall Law School and the University of Ottawa.

Eddie Clark, now pursuing his S.J.D. at U of T, has had five years experience with a public interest law firm in New Zealand, bringing with him a head start in policy development. Dr. Jordan Birenbaum, with a doctorate in constitutional history, has just finished the first year of his J.D. program at U of T. Debjani Poddar, who has just completed her second year at Ottawa, Common Law, has interned with international bodies. Nathalie Kalina, entering third year at Osgoode in September, worked at Isuma TV, an indigeneous filmmaking company before law school. Jordan, Debjani and Nathalie are bilingual in English and French. We find that the students' backgrounds always enrich not just the LCO's work, but our environment.

Given his prior experience, Eddie has been assigned responsibility for carrying through the review of the Forestry Workers Lien for Wages Act project, under my supervision. Jordan will work with Lauren Bates, the project head of our new capacity and guardianship project, Debjani on the family law project with Ida Bianchi and Nathalie with Norine Nathanson on the vulnerable workers project. Debjani will work out of Ottawa, coming to Toronto two or three times over the summer. We try to make sure that all the students have an opportunity to attend consultations or advisory group meetings and other activities, depending on what the LCO is engaged in over the summer. We want to provide as well-rounded an appreciation of law reform work as possible.

All the students spent Tuesday learning about the LCO and our projects, as well as other issues. I outlined the place of the LCO in the history of law reform (in very broad strokes!), talked about other law reform agencies briefly, let the students know how we approach our work, with an emphasis on multidisciplinary research and analysis, consultation and taking into account Ontario diversity or pluralism in our analysis and recommendations and explained our "hybrid" mix of projects ("black letter" or technical projects and "law in context" projects). Lauren Bates, our Staff Lawyer (among her responsibilities is the supervision of the students), described the steps we take in undertaking a project. Norine Nathanson, our current MAG LCO Counsel in Residence, discussed the difference between policy development in government and at the LCO. Sue Gratton, our Research Lawyer, focused on sources of research for LCO projects. Norine and Ida Bianchi discussed the projects for which they are responsible and Lauren and I talked about the new projects we are beginning this summer. Special guest Professor Philip Girard, Visiting Professor at Osgoode this academic year and one-time research director with the Nova Scotia Law Reform Commission, provided insight into the history of law reform and the way history can inform law reform. Janice Williams, Executive Assistant, and Amanda Rodrigues, Administrative Assistant, made sure the students are familiar with administrative procedures, how to use our stakeholder database (of over 3,000 contacts) and otherwise not run afoul of policies.

The orientation session is always intensive, but we hope the students are left with a few important messages about the nature of our work, our commitment to excellence, the enthusiasm of our legal and administrative staff for what we do, the integral nature of students' work to the LCO's projects and the willingness of everyone to be helpful and responsive (while having high standards about student research, writing and whatever else they may be involved in while with us, akin to the standards we impose on ourselves).

As usual, I want to thank Lauren Bates for organizing this year's orientation session and Amanda and Janice for their contributions.