Désolés, le blogue de Patricia Hughes est seulement disponible en anglais pour l'instant.
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.
