Courses

The clinic offers law students the opportunity to learn crucial professional skills and ethics in a public interest context that emphasizes intellectual discovery and practical experience.  The chance to make a difference in the lives of our clients adds important elements of meaning and satisfaction as well.  Students frequently tell us that working at the clinic is “the best thing I did at law school”.

All students at the clinic are assigned to one of the clinic’s five divisions, corresponding to an area of law:  criminal law, family law, refugee law, housing law and university affairs.  In these divisions, they learn about the social and economic context of the clinic’s clients,  the legal aid landscape,  substantive law and legal process for their division, and professional skills and ethics, such as client counselling, negotiating and trial advocacy.

All casework at the clinic is performed under the one-on-one supervision of the clinic’s expert lawyers.    

First Year Students
The clinic’s program for first year law students has been designed to allow students to provide certain types of legal assistance in a supportive and supervised environment. Students attend weekly Intake Shifts at the clinic in which they provide triage and referrals to people seeking legal assistance, and learn the substantive law and legal process relating to their division.  In the first term, students also prepare legal information materials, present plain language workshops on legal topics for community groups or their clientele, or attend satellite clinics.  In the second term, students can take on a case and represent a real client.  

Intake Shifts are supervised by the clinic’s Division Leaders.  Division Leaders are experienced upper year students who have worked full-time for the clinic for an intensive four month period in the summer. The clinic maintains a ratio of one Division Leader to three first year students, and each first year student is also assigned a Division Leader as their mentor.  As a result, the clinic has the capacity for approximately ninety first year students each year.  

An information session for first year students is held in early September to describe the program and the application process.  If the program is oversubscribed, first year students are chosen by lottery.    

Upper Year Programs
Upper year students can enrol in one of the clinic’s clinical courses for academic credit, or apply to become upper year volunteers.  

Clinical Courses
The clinic offers part-time and full-time courses for academic credit.  The courses are one semester long, and upper year students can register for these courses as they would for any other course. 

The part-time course has two sections:  Section A is for students who wish to work in the Family Law or University Affairs divisions, and Section B is for students interested in the Criminal Law, Refugee Law and Tenant Housing Law divisions.  Students take on five real cases, write a reflective paper and  attend weekly seminars on topics that include substantive and legal process, the construction of reality in the courtroom, the criminalization of poverty, and access to justice. The part-time courses are assigned six academic credits, and are evaluated on an honours/pass/fail basis.

Students who enrol in the full-time course spend the entire semester at the clinic.  They take on twelve real cases, write a research paper and  attend weekly seminars on topics that include substantive and legal process, the construction of reality in the courtroom, the criminalization of poverty, and access to justice. The intensive course is assigned fifteen academic credits, and the clinical work is evaluated on on an honours/pass/fail basis, while the paper and seminar participation receive letter grades.  Please note that for technical reasons, students who wish to take the full-time course must enrol in two courses for the clinical work and paper respectively.

For more information, see the on-line course descriptions in the Faculty of Law Academic Handbook.

Upper Year Volunteers
Upper year students apply to become volunteers in early September to the lawyer who is the head of the division in which they would like to work. They attend approximately five seminars in the first term on the substantive law and legal process for their division, and carry a caseload of two cases during the school year.

Please note that credit course students have priority at the clinic for both clinic spots and cases.