Student Defenders

From the Greater Toronto section of the Toronto Star, Monday, January 21, 2008, page A8, an article about law students at a legal services clinic:

STUDENTS GREAT DEFENDERS OF THE NEEDY

At the Downtown Legal Services clinic, young legal eagles find a rewarding learning experience that fills an overwhelming need

Peter Small
Courts Bureau

Kareem Leslie stares up at Justice William Wolski in drab Courtroom 112 at Old City Hall, and softly says one word: "guilty."

During an argument last July, he hit a fellow rooming house tenant on the head with a garbage can and pulled her hair, according to an agreed statement of facts read into the record. Grabbing a kitchen knife, he said, "I'll kill you."

As the slender 19-year-old man with slicked black hair and an earring pleads guilty to one count of assault, student Kate Brindley, 26, stands beside him. She is with Downtown Legal Services, a clinic run by the University of Toronto's law school.

Like 200 law students each year, she is getting a gritty first-hand taste of tribunals and lower courts while providing free services to poor clients.

Crown prosecutor Robert Wright asks the judge to give Leslie a suspended sentence and a year's probation, which would leave the young man with a criminal record.

But Brindley points out that Leslie is gainfully occupied as a full-time student and has moved away from the rooming house where the argument occurred. "He has had no contact with this woman ever again," she says.

Wolski is surprisingly generous. He grants Leslie an absolute discharge, despite the violence of his crime, noting that temper tantrums are not unusual for people living in close quarters. Leslie will have no criminal record.

It's a sweet turn of events for Brindley, a second-year law student from Thunder Bay who negotiated the guilty plea.

"I'm very happy for my client," she says.

For her, working at the clinic has been the most rewarding part of law school, giving her a taste of the challenges faced by people without means. "It's a learning experience for me, and this is very real for them."

As Leslie prepares to leave court, he confides that he couldn't have afforded a lawyer. "She had my back," he says of Brindley. "She worked really hard to help me."

Downtown Legal Services, one of six legal clinics operated by Ontario law schools, is at the cutting edge of the province's access to justice crisis.

Occupying smart but modestly decorated rooms in a three-storey brick house on Spadina Ave., the clinic manages to look both efficient and welcoming.

In a phone room, first-year law students supervised by more experienced scholars screen calls, make referrals or offer guidance on simple matters.

In other offices, upper-year students interview clients or stare at computers and law books as they prepare cases.

In a small conference room, second-year law student Joel Hechter holds a seminar for three first-year women on how to apply the Charter of Rights to real caases.

All the work is supervised by the clinic's three staff lawyers.

"We tend to be, like community clinics, a place of last resort," says executive director Judith McCormack. Out of 4,000 people who call each year, the clinic serves 1,000 directly. Most of the rest are referred to other services. "The need for legal services outstrips our ability to provide," she says.

The clinic handles immigration and refugee issues, academic offences and appeals, tenants' rights, children's rights, family law and summary conviction (the more minor) criminal charges - all free of charge.

Back at Old City Hall courthouse, student Sam Siew, 21, stands beside a 37-year-old woman who pleads guilty to assault and threatening death. Her case is remanded to May 14.

Justice Peter Hryn agrees to a minor variation on her bail, which should be a simple matter.

But the paperwork must be signed by another judge before it can take effect. At a clerk's office, Siew and the woman, who asked that her name not be used, learn that the form has been signed in error by a justice of the peace, instead of a judge.

For more than an hour, the second-year law student and the woman walk between offices chasing the judge's signature. For a time, the bail paper gets lost in one of the offices.

Dressed in an impeccable blue suit, Siew explains their dilemma to four clerks and secretaries in a calm, reasonable manner. He phones a lawyer at the clinic for advice. Finally, the paperwork is located. Now, the right judge must be found.

"These kinds of things put people off," Siew confides. "Even though the system is broken, we have to work in it to make it better."

McCormack says the at one of the chief benefits of the clinic is that it exposes future lawyers like Siew - as well as those who go on to become judges, policy-makers and politicians - to the struggles that the poor and marginalized face in getting representation.

"We have kind of a front-row seat in the access-to-justice crisis,"she says.

The clinic gets almost two thirds of its $760,000 annual budget from Legal Aid Ontario. The rest of the funding comes from student fees and the U of T faculty of law.

Downtown Legal Services has scored notable successes in courtrooms or tribunals, sometimes setting legal precedents, because the students bring time, enthusiasm, and fresh ideas to their work, says Karen Bellinger, a staff lawyer specializing in criminal cases.

"They may not have the polish of some lawyers, but I don't think anyone beats them for sheer dedication and heart," Bellinger says.