PBSC 2007: Laura Best

Donner Civic Leadership Fund Fellowship
B.C. Public Interest Advocacy Centre

During the past four months I did something that most aspiring lawyers don't get to do until several years into their career: I was part of a team filing the Final Response for an enormous, 107-day-long trial. The outcome would determine the livelihoods of all 76 Appellants, who are poor and mostly illiterate farm workers in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia.  Working with Sarah Khan of the B.C. Public Interest Advocacy Centre and lawyers from Community Legal Assistance Society, we took on three highly experienced lawyers from the Department of Justice over allegations against the Appellants of Employment Insurance fraud in Federal Tax Court.
 
As well, with another lawyer at BC PIAC, Ros Salvador, I researched human rights law for upcoming discrimination cases that examine the duties governments have in accommodating disabilities when providing welfare to the most disadvantaged. I also provided research for BC PIAC lawyer Jim Quail as part of a pending constitutional challenge to the new amendments to the Canada Elections Act - changes that will proportionately turn away more poor and transient citizens and deny them their constitutional right to vote.
 
In addition to these major files, I have been involved in an assortment of smaller projects: researching the rights of transgendered individuals on social assistance, drafting Freedom of Information requests, assisting with Ombudsman complaints, and providing research support on a variety of poverty law cases.

Being involved with these fascinating files has been an inspiring and instructive experience. Working with BC PIAC showed me the side of the justice system that most lawyers would rather not acknowledge: the injustice that is left when the poor are priced out of the legal market. My work here has exposed me to the breadth of poverty law and allowed me to be involved in precedent-setting human rights, constitutional and tax litigation.  All of this was made possible with a Donner Fellowship through Pro Bono Students Canada, and I am grateful for what I have learned.