Todd Orvitz

Social justice through social work - and law

It's fair to say that Todd Orvitz's work affects the well-being of tens of thousands of people in Toronto every day.  As a municipal solicitor, Orvitz, 29, is the lawyer who writes up and reviews every contract for the city's shelter support and housing administration. He oversees its massive network of shelters and social housing, and ensures the city and its partner agencies comply with strategies and programs designed to improve the lives of the underserved. It's not exactly frontline work, but Orvitz says in many ways it's even more satisfying.

"Really, the contracts that I draft and the work that I do get me so deeply ingrained with shelter service provision," he says, "that I almost feel like I'm doing the work anyway."

Orvitz, who obtained his JD/MSW in 2008, has been involved in the community for many years, spending much of his time growing up helping people diagnosed along the autism spectrum and with various forms of developmental delay. Several years ago, he and a law-school classmate set up a summer camp for kids at risk, taking them on week-long canoe trips in the Ontario wilderness.

"The background in social work-type activities motivated me to go to the law," he recalls, thinking he would be working with the poor and others who'd suffered injustice. But Orvitz says he needed something more, and after his first year, he applied for the MSW.  The added perspective has given him the tools he needs to really make a difference, he says, so that every contract he drafts is designed with its beneficiaries in mind.  It's work that Orvitz relishes, and he couldn't be happier.

"I love the city; I love Toronto," he says. "And I really get to see the impact of the work that I do."

Story by Karen Gross

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