Note: Students enrolled in year-long externships must participate in the fall term Externship Seminar.
Pre-requisites/Co-requisites: Externship Seminar, plus one or more of: Administrative Law, Arbitration and Alternative Dispute Resolution, Evidence Law, Mediation, Negotiation, Trial Advocacy.
This year-long clinical education program offers students the opportunity to work in a small front-line, community-based poverty law clinic in Toronto’s west end.
About South Etobicoke Community Legal Services:
SECLS has provided community-led legal aid services to low-income residents of present-day Toronto living between Etobicoke Creek, Eglinton Avenue West, the Humber River, and the lakeshore for over 35 years. Our offices are located next to the Kipling TTC and GO stations – a direct, 30-minute subway ride from St. George campus. Our director, three staff lawyers, and two support staff work on a hybrid basis (in-office and remotely) to provide free advice, negotiation, and representation to clients primarily in the areas of rental housing and social assistance law, while two additional lawyers shared with the neighbouring Rexdale and West Toronto legal clinics provide immigration and employment law services.
Beyond helping our individual clients and their families navigate legal threats to their homes, food security, and basic survival, we also engage in a range of outreach, organizing, and law reform activities in partnership with other community organizations, neighbouring/specialty legal clinics and other allies.
Learning objectives:
The goal of the externship is to provide students with an opportunity to experience direct community legal aid clinic practice alongside those who have made career-long commitments to poverty law and social justice work. Through these experiences, students may improve their knowledge and skills in the areas of:
- client counselling, legal research, drafting of pleadings, preparation of evidence, negotiation and mediation, examination, cross-examination, and delivery legal argument;
- professional ethics within relationships to communities, clients, colleagues, opponents, and decision-makers;
- accountability to client communities and movements, democratic lawyering, and case triage;
- substantive housing, social assistance, human rights, and administrative law; and
- poverty and the interconnectedness of legal, medical, social, financial, and bureaucratic problems.
Students will finish the externship prepared to evaluate whether they should pursue further work in: legal aid, social justice and clinic practice; administrative litigation; and/or client-facing work generally.
Placement activities:
Students’ first priority will be to work alongside our staff lawyers to conduct intake and individual client casework in the areas of housing and social assistance, leading to independent carriage of appropriate client files under lawyer supervision. Students’ secondary priority will be to assist clinic staff with community outreach, public legal education, and law reform initiatives.
Under the supervision of the clinic’s Executive Director, students will work 10-12 hours per week aligned with at least one weekday of the clinic’s core daytime business hours. The clinic will provide necessary in-person training to facilitate student access to our cloud-based case management database and other clinic systems. While attendance at the clinic will be required for certain scheduled meetings with assigned clients and/or staff, the clinic will also work with students to avoid conflicts with their course schedule and facilitate remote work when appropriate.
How to register for this course:
To register for this course, please send an email to Sara Faherty at sara.faherty@utoronto.ca with a current CV and a statement of interest explaining why you wish to enroll in the South Etobicoke Community Legal Services externship by the deadline for course selection before the lottery.
Note: Enrollment in this clinic is conditional. The Records Office will add the clinic to the student's course selection once participation is confirmed by the clinic instructor. In the meantime, students must select sufficient credits for the term/year. Students approved for the clinic will have the opportunity to adjust their credits before the add/drop deadline.
