In-Person Participation Requirement:
Participation in a DLS clinical program involves a mix of activities including seminars, research & writing, client work, public legal education and community outreach. Students are expected to available for clinic work Monday - Thursday during regular business hours and be available to work remotely on Fridays. Please note from students in this course may have to attend the clinic in-person on occasional Fridays to meet with clients and perform other clinical work if the work is urgent and cannot be completed virtually. Students will also be required to represent clients in live proceedings at courts and tribunals as well as deliver public legal education and engage in community outreach at locations accessible by transit in the City of Toronto. Should you have any questions or concerns about this in-person participation requirement, please contact us at law.dls@utoronto.ca.
Schedule: Weekly seminar (Wednesdays 10:30 am - 12:20 pm) plus a mandatory Joint Clinic Professionalism Training on (Date TBD).
Enrollment Notes: This course does not require an application. Enrollment in all the clinics for credit is limited to upper year students. Exchange Students are not eligible to participate in clinics.
Enrolling in a DLS clinic is a serious commitment. Once enrolment is confirmed, students will require permission from the Faculty to withdraw.
Course Description:
This part-time, full-year clinical education program offers students the opportunity to explore legal principles and social policy issues in an empirical, public interest context. The program challenges students to examine issues with respect to the many intersections of law and social inequality in a critical way, while at the same time allowing them to develop the professional and ethical literacy which is essential to the practice of law. Through their clinical work, individualized tutorials, substantive training sessions and course seminars, students are provided with the chance to test relationships between legal rules and the realities of the justice process, to investigate the complex legal problems and policy issues which affect low-income communities, and to develop a conceptual and empirical understanding of public interest lawyering.
Worldwide, there is a strong correlation between disability, economic marginalization, and social exclusion. Disability compounds every other category of personal disadvantage, and there is vital work for the legal system in removing the barriers that prevent persons with disabilities from taking part fully in society.
Students in the Disability, Health, and Income Security division serve people who occupy the intersection of disability and poverty, assisting clients to navigate or to challenge the systems that govern their access to essential income and benefits.
Students represent clients in applications for disability income, appeals of benefit clawbacks, and claims for compensation, appearing before the Social Benefits Tribunal, Human Rights Tribunal, and Small Claims Court. The casework in these areas includes client counseling; case theory formulation; evidence gathering; drafting applications and legal submissions; preparing for hearings; participation in mediation sessions; litigation strategy; negotiating with opposing counsel; and oral advocacy. Students advise clients about the laws governing health care consent and substitute decision-making, and assist with estate and guardianship disputes before the Superior Court of Justice.
In partnership with community organizations and advocacy organizations, students have the opportunity to take part in systemic litigation engaging section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as well as issues of major current relevance such as medical assistance in dying. Work in this area includes legal research, affidavit drafting, and witness preparation.
In their outreach activities, students empower people living in poverty by providing access to vital information about medical decision-making, medical privacy, securing income benefits, and future planning.
Suggested Pre or Co-Requisites: Health Law and Bioethics, Administrative Law, Evidence Law.
The program is conducted at Downtown Legal Services, a community legal clinic operated by the Faculty of Law which provides services to low-income people in a number of areas of law. In addition to the casework described above, students will participate in weekly education sessions throughout the term. These sessions will include substantive legal training, case rounds and multi-disciplinary seminars. Credit students are also required to participate in the clinic’s community outreach program and to write a series of short reflective papers.
Commitment:
While we strive to make the overall workload of the clinic comparable to a course of similar weight, the clinic involves real case work, with deadlines that are not always within our control. It also involves serious commitments to clients who are dealing with significant legal issues. In this sense, the clinic requires a commitment beyond what is normally expected in an academic seminar. The credit weighting of this course is designed to reflect this additional commitment.
Participation in all seminars and training sessions is mandatory. In addition to the weekly seminar, students are required to be in regular contact with the clinic to monitor developments on their files and to commit to a 2-hour weekly “office hours” shift during which time they will be available to receive client calls (these calls can be received remotely). Students should expect that their clinic work will often require additional time over and above this block.
