Resisting the push towards corporate law

By Aditya Rao

“The first thing I lost when I came to law school is the reason I came.”
— Anonymous

There is a problem with legal education in Canada. Canadian law faculties routinely direct students exclusively toward corporate law and Bay Street practice through coordinated recruitment efforts. Opportunities for social justice practice are rarely highlighted, and students are left without any guidance on how to direct their careers towards the values that first brought them to law school.  

It is clear that there needs to be a stronger effort to help interested law students find their way into social justice positions. As law schools have proven themselves either unable or unwilling  to do it, a group of law students – including myself – are doing it ourselves.  

This past February, we organized the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers’ (CARL) LobbyCon. The conference brought together over 60 law students, from eight law schools, who were all interested in refugee law. The students received advocacy, lobbying and substantive legal training. The students then met with over 65 Members of Parliament on the Hill and pushed for progressive refugee policy reform.

First organized in the fall of 2016, this year’s LobbyCon was the second iteration of the student-led conference. The conference leverages the University of Ottawa’s unique national capital location to give law students the opportunity to wet their feet in public interest advocacy through lobbying. The goal is to inspire students interested in refugee law to pursue a career in public interest advocacy, and to connect them to leading refugee law practitioners in the country.

This year the welcoming keynote was delivered by Alex Neve, Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada and former refugee lawyer. His message was straightforward: Public interest lawyering ought not to be the alternative but rather the norm. He also participated on a “Diversity of Tactics” panel, where he spoke of the importance of high level lobbying and the need to have a multifaceted, coordinated approach amongst advocates to affect social change.

Also on this panel was Ottawa-based human rights lawyer Yavar Hameed. He spoke about activist lawyering and described his practice as being specifically set up to resist the state. For him, being an effective advocate means working closely with grassroots organizers to build movements of solidarity for his clients.

Sinda Garziz, organizer with No One Is Illegal – Ottawa, also sat on the panel. She shared stories from the frontlines,  of providing shelter to migrants who are in danger of being deported to hardship.

Together the three panelists presented a vision for advocacy that holds no single avenue as paramount, but rather encourages the use of different tactics to push for progressive change. They encouraged law students to challenge themselves and to build a strong legal practice rooted in civic engagement and the public interest.  

To prepare for the lobbying experience, the students received messaging and media training from Jacob Kuehn, a former CBC producer and currently a communications officer with Amnesty International Canada. Legal aid lawyers Laïla Demirdache and Heather Neufeld also gave substantive legal training on the refugee law issues the students were to lobby MPs on.

These issues were: (1) removing barriers to access humanitarian and compassionate grounds applications for discretionary grants of permanent residence, and (2) instituting an independent civilian oversight board for the Canada Border Services Agency.

Refugee lawyers from Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal participated in the conference to train students through mock meetings and supervise the students during the real MP meetings. This gave the lawyers the chance to meet law students interested and motivated to engage in public interest advocacy. 

The response we received has been staggering. Over 96 per cent of those who responded to the feedback survey said LobbyCon encouraged them to pursue a career in refugee law and public interest advocacy. One hundred per cent of the respondents said they thought it was helpful for their learning and 89.7 per cent felt they acquired skills that will help them in their careers.  

There is no doubt in our minds that creating opportunities like this will encourage graduating law students to think outside the corporate law box. Law school ought to be about training students to engage in advocacy that is in the public interest.

Although law schools may continue down an increasingly corporatized path, continually funneling law students to Bay Street, there are students willing to change the channel on the conversation. With the success of LobbyCon 2016 and 2018, planning is soon going to be underway for LobbyCon 2020. And with it, we hope to inspire another generation of law students to pursue a career in public interest advocacy and refugee law.

This article first appeared in the Leveller Vol. 10, No. 6 (Mar/Apr 2018).