Disorientation Handbook 2006

The Rabble-Rouser’s Guide to Surviving Law School A Disorientation Handbook

McGill Radical Law Community—2006 1

Contributions by: Karin Baqi Lindsay Tina Cheong Eric Boschetti Claire Gilchrist Tatiana Gomez Alika Hendricks Mandy Hiscocks Akino Kowashi Gene Kruger Mike Leitold Erica Martin Amy Miller Julia Nicol Genevieve Painter Joshua Parr David Perrier Kathy Ramsey Michael Simkin Sam Singer Marguerite Tinawi Jordan Topp Cory Verbauwhede Jared Will A.J. Withers

The Editorial Collective: Lindsay Tina Cheong Claire Gilchrist Tatiana Gomez Erica Martin Samuel Singer

The McGill Radical Law Community exists since 2001. It was originally initiated to support Libertas, a Montreal area legal collective. Today, members continue to support social movements and are involved in a variety of projects on and off-campus.

The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors only. They do not represent the views of the McGill Faculty of Law or of the McGill Law Students Association.

All the images and comics in this handbook are anti-copyright and available on-line for non-commercial use. This handbook is anti-copyright and may be reproduced with attribution in full or in part for non-commercial use . Cover image by the Beehive Collective.

Graphics on pages 23, 25 by Eric Drooker (www.drooker.com). All comics available at http://zena.secureforum.com/cartoons/.

The Rabble-Rouser’s Guide to Surviving Law School: A Disorientation Handbook is an autonomous student initiative of the McGill Radical Law Community. The McGill Law Students Association funded the reproduction of 200 copies of this handbook.

The McGill Radical Law Community may be reached by email at: lawdisorientation@gmail.com 2

Table of Contents: Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………...4 A Guide to Legal Culture at McGill: Myth and Reality………………………………….....5 Beyond Pro-Bono: Law and Organizing………………………………………………………...9 The Promise of McGill: An International Student’s Perspective……………………...11 Keywords You Won’t Hear In Class: What’s left out of Blacks Law Dictionary and Other Definitions for Radical Lawyering……………………………………………………..13 The Law Machine: A Privileged Training in Privilege……………………………………..19 Gay Law Student?.......................................................................................20 Descending the Ivory Tower: A Tale of Working Part-Time…………………………..22 Cutting Edge Doesn’t Mean the Corporate Grind………………………………………….24 Litigate and Agitate: Why Working in the System Will Never Be Enough………..26 Reasons Not to Be a Corporate Hack………………………………………………………....27 La Foire aux Pacotilles……………………………………………………………………………...30 Testimonials: How I Survived Law School...with my sanity and principles intact and Other Words of Wisdom……………………………………………………………………..32 Act Now!: Needed Changes at the Faculty………………………………………………….38 The Myth of Meritocracy…………………………………………………………………………..41 The Humanities Up There………………………………………………………………………...46 In the Streets and In the Courts: How the Seven Year Squat Fought the Law and Won………………………………………………………………………………………………...49 Grades? Get Over It!...................................................................................53 Googling Your Way Through Law School…………………………………………………...55 Re-politicizing Law…………………………………………………………………………………..56 Resources……………………………………………………………………………………………….59

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Introduction This handbook is the product of discussions and debates. It brings together the voices of law students and recent graduates, of activists and community organizers. Subscribing to the McGill Radical Law Community’s Basis of Unity, these voices reject the structures of domination and oppression on which society is based and challenge law students to fight these structures in the courtroom, in the classroom, in the streets, and to join social movements in the spirit of solidarity, cooperation, and mutual aid.

This handbook is the collective expression of dissent. It brings together critiques of a legal education devoid of radical analysis and as the title proclaims, it is a rabble-rouser’s guide to surviving law school. It offers a counter hegemonic vision of legal culture and practice. It is a rallying call to action.

This handbook exists because we will not be silenced. It is about communicating, networking, inspiring, and empowering each other, using our own voice. This is resistance.

This handbook is a work in progress. We sincerely apologize for the lack of content in French and for our failure to produce a French translation of the handbook.

We thank all who contributed to and supported this project. We thank all who inspire us and, most of all, much gratitude to all who struggle for justice.

We are everywhere!

-The Editorial Collective, August 2006

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A guide to legal culture at McGill: myth and reality

-Claire Gilchrist There is a myth out there that the first year of law school should be a test of fortitude: a brutal, total immersion experience that chews you up and spits you out as new, stronger, better being. Surviving, and most of all succeeding, in law school, represents a certain proud and elitist accomplishment. You accomplished what others were not deemed qualified to have been allowed to attempt. Administrators, professors, fellow students, and working lawyers will all contribute to maintaining this self-congratulatory mythology. Why? Because it secures the status of a lawyer as a specialized professional with valuable knowledge. This in turn, secures lawyers a privileged position in the job market and the community at large.

Is their value in this mythology? Certainly, there is a satisfaction in surviving a boot camp like experience that seems insurmountable. Students gain selfrespect and confidence by being accepted into and surviving the ritual process.

But like any other boot camp, law school functions by first destroying you in order to rebuild you. It deprives you of your individuality, takes up most of your time, weakens your previous ties to people and places, and offers rebirth and resurrection on the condition that you embrace the institution’s own view of the universe. The result is either total alienation, as the rest of your peers reach a state that you don’t share in, or acceptance of the new reality as the one path to future self-fulfillment.

At McGill, you will be told that your experience will be different from what you would encounter at other schools. You will hear that the Faculty of Law is an institution devoted to critical analysis and creative thinking, not boot camp style legal indoctrination. It is true that professors will not call out your name at random in class and fire questions at you. No one is going to lock the door of the lecture hall a minute after class is scheduled to begin. And if you don’t do the assigned readings, it’ll be your business and no one else’s. But the transformative power of law school is much broader than classroom discipline. It permeates everything from social interactions to the visual landscape of the faculty, and it is an instrument towards achieving one goal: preparing students for “real” life as a lawyer, i.e. working at a corporate law firm.

There are many ways in which law school can work to break you from your ties to your past life and mold you to your new “profession.” The dominant message at McGill is this: We expect you to work hard and do your readings, but we also expect you to be a “well-rounded” individual who gets involved with student groups and faculty “life.” This is how you will thrive.

The reality: Everything depends here on your definition of thrive. Full participation in academic and student activities will certainly lead you to thrive in the self -contained universes of the faculty and the firm. You will learn which 5

vocubarly and attitudes open doors to high-paying firm jobs, and elite positions in international human rights organizations. Stress and frenetic activiy will bond you to your peers, and prepare you to subsume your life in 60 hour plus work weeks after you graduate.

This kind of training however, may a) be unavailable to you if you have a job or family that requires your time, b) lead to feelings of alienation, the more you differ from a privileged white heterosexual background, and/or c) be completely undesirable if you don’t want to work for a firm, are committed to grassroots activism, and/or are concerned with maintaing your sense of self.

The following are a some ways in which this faculty participates in a process of professionalization geared towards corporate lawyering: Career office/career days The message: McGill is committed to both corporate and public interest lawyering.

The reality: For the career office, the only real legal career is a career as a corporate lawyer. “Career day” is focused on corporate careers. This becomes the normal definition of career. For any other type of legal work, you will need to attend the “alternative” career day.

The career office is dedicated to building relationships with firms to help you secure a job once you graduate. This in turn secures the faculty’s reputation, providing the financial means for it to continue providing services its privileged customers expect. The office puts out a public interest career guide, which is fairly useful, but you will be told that public interest lawyering requires a lot of your own networking. This kind of logic is nonsense. Yes, public interesting lawyering requires a lot of networking. But so does corporate lawyering. The difference is, the career office does all the networking for you for the corporate jobs.

Coffee house Coffee house is a weekly cocktail party held at the faculty that is often sponsored by corporate law firms.

The message: It is very important to go to coffee house. If you don’t go, you will miss out on making friends, enjoying law school, and learning about working as a lawyer.

The reality: This is simply not true. Coffee house provides a glimpse into the kinds of parties you will be invited to attend if you join a firm. Only one type of lawyer will be available for you to talk to - a corporate lawyer. Mostly, coffee house is about learning how to socialize with your privileged peers. There are other ways to get to know people if you wish to do so, that do not involve mingling amongst corporate recruiters over alcohol. Student-sponsored coffee houses have a bit of a different atmosphere than the others, depending on the group, but can still require performing a specific social role.

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Student groups The message: Involvement in student groups builds friendships and will provide you with valuable skills for your future career.

The reality: You will of course meet people through student groups, but the kinds of skills you learn will not prepare you for all careers in law. Very few student groups have links with or work in solidarity with community groups or grassroots Montreal organizations. The ones that do, tend to embrace a vision of individual rights as opposed to collective action and advocacy. This is not to say that individual members are not dedicated people who are genuinely interested in exploring issues, being a support network for fellow students, or advocating for people in need. However, may still find themselves spending a lot of time working to build an image that can be sold to recruiters and corporate sponsors. If you don’t want to work for a corporate law firm or an elitist nonprofit organization, you should consider joining or volunteering at collectives outside McGill.

Thompson House Thompson House is a space set aside for McGill graduate students and faculty to study, talk, eat and drink. Law students also have access.

Message: Thompson House is a great place to relax with your fellow classmates and get to know each other.

Reality: Thompson House can be that, but it is also a way for people to figure out where they rank on the success ladder compared to their peers. The kind of social interactions that occur at Thompson House feed into the competitive culture present in the classroom. The questions you will hear people asking each other over a beer and nachos, ones that I myself asked, focus on the present and the future - namely on classes and a mutual desires for academic success.

Our only curiosity about other students' pasts seems to concern which undergraduate school they attended, and which degrees they earned. We use his information to estimate each other's future success. So while Thompson House feels like a nice break sometimes, it is an extension of legal culture, not a neutral space.

Law buzz Law Buzz is an online discussion group for the legal community that has gained popularity as an anonymous posting forum for law students.

Message: Law Buzz can help you network for legal jobs. Mysogenistic, homophobic, and racist posts are the result of a few bad apples who insist on posting a lot.

Reality: Law Buzz posts reflect the strongest normalizing tendencies of legal education. Racist and sexist posts are not aberrations, they are a manifestation of legal culture. On Law Buzz, posters work to uphold traditions of the law school experience as a life-changing test of strength. In daily postings, students frequently refer to their law school experience as overwhelming. Other students write vicious posts in response, telling the original poster that s/he cannot make 7

it in the legal world and should do something along the lines of "dropping out of law school". On Law Buzz, those students that find law school challenging are degraded as incapable of making it in the real world of Law Firms. No other alternative careers in law are mentioned to students who are not enjoying the firm oriented law school culture, except that sometimes those with low GPAs are advised to "go work for criminals at legal aid". You can imagine what kind of job opportunities you will find shared in this forum.

In conclusion The bottom line is, by not fully participating in faculty life, you will only be missing out on the training the school provides on becoming a certain kind of lawyer.

If you are interested in radical, community-based lawyering, faculty life has almost nothing to offer you. You will have to try and make your own way. This will require energy that your peers who are interested in corporate jobs will not have to exert. But you are not alone! So take heart, believe in yourself, and take up space. You have the right to access a legal education free of indoctrination.

Claire Gilchrist is a second year law student at McGill University. She emerged from the cornfields of Iowa, U.S.A. some years back and has been exploring different spaces ever since.

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Beyond Pro-Bono: Law & Organizing -Jordan Topp and Jared Will The law faculty currently offers a variety of opportunities for law students to get involved in advocacy work outside of the faculty, most notably through projects such as Pro-Bono McGill and legal clinic placements. What these programs typically offer students is an opportunity to take the skills and knowledge that they have acquired in law school and apply them in a nonacademic setting. Many students who come to law school to pursue their commitments to social justice seek out these opportunities to gain experience in the kinds of work they want to do after law school, but perhaps more importantly as a source of motivation and inspiration to help them get through a law school that is largely devoid of radical analysis.

But, we should think critically about the model of legal work that these opportunities provide. The majority of these placements propagate the traditional legal model of superimposing legal expertise as an adjunct to some other project, be it individual cases, issue-based research projects, or broader social movements. They propagate the model of bringing in a legal expert to single out and deal with the ‘legal’ aspects of a given problem.

Moreover, these approaches, the ‘pro bono’ program in particular, propagate the volunteerism model, or ethic of charity, which is premised on accepting one’s privilege and donating a small amount of one’s (precious) time to help those ‘less privileged’—rather than challenging the structures that underlie social stratification as such.

Law students who are in, or want to join, the fight for social justice need to participate in ways that challenge their privilege and the systems of oppression on which society is based. To do this, law students should take a step beyond pro bono, and fully engage in grassroots social movements and community organizing initiatives.

The traditional placements offered by the law school promote the orthodox hierarchy whereby legal experts find themselves in a privileged and detached position. The very idea that law students, as such, can just be sprinkled around in any number of situations and be effective and beneficial (i.e. ‘pro bono’) is premised on the presumption that legal expertise need not be rooted in the subject matter to which it is applied. It promotes the image of the lawyer as atomistic super-hero, and obviates the need for meaningful links between lawyers and those they work with—and thus strengthens and entrenches the privilege of lawyers and the corresponding disempowerment of their counterparts. This professional hierarchy must itself be undermined if we hope to move towards a more egalitarian world.

Just like other members of the community, when law students participate fully in grassroots social justice organizing, they can and should act as but one, equal, member of a collective. Thus, traditional lawyer-client relationships are rejected, and in their place relationships based on solidarity and mutual assistance can develop. The lawyer thus neither isolates an individual case, nor 9

do the work while the client waits passively. Instead, she participates in a collaborative process whereby the legal strategy is only one, supporting, aspect of the broader organizing efforts. Only then can legal work effectively intersect with other efforts, as those involved and most directly affected see fit.

Thus, we must put ourselves in situations where we unlearn legal orthodoxy and challenge the hierarchy on which the profession itself is premised. This means engaging in social justice work as a person who happens to have legal knowledge, rather than as a legal expert, helicoptered in to solve the ‘legal’ aspects of a particular social problem. This sub-classification and individualization of social problems serves only to perpetuate myths about the sustainability or inevitability of the status quo. By refusing to dig deeper, it cannot confront the structures underlying the social problems that manifest themselves in an infinite variety of legal ‘cases’.

It is also important to engage fully in the social movements or community organizing with which we associate ourselves because it is only in that way that one can develop a full understanding of the role that legal work can and should play in the organizing effort. The role and nature of the legal work to be done- like all the organizing strategies – can be formed by the group as a whole, and the experience of those directly affected by the oppression the group is fighting against can be given primacy. On the other hand, perpetually playing the role of the expert-outsider not only deprives the legal worker of a full understanding of the proper role of her work, but also deprives the collective of an integrated approach to its goals.

This means that law students who want to ‘get involved’ and put their skills to practical use need to join organizing efforts in their full capacity, and not simply in their capacity as law students. Don’t mimic ‘lawyers’: don’t act as a consultant, don’t ‘advise’ and don’t just ‘provide legal information’. Organize, debate, plan, do your share of the menial work! It is crucial to share the struggle, make it our own, and to act in solidarity with those we work with. Otherwise, the potential for legal work to contribute to social movements, if it exists at all, will not be realized.

Law students who are concerned about social justice have to think beyond ‘pro bono’ and ‘clinic’ placements, and instead fully engage in social movements on the same level as others organizing in such movements. Else they risk merely perpetuating the professional hierarchy and individualism that indeed contribute to the oppressions that one should be struggling against.

Jordan Topp is a member of the Coalition Against the Deportation of Palestinian Refugees and Solidarity Across Borders. She begins the bar in January 2006.

Jared Will is a member of the Coalition Against the Deportation of Palestinian Refugees, Solidarity Across Borders and the Libertas collective. He is a lawyer at a Montreal immigration law office.

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The Promise of McGill: An International Student’s Perspective

-Akino Kowashi

“Why did you come to Canada (or Montreal)?” This is the most frequent question I get from anybody who knows that I came fresh from Japan to acquire a full-time undergraduate law degree in the McGill Faculty of Law. “Because I liked the programme McGill offers,” I always respond.

Being prompted to engage in problem-solving from the perspective of a legal specialist, I set up my choice of going to a law school either in Japan, in the U.S. or in Canada. My priority was to choose a school that puts emphasis on international law, since I had already made up my mind to specialize in international humanitarian law and refugee law. Eventually, I eliminated the option of going to a Japanese law school, as it seemed inefficient to study international humanitarian law in the country where most of the research consists of translated materials from English or French. Although the language level required to pursue a law degree was a big concern, I had a vague expectation that 3 years would allow even the most laidback person to improve her English (and French, which has turned out to be an optimistic prospect). The reason why I chose Canada, rather than the U.S., was partly because I was attracted to Canada’s foreign policy of not depending on power dynamics in their international negotiations. Yet still, the biggest attraction to me was the philosophy of McGill’s “trans-systemic” programme. Since LLB/BCL/JD degrees are all region-specific professional degrees in law, it is no wonder that the contents of their curriculum are highly dependent on the location of the schools. The programme at McGill seemed to transcend the region-specificity of the undergraduate law degree with the concept of “trans-systemic” education that is born uniquely because of its history as an English university placed in Quebec. Thus, I idealized McGill to be the best environment for me to study international law at the undergraduate level.

Did it meet my expectations? I would answer generally yes, with some reservations. All my professors tried to deliver the concept of « trans-systemia » both explicitly and implicitly, and attending the lectures and conferences by various guest speakers that are held almost everyday at the Faculty has been an exciting experience. Overall, I was blessed with more life-enriching lessons than I had expected.

Nonetheless, I can point out two things that didn’t meet my high expectation of being an international student at McGill. The first point is that “transsystemia” virtually meant “inter-systemia” of common law and civil law in most of the first-year courses. My understanding of trans-systemia is to question the existing categories of legal traditions and systems themselves. Yet, in the real world, the McGill Faculty of Law has a public responsibility as a Canadian institution to train legal professionals so that they are able to serve the people of Quebec and Canada. This realistic mandate requires McGill to spend a predominant amount of class time overviewing “mainstream” Canadian legal traditions.

Secondly, regardless of its fame as an “international law school,” the number of international students was not as high as I had expected. Except for 11

exchange students and those who are at McGill for the Bar Equivalency, I met little international students. The number becomes much lower when it comes to students who have received their education outside of North America.

The feeling of not having peers with similar experiences had an influence on my academic life, both in conscious and unconscious ways. For example, the first-week orientation was different from any welcoming rituals that I have experienced before. It seemed to be premised on drinking habits and individual participation in parties, whereas Japanese orientation is based on sharing a meal, with or without alcohol, and always in the presence of somebody that acts as intermediary between the new acquaintances . In terms of pedagogical style, I found student participation and oral presentation to be particularly emphasized in North American educational institutions.

Predominantly, language expression has been always an issue for me especially because it has put a constant pressure on me to form almost a different personality from the one that is so closely connected to the Japanese language system. Particularly at law school where writing skills are highly emphasized, I realized the necessity of having a personal tutor for each writing assignment since writing styles are also different in each language system. However, the writing centre on the McGill campus, which mainly focuses on research essays, does not match the needs of law students at all. Moreover, I was hesitant to ask another first year law student, who is always busy and has the same assignment, to edit my paper. Forcing an outside editor without a legal background to edit the legal document turned out to be almost as torturous.

In addition, future career paths for international students are wider, but difficult to foresee. The choices are either staying in Quebec or in Canada, returning to one’s home country, going to some states in the U.S. where McGill graduates are recognized as equivalent as US school graduates, or going to work for an international organization. Making these choices has to coincide with arrangements of visa status, which requires further imagination on what will happen to one’s private life as a result of these choices.

For international students, academic challenges and cultural adaptation are intermingled in our school life. Although everybody has a different process and speed of cultural adaptation, having a sense of being alone places additional pressure on international students, who are already consuming a lot of energy on overcoming language barriers and adapting to the new culture. When the feeling of isolation trumps the academic life of international students, McGill fails as a “trans-systemic” institution. On the other hand, it must not be forgotten that international students learn more because of the extra efforts we choose to put in. The presence of a diverse student body would also diversify the understanding of what “trans-systemia” at McGill is. My hope is that the McGill programme attracts students from all over the world with its philosophy of “transsystemic” education and provides them with a place where students can remain as they are and learn from each other to question the existing legal concepts.

Born in Tokyo, Japan, Akino Kowashi grew up and received education mostly in Japan, except oneyear exchange study at Washington D.C. in the U.S. during her college time. She finished a B.A. in International Relations at International Christian University, Tokyo. Before studying at McGill Faculty of Law, she worked for a marketing research company in Tokyo

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Keywords You Won’t Hear In Class : What’s left out of Blacks Law Dictionary and Other Definitions for Radical Lawyering Colonialism: Colonialism is a practice of domination, which involves the subjugation of one people to another.You can’t talk about land in property law without talking about colonialism. You can’t talk about Aboriginal rights in constitutional law without talking about colonialism. You can’t talk about foundations of Kanadian law without talking about colonialism.

Legal Solidarity: Legal solidarity is a strategy that uses group decision-making and action to protect people when they are being held in the legal system. Jails and courts are designed to make people feel powerless. By using solidarity tactics – making legal decisions as a group, acting in unity with each other, and committing yourselves to safeguarding every arrestee's interests – you can gain more control over what happens to you in the jails and courts. Legal solidarity has been used effectively for decades in the civil rights, peace, environmental, and anti-corporate globalization movements, among others.

Jail/Court Solidarity: Jail/court solidarity is the name for a variety of tactics we use to take care of each other while we're in the legal system. Jail/court solidarity involves a combination of non-cooperation techniques and collective bargaining. Although jails and courts are designed to make us feel powerless, through solidarity we can gain better control over what happens to us, by making decisions as a group; by acting in unity with each other; and by committing ourselves to safeguard each other's well being. Jail/court solidarity has been used effectively in the civil rights, peace, environmental, and other movements to protect activists who were arrested. Every time there's a choice in the legal process, activists can either cooperate or make things more difficult for the authorities. Solidarity tactics mean that people non-cooperate as a group, unless the authorities agree to their demands. People who've been arrested should demand, for example, that everyone receive the same charges and the same sentence, instead of some people (i.e., leaders or minorities) being singled out for harsher treatment.

Classism: Refers to the ideological belief that people deserve the privilege or oppression of their class based on their "merit", "social status", level of education, job, work ethic, etc... Although many people suffer under capitalism, classism is relative. Classism also refers to the social dynamic of privilege, or elitism.

Access to knowledge or to education are examples of elitism embedded in class privilege.

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Law/Legal Collective: A law collective is a non-hierarchical organization which provides legal services to a community or communities in need. Such work ranges from traditional criminal defense, to advocacy, to legal support at large and small protests, to "Know Your Rights" and other law-related workshops.

There were many law collectives in the 1970s. These collectives ran as workerrun, cooperative law firms. They often had revolutionary politics, and supported explicitly revolutionary groups and individuals. Lawyer and non-lawyer employees were paid the same wages, and had equal decision-making power. At some law collectives, workers supporting families were paid more. A handful of law collectives organized along those lines still exist - for example, the People's Law Office in Chicago, Illinois. Since the 1999 Seattle WTO protest, there has been a small movement of activist law collectives. These groups are usually non-lawyer centered, run along anarchist principles (even if they do not explicitly identify as anarchist), and work as part of the movement for social justice. This new generation of law collective works to empower people to provide their own legal support. They give "trainer trainings" so people can give "Know Your Rights" and other workshops to their communities; teach people to provide legal support for their affinity groups or for specific protests; and demystify the law in general and law collective work in particular.

People of color: A term used to refer to non-white people. It is used instead of the term "minority," which implies inferiority and disenfranchisement. The term emphasizes common experiences of racial discrimination or racism.

Queer: A term used in a number of different ways; as an 'umbrella' term for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, genderqueer and other nonheterosexual identities. It is also used as a way of reclaiming and co-opting a once negative term; to remove queer as a term of abuse. Queer was first widely used after the Gay Liberation movement of the 1970's, in the radical politics of groups like Queer Action, ACT-UP, Queer Nation and Outrage! These were most influential in the 1980's and practiced a kind of transgressive, 'in your face' political activism that sought to de-stabilize mainstream norms. The term queer also alludes to a fluidity of gender and sexuality and a rejection of socially imposed categories.

Genderqueer: Someone who “queers” gender. Someone who doesn’t identify as either a man or a woman, but a different gender entirely. Someone who identifies as both a man and a woman. Someone who creates their own gender outside of binary concepts. Also, someone who identifies both their gender identity and sexuality as contrary to “acceptable” heterosexual, gender dichotomous constructions and uses this term as a way to show connections between their oppression as a Gay/Lesbian, Bi person with their oppression as a Trans or “gender variant”.

Heterosexism: The belief in the inherent superiority of heterosexuality and thereby its rights to dominance. This term describes an ideological system and patterns of institutionalized oppression which deny, denigrate, and stigmatize any non-heterosexual form of behavior, identity, relationship, or community.

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White privilege: A privilege is a right, favor, advantage, or immunity, specially granted to one individual or group, and withheld from another. White privilege is an historically based, institutionally perpetuated system of: (1) Preferential prejudice for and treatment of white people based solely on their skin color and/or ancestral origin from Europe; and (2) Exemption from racial and/or national oppression based on skin color and/or ancestral origin from Africa, Asia, the Americas and the Arab world. Institutions and culture (economic, legal, military, political, educational, entertainment, familial and religious) privilege peoples from Europe over peoples from the Americas, Africa, Asia and the Arab world. In a white supremacy system, white privilege and racial oppression are two sides of the same coin. White peoples were exempt from slavery, land grab and genocide, the first forms of white privilege."

Gender: Characteristics of masculinity and femininity learned or chosen. A person’s assigned sex does not always match their gender and most people display traits of more than one gender.

Radical: 1. Arising from or going to a root or source; basic: proposed a radical solution to the problem. 2. Departing markedly from the usual or customary; extreme: radical opinions on education. 3. Favoring or effecting fundamental or revolutionary changes in current practices, conditions, or institutions: radical political views. 4. Slang Excellent; wonderful.

Tokenism: Presence without meaningful participation. For example, a superficial invitation for participation without ongoing dialogue and support, handpicked representatives who are expected to speak for the whole (socially oppressed) group (e.g. "tell us how women experience this issue"). Tokenism is often used as a band-aid solution to help the group improve its image (e.g. "we're not racist, look there's a person of colour on the panel.").

Homophobia: The fear and persecution of queer people. Rooted in a desire to maintain the heterosexual social order, which relies on oppressive gender roles.

Sexism: Perpetuates a system of patriarchy where men hold power and privilege and women are subordinate to men.

Internalized Sexism:Refers to the "internalization" of gender role socialization and sexism.

White Supremacy: White supremacy is an historically based, institutionally perpetuated system of exploitation and oppression of continents, nations, and peoples of color by white groups and nations; for the purpose of maintaining and defending a system of wealth, power, and privilege.

Structural Oppression: The systematic, socially supported mistreatment and exploitation of a group or category of people by another.

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Race: A specious classification of human beings which assigns human worth and social status using 'white' (usually) as the model of humanity and the height of human achievement for the purpose of establishing and maintaining privilege and power.

Prejudice: A prejudice is a pre-judgment in favor of or against a person, a group, an event, an idea, or a thing. An action based on prejudgment is discrimination. A negative prejudgment is often called a stereotype. An action based on a stereotype is called bigotry. What distinguishes this group of terms from all the others is that there is no power relationship necessarily implied or expressed by "prejudice," discrimination," "stereotype" or "bigotry."

Power: "Power" is a relational term. It can only be understood as a relationship between human beings in a specific historical, economic and social setting. It must be exercised to be visible. 1.Power is control of, or access to, those institutions sanctioned by the state. 2.Power is the ability to define reality and to convince other people that it is their definition. 3.Power is ownership and control of the major resources of a state; and the capacity to make and enforce decisions based on this ownership and control. 4.Power is the capacity of a group of people to decide what they want and to act in an organized way to get it. 5.In terms of an individual, power is the capacity to act.

Racism: Racism is race prejudice plus power. Racism is not primarily a set of negative attitudes or behaviours on the part of individual whites. These negative attitudes and behaviours are grievous and sometimes fatal, but they are in fact symptoms of a system whose purpose is not merely to make people of colour feel badly but to maintain white power and control.

Internalized racism: (1) The poison of racism seeping into the psyches of people of color, until people of color believe about themselves what whites believe about them -- that they are inferior to whites; (2) The behavior of one person of color toward another that stems from this psychic poisoning. Often called "inter-racial hostility;" and (3) The acceptance by persons of color of Eurocentric values.

Reverse Racism A term created and used by white people to deny their white privilege. Those in denial use the term reverse racism to refer to hostile behavior by people of color toward whites, and to affirmative action policies which allegedly give 'preferential treatment' to people of color over whites. There is no such thing as "reverse racism".

A Racist: A racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. The term applies to all regardless of class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality.

A Non-Racist: A non-term. The term was created by whites to deny responsibility for systemic racism, to maintain an aura of innocence in the face of racial 16

oppression, and to shift responsibility for that oppression from whites to people of color (called "blaming the victim"). Responsibility for perpetuating and legitimizing a racist system rests both on those who actively maintain it, and on those who refuse to challenge it. Silence is consent.

An Anti-Racist: (As applied to white people): an anti-racist is a person who makes a conscious choice to act to challenge some aspect of the white supremacy system: including her/his own white privilege, as well as some form of oppression against people of color. (As applied to people of color): some use the term anti-racist. Others use synonyms such as freedom fighter, activist, warrior, liberation fighter, political prisoner, prisoner of war, sister, brother, etc. In practice, it is difficult for an activist of color not to be an anti-racist activist, since the struggle against racial oppression intersects with every issue affecting people of color.

Oppressor, Oppressed, Oppression: An oppressor is one who uses her/his power to dominate another, or who refuses to use her/his power to challenge that domination. An oppressed is one who is dominated by an oppressor, and by those who consent with their silence. Oppression is the power and the effects of domination. There are many forms of (often) interlocking oppressions: racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, anti-semitism, ablism, ageism, etc. In a white supremacist, capitalist, male supremacist, and heterosexist system, all nonruling class whites are in some way oppressed by that system, but are also privileged by it. When we organize against our own oppression, but not against our privilege -- that is, against the oppression of people of color, we become oppressors of people of color. Inaction is complicity. Silence is consent. To cease being oppressors, we must act against oppression. Illegitimate institutionalized power, built and perpetuated throughout the course of history. It Allows certain 'groups' to confer illegitimate dominance over other 'groups', and this dominance is maintained and perpetuated at an institutional level.

Power Imbalance: When certain groups or individuals are privilege to unearned power, which places them in a dominant position in relation to other members of society. It involves power over others, such that certain groups may be accorded a certain amount of illegitimate power, whether particular individuals choose to have that power or not.

Privilege: Unearned social power accorded by the formal and informal institutions of society to ALL members of a dominant group (e.g. white privilege, male privilege, etc.). Privilege is usually invisible to those who have it because we're taught not to see it, but it nevertheless puts them at an advantage over those who do not have it.

Equity: Implying justice dictated by reason, conscience, and a natural sense of what is fair to all (e.g."equitable treatment of all citizens"); a term that must be invoked within an anti-oppression analysis (i.e. an analysis that accounts for structural oppression).

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Reverse Sexism: Term created to deny sexism. Fails to acknowledge that the word sexism exists because we live in a patriarchal society where men are dominant and women are subordinate (and where men are privileged simply because they are men).

Institutional Violence: The use of power to cause harm (ie. violation of human rights) and to enforce structural oppression.

Silencing: Situations in which people from dominant social groupings dominate discussions or dominate space.

Accessibility: The state of being open to meaningful participation by all people, in particular people whose participation (in a particular activity or in society at general) is usually limited by oppression of some kind. Accessibility in general means being free of barriers [which can be placed by the group inadvertently or advertently (e.g. lack of childcare or a members-only policy) and/or can be placed by society (e.g. housing must be paid for rather than being a right, etc.)] ... AND free of limits to participation once present (e.g. a university with a Eurocentric curriculum is not accessible to Native students even if there is funding for them to get there). Sometimes the term "accessibility" is used with specific reference to the needs of people with disabilities. A space cannot be deemed "accessible" in this sense if the atmosphere is ableist, even if measures are in place (e.g. wheelchair-accessible entrance/facilities that are safe and dignified, Braille/large-print/audio-tape resources, TTY and sign language interpretation).

Cultural Imperialism: Imposition of a dominant culture on others, rendering other cultures subordinate, invisible or exotic. Results from social and economic power differences and may include language (e.g. English), values, customs, religions, dress, icons, art forms, etc.

Ableism: The normalization of able-bodied persons resulting in the privilege of "normal ability" and the oppression and exclusion of people with disabilities at many levels in society. Ableism involves both denying access to people with disabilities and exclusive attitudes of able-bodied persons.

Transphobia: The fear and persecution of transgender/transexual persons.

Rooted in a desire to maintain the gender binary (i.e. the categories 'male' and 'female'), which obscures the reality of the fluidity of gender and invisibilizes the 18

The Law Machine: A Privileged Training in Privilege

-Lindsay Tina Cheong

It is an unfortunate truth, but law school is not an education. It is a training ground, or put more ruthlessly, a machine that sucks you up and spits you out, shiny, marketable and new; ready to work for/take your place in the next big machine that you have been primed for: capitalism (read: the corporate firm). Your first year classes will begin the process, slowly training you to DO without really thinking about what it is you are DOING: learning, ever so seamlessly, to reproduce and reinforce the status quo, the state of affairs that systematically advantages and protects the haves and neglects and punishes the have-nots. The incentive to sign on is not just a bonus; it has been part of your lifeline: to get good grades, you will need to tow the line.

However, already, this kind of mind-void is a privilege since not everyone can mindlessly labour for the status quo. Some people will want to, in fact need to learn how to critique it: not simply to be the fly, but because a critique (as opposed to mainstream status quo renditions of legal reality) reflects an individual’s own experience in the world. That is right: not everybody experiences/moves through this world the same way. In fact, some people are forced to move through this world in a way that offends their very existence: for example, being force-fed liberal, capitalist, patriarchal legal texts that are allowed to parade as “fact”, which is simply a way to preclude any attempts to reveal their unjust implications for those who do not benefit from these structures. And then of course, on top of having to internalize (learn, memorize) these “facts”, being forced to reproduce the same material as fact on paper in your own writing seals the deal as you may be left feeling tired, alone, insane… and defeated.

This process of re-making you does not stop here. Those who do not share the many privileges of being supported, reassured and celebrated by liberalism, capitalism and patriarchy out there, continue to be harassed, teased and seduced (coopted) into conforming to a reality that is not truly their own, at this school. A preliminary look around the classroom is telling: there are, to the naked eye, substantially more female students than male students in most classes (if not every). However, if you were to keep count, I could guarantee that more male students would have the opportunity to speak and do speak up during discussion time than female students. Is this female students’ fault? Is it because they are really shy, quiet, timid, un-opinionated, introverted women? Absolutely not. But, if the class materials do not resonate with certain students, or do not offer certain students any critiques of the status quo, how are we supposed to speak up? Some may say that since we are all highly intelligent people, we should be able to come up with critiques on the spot, how difficulty could it be? The honest truth is that such a response ignores the imbalances that actually exit in our legal training, hides the extra labour that some of us have to take up on our own time in order to correct these imbalances and stay sane, and can also force others into silence (since intuitively silence is safe). There is a lot more going on than one may think, and the band-aid solution in this case of getting professors to call more frequently on female raised-hands will not remedy the problem (though it would be a start).

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I cannot speak for all women at this school, instead I use the category of “woman” to illustrate a point in privilege: that silence does not mean nothing is happening, that things are fine and dandy. Silence means that there are social structures at work which make a person feel like remaining quiet is the right thing to do. This is a completely different power dynamic than someone in a position of authority telling you to (in all the politically correct ways adults have learned to communicate) “shut up” simply because they have a (huge) stake in the words you craft and decide to vocalize. Give that a moment to sink in and then picture yourself coming to school everyday feeling like it is the right thing to do to keep your mouth shut since “it’ll be easier for you this way, now and in the long run….”

The social reproductions of the “Old-Boys Club” are numerous, refined and subtle and serve only to open up opportunities reserved for a select few. Here, in law school, you will be exposed to all of its elite manifestations and will have the opportunity to study them, learn them, memorize and internalize them. You will learn how to “play the game” and if you choose to, you may even benefit (reinforce and reproduce the exclusivity and blindness of someone else’s experience) from it. However, I say there is a better way and silence (remember that you will be forced to remain silent even if you learn how to benefit from oppressive structures) is not the answer. In fact, silence is the most respectful and obedient way to support those who benefit from the status quo. It not only “erases” the problem from everyone’s view, but forces you to play their game by their rules if you want to “succeed”: what will become of you will be left for others to decide. Haven’t you had enough of that already?

Lindsay Tina Cheong is a second year law student who spent a lot of her time in first year going back to key readings from her past life as an art student in order to resist all the neo-liberal/ patriarchal/capitalist ideology she was drowning in at the faculty. She is overjoyed with the completion of this handbook and is so grateful to her peers for all the debates that it brought on. They have helped her keep it real (keep it R-E-A-L people!)

Gay Law student?

- Eric Boschetti

Being queer and attending law school can sometimes seem irreconcilable. The institution that is law school can occasionally feel oppressive and silencing. It can also help further feelings of tokenism. After all, in Foundations we study feminist, racial, and queer critiques of law (a whole class for each). Whether people take things away from those classes, such as a feminist critique does not have to come from a self-identified woman to have meaning, is uncertain for sure. Rarely do you hear that such a critique could apply to property law, contracts etc unless you read the one article about it in class. It is important to remember however that these critiques of law are important for everyone. But, while some may walk away from those classes feeling convicted, others will likely feel they have fulfilled their legal sensitivity training and then forget about it.

The faculty is full of extremely diverse perspectives. Whether they are expressed effectively or silenced is another issue. A McGill legal experience is at least officially committed to changing legal education so that people internalize rather than tolerate the benefits of different perspectives. There is work to be done in the 20

actual pedagogy of the faculty, but the focus of this piece is on what students can do to change that. This is particularly relevant to life in Canada where LGB (thought not T) people have attained a position of legal equality. But a lesson you will, or have already learned, is that equality is as much about an environment as it is about rules for protection. As students, we are a large and vital component of the environment at the faculty. We can either chose to accept certain things, to strive only to speak from our own perspective better, or we can seek change where change is needed. We can push ourselves to understand other perspectives and become at least passively “bilingual.”

Things have changed at the Faculty. Programs have been initiated to deal with diversity concerns in the recruitment process. To facilitate a more welcoming and vocal community, groups like Outlaw have been reinvigorated. While transystemic learning extends beyond the classroom, how do we engage it and participate in it?

The answer, I think is conversation.

It means asking questions outside of class, not necessarily to professors, but to each other. Without these hallway convos, many perspectives are left behind in that one Foundations class where you talked about queer theory and challenging norms (if you attended, were awake, or people took the discussion that deep). Take the time one day to scan through the faculty’s interests. Professors have listed “topics” that they would help supervise as paper topics. Queer theory doesn’t make the list (actually the word Queer only makes it into the description for Prof Leckey’s family law class); critical race theory makes it once; feminist legal theory makes it four times. While this list is likely not exhaustive, and plenty of professors would gladly supervise paper topics outside their list; this doesn’t change the fact that the list is symbolic and rather depressing. A side note, of the 5 total instances of the Foundations “diversity” legal perspectives, only once is it listed by a member outside the tokenized group. Go professor Manderson and feminist legal theory.

All this is said to show a few things. We’re here to learn and to engage. Break down hierarchical structures, and ask professors to sponsor papers outside the “list”.

Engage professors as partners on equal footing. Challenge them as they challenge you. And really pursue your education in the hallways with your peers. Change the environment from one of tolerance to one of enriching exchange. In discussion you could be a gay law student, a black law student, a Muslim law student, or anything else your heart leads you to try and understand better. Try a different perspective out, and see how people challenge you. And most importantly, ASK QUESTIONS! Eric Boschetti is a fag and former cheerleader who hails from Philadelphia. He's mediocre; but he enjoys taking on impossible tasks and making them happen. Boorah!

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Descending the Ivory Tower: A Tale of Working Part-Time

-Alika Hendricks

It doesn’t take long to notice that the city of Montreal is oriented around a pretty big hill. Names of some of the different neighborhoods in the city attest to this; take Westmount or the Plateau, for example. In typical hierarchical fashion, the well-to-do of the city generally live higher up on the hill than others. And in keeping with this, you’ve no doubt noticed that the law faculty is located near the top of the steep incline in question. In fact, from the geographical perspective of the law faculty, nearly everything (with the exception of the faculty of medicine) is below us. It is not difficult then, for us to imagine that in being associated with the faculty, we have indeed risen to the top- scaled the Ivory Tower- and found ourselves standing victoriously at the apex of it all. …Unless of course, you have the blissful affliction of needing to work part-time while you complete your studies. In that case, down, down, down you must go in search of employment. And there you will find that not only is the air less thin, there is an entirely different energy to feed off of. In my delicious descent from the Ivory Tower three times a week, I found rest for my weary mind, some solid ground for my feet and some much needed cash for my starving bank account.

For me ,working part-time was a necessity. From both a financial and academic perspective, I needed to be employed, and had the good fortune of securing, what to me is the best part-time job imaginable. My Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons were spent at Montreal Children’s Library, where I shared the position of branch librarian with another student. Working ten hours a week at the branch in Little Burgundy (a neighborhood that is literally at the bottom of the hill) I spent my shifts reading stories and doing crafts and activities with kids ranging in age from 18 months to 12 years old. There is nothing like an afternoon with a bunch of five-year-olds to get the blood pumping, and to chase all thoughts of torts or contracts readings from your mind.

With the library paying slightly over minimum wage, I can’t pretend that my ten hours a week there enabled me to pay my way through school. However, having a job has meant that the student loans that I do have, do not need to cover all of my expenses, just the basics of tuition and rent. The rest I’ve got covered.

The reality is, that for some of us at the faculty, embarking on our legal studies has meant adding to pre-existing debt from other degrees, or accumulated from life in general. To work, or not to work, is therefore not the question. The question instead is how to make working, work?

I assure you, it really is not that hard. Some will tell you that you will need all of the time you have and more to study. But in all honesty, that is simply not the case. In my experience doing something completely unrelated to law for a few hours a week is not only feasible, it is to be encouraged. As Professor Baker will tell you, most of life is “pre-legal blah, blah, blah, blah, blah” that lawyers have 22

to understand and then translate into a legally intelligible form. Getting a job is a productive way to stay in touch with the world of “pre-legal” life. It helps to ensure that in the midst of reams of mind-numbing cases, you do not lose sight of the “big picture” or the “real world”.

Still not convinced? Consider the procrastination cycle. The more time there is to study, the more time there is to put off studying and the longer studying goes undone. Conversely, the less time there is to study, because of time constraints related to having a part-time job, the less time there is to put off studying.

Voila! It has been true for me throughout my academic career that the more I have to do, the more I inevitably get done.

Don’t be shy, perhaps you’re concerned that finding a job in this bilingual city is difficult to do. The answer is yes, and no. Take pride in your passive bilingualism. Affirm it—you are a functionally bilingual person who can serve coffee or wait tables in both French and English if need be. And don’t forget about the highly coveted jobs on-campus. Jobs are out there. Food service, retail, you name it, they would be lucky to have you. And you would be lucky to have them. My roommate has had more part-time jobs than anyone I know, and she has never left a job feeling like she hasn’t learned something fundamentally important about life.

Being in school full-time is a luxury that many cannot afford, and some, just barely. If nothing else, working while going to school teaches an important lesson in balance. A balance must be struck between the someday future we’re all striving towards and the practical demands of today. As you venture forward, and as credit debt climbs and savings dwindle, remember that working part-time can be done, it has been done.

Originally from Toronto, but after five years in Montreal, now a committed Montrealer, Alika Hendricks is entering her second year at the Faculty of Law. Her interests in refugee and immigrant rights are what led her to law initially, but she has since developed interests more broadly in the areas of equality rights and environmental law. A major proponent of diversity, she is eager to see increasingly more heterogeneous first year classes at the faculty.

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Cutting Edge Doesn’t Mean the Corporate Grind

- Mike Leitold

One of things that drives me up the wall about law school is how you’re taught to believe the sexiest, most interesting work you can do is mergers and acquisitions for the Seven Sisters (the seven most powerful Bay Street firms). Working for rich people and corporations in the areas of estates, patents, bankruptcy law, corporate finance – all this stuff is heralded as being seriously fascinating. Sure, if it wasn’t for the fact that you’re basically retained by the moral equivalent of Darth Vader and the work itself is boring, repetitive, and requires coffee and coke as fuel just to get interested enough to get it done.

The great stuff, the really challenging legal work that will not get you closer to that BMW 3 Series, is nonetheless interesting, innovative, and on the cusp of emerging legal areas and definitely needs young legal workers to step up and get involved.

There are many examples of lawyering and legal work that show how struggles for justice and people’s power are leaving their mark on the politico-legal arena and blazing new legal tactics and strategies.

1. Resist the onset of the new police state In today’s national security state, human and civil rights are being trampled by a rush to a new police state of surveillance, detention, profiling, and harassment.

From the fight of the Secret Trial Five to the Maher Arar inquiry, lawyers are from the Law Union of Ontario are on the front lines fighting to defend hard won political and social freedoms. Important decisions that affect people’s lives, and this society, are being made and we need your help – join the many dedicated legal workers and organizers who put in so much time and energy to defend civil liberties and fight racist police state tactics.

2. Expand workers rights and protections The economy is hellhole for workers’ rights – unpaid wages, hazardous jobsites, subcontracting and temporary work are redefining the workplace and workers’ rights are being left behind. Social movements in the form of rank and file workers’ committees, a base of organizing for non-unionized and precarious workers, are building a fight back. Join activists, unionists, and legal clinic workers and organizers in reaffirming and expanding the scope of workplace protections from exploitation. There are many areas of rapidly expanding jurisprudence, including successor employability liability, subcontracting, temporary workers’ rights, human rights at work, and injured workers’ rights. Research and casework assistance is always welcomed.

3. The Struggle for land intensifies The fact that Canada and the United States are settler states built on stolen land should be known by all, but the ongoing process of dispossession of First Nations people is often ignored. First Nations communities, who have struggled for 500 years against imperialist plunder and genocide, are continuing to assert 24

sovereignty and self-determination. One weapon in this struggle is that of the law – as flawed as it is – in order to back-up ever expanding grassroots Indigenous Movements. Research assistance and legal support in this area is one of the most important tasks for young legal activists, as it cuts to the core of the legitimacy of the Canadian state and its judicial system. Not only that, this area is one of the most litigated constitutional questions of the past 15 years.

4. No one is illegal!

Western economies and big business need cheap migrant labour to make big profits, but rather than allowing newcomers to have the political space to organize and resist exploitation, the state aims to keep them in positions of precarity with the threat of deportation and detention over head. In recent years, movements of self-organized communities without “legal” immigration status have been forming, calling for a radical transformation in how refugees and migrants are treated in Canada. Support in the form of basic casework, “know your rights” workshops, and advocacy is required.

5. Stop the war on the poor Social movements are engaged in day to day struggles to defend and advance the interests of poor and oppressed peoples. One site of these struggles is the courtroom, where taxi drivers, street vendors, homeless people and many others are under attack by racist cops and zealous bylaw officers. Students are always welcome as allies to better defend poor people’s interests in the courtroom – the war on the poor must be resisted on all fronts.

And this is just the beginning. From battles for rights for all people, regardless of sexuality or gender, to answering the question of what defines a terrorist versus a freedom fighter – all these questions are found in the political and legal work of Law Union members and affiliates. We want to see folks getting involved, so hit us up at srglw@hotmail.com.

Mike Leitold works for pay at Roach, Schwartz, & Associates, a progressive law firm in Toronto, and works for free with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, the Law Union of Ontario, the Common Front Legal, and others.

The Law Union of Ontario is a progressive legal organization founded in 1974. It is a coalition of over 200 lawyers, law students, and legal workers. The Law Union has historically worked on workers’ rights, environmental issues, Indigenous solidarity, police misconduct, Lesbian/Gay, Bisexual/ Trans issues and on defending the rights of people to protest. The Law Union provides for an alternative bar in Ontario seeking to counter the traditional practices afforded by the legal system to the social, political, and economic privilege. By demystifying legal procedures, attacking discriminatory and oppressive legislation, arguing progressive new legal applications of the law, and democratizing legal practice, the Law Union strives to develop collective approaches to bring about social justice.

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Litigate and Agitate: Why Working in the System Will Never Be Enough -A.J. Withers The legal system has fundamental flaws built into it which make it impossible to create social equality using the system alone. The court system is designed to resist change and to protect the interests of those who maintain power. The laws that the system enforces have oppressive (primarily racist, sexist, heterosexist, and classist) assumptions built into them. Those enforcing the law are known to do so in a discriminatory manner as well, particularly in relation to racial profiling and the targeting of homeless people. So while working inside the system is necessary, it will only affect minor and largely individualized change that can be repealed at any point. Only by confronting the system through collective organizing and action can we end the oppression that the capitalistcolonial system both maintains and thrives on.

The Courts can be a useful tool. At times, it is necessary to work within the legal system to defend people who have been targeted for their political views or their membership in an oppressed group. They can also be valuable to obtain documents, information, and funds (through strategic civil suits). However, to work within the system alone means that the scope of change desired will be limited and individualized. It also means that the system is granted greater legitimacy through those actions because the people working for change sometimes win, demonstrating that the courts can acknowledge problems in the system even though the majority of court rulings side with the status quo.

Instead, a two-pronged (or more!) approach to enacting social change is needed. Social movements cannot function strictly outside of the legal system because the system necessitates that it be used, at least in regards to criminal, provincial offences and immigration law. When it is necessary or when it makes tactical sense, we need to put forwards strong legal defenses and offenses.

Therefore, there needs to be a group of people who possess those skills, who can work in conjunction with and take leadership from political organizations, and who can provide information to those working for change who do not have the same legal training and/or skills.

As someone in law school, you can make a conscious decision to work to make the world a better place. You can choose to practice progressive lawyering when you graduate and do competent casework that will benefit individuals and, essentially, be a band-aid solution to a serious problem. Alternatively, you can work to be a radical lawyer who works with an organization to ensure that your work supports broader struggles. This work will, ideally, ensure that not only individuals but also large groups of people are positively affected by your work.

Neither of these choices will make you wealthy. If you chose to be a part of a movement, however, you will be a stronger, more compassionate person who is also fortunate enough to have a never ending set of challenging and fascinating cases.

AJ Withers is a political activist who works with OCAP and Common Front Legal. As a recent graduate of a paralegal program, they do a variety of legal work and attempt to support radical struggles through legal work.

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REASONS NOT TO BE A CORPORATE HACK

- Kathy Ramsey

Despite such tokenistic events like Public Interest Career Day, the vast majority of efforts at law school go towards preparing you for employment in a large corporate law firm—so much effort, in fact, that by second year you may be wondering why you are not, like your colleagues, firing off dozens of resumes replete with phrases such as “Though I have vast experience in the human rights field, I’ve developed a strong interest in business law and securities”. The halls will be full of people stating that while they never came to law school to do business law, they are just “keeping their options open”. People will be lining up en masse to do ‘recruitment’ and OCIs (On-Campus Interviews) where big corporate firms make it so easy for you to work with them that they come to you for an interview!

While opportunities abound in a privileged institution like law school, there’s no need to jump on every opportunity that comes your way.

Instead, recognize the privilege a law degree affords and use it for the greater good, not evil!

There are many ‘opportunities’ to work in the area of poverty law because the capitalist system creates, and then oppresses, the poor. And while the system of law and government both upholds and justifies this oppressive system, there are ways of working for and with the poor against a system that constantly interferes in their lives. But even as I say this, the reality is that most working poor cannot access representation when confronted by the legal system because they are inadmissible to legal aid—only those receiving social assistance or who earn close to what they would receive on social assistance are eligible for free legal aid.

Poverty law involves rallying against bailiffs, landlords, creditors and the state, amongst other nefarious actors, whose directives are to further marginalize the poor. The yearly directives of the local social assistance office will obviously include making cuts when they have to help fulfill the Charest government objective of saving $300 million in the social assistance budget in 2005-2006! That translates, on a day to day basis, into social assistance bureaucrats policing and harassing the poor by demanding an outrageous, and unobtainable, list of documents from applicants who have to prove their poverty—and thus be admissible 27

to receive a mere $566 a month. The goal is to so disempower, frustrate and overwhelm, and then finally refuse to pay social assistance benefits when all the documents are not provided.

On a daily basis government agents investigate people’s living situations and private lives in order to save a few dollars in the social assistance budget. For example, investigative agents working for the social assistance office find bogus reasons to denounce people for—in the words of the internal social assistance manual—“living as a couple” in order to pay them the ‘couple rate’ of $869 a month, rather than the $566 they would each be getting as individuals. People have been denounced as “living as a couple” because they share household tasks and go grocery shopping together as part of a collective living arrangement! If one part of the alleged ‘couple’ isn’t receiving social assistance, the amount of their revenue may make the other person ineligible and cut off from receiving social assistance thereby leaving them destitute. Above all it’s an intrusion and interference in people’s personal lives that saves the social assistance bureau $300 a month per couple. The investigative business is pretty lucrative for an office whose goal is to save millions of dollars a year!

With increasing gentrification in neighbourhoods such as Pointe St. Charles, working in poverty law also means fighting against opportunistic landlords who underhandedly repossess apartments from the poor and turn them into expensive condos. Pointe St-Charles has a long history of fighting against gentrification and Community Legal Services of Pointe St-Charles and Little Burgundy has been part of this collective organizing in order to combat individual issues at their root.

In addition to areas of law such landlord/tenant, employment insurance and labour, family law is also involved. People have sometimes had to quit their jobs or take unpaid leaves of absence in order to qualify for legal aid and get a divorce or access rights to their children because they could not previously afford the representation they felt they needed during these procedures.

Governmental, legal and economic interference in the lives of the poor runs deep, and acting as a legal representative in many circumstances involves negotiation, demanding reviews of bureaucratic decisions, and going before tribunals and courts. As a person with legal ‘skills’, you can stand with people as they navigate through the system and assist them in fighting back against it. You can also explain to people what their rights are vis-à-vis the system, though many are already well aware of these rights but need recourse to representation to get their voices heard and their rights enforced.

Contrary to the myth circulated at law school that you have to go corporate in order to get good experience, poverty law is replete with ‘experience’. You will not be relegated to some office cubicle writing memos for one of the partners.

There’s no time or money for such waste—you’ll have your own clients, do research on your own cases (not someone else’s) and represent your clients before boards, tribunals and courts. The learning curve is steep and the experi28

ence s hands on, and after all isn’t that what you are looking for after talking about the law for years within the isolated confines of the classroom? The high caseload that comes with the territory can make a focus on collective struggle and broader change seem difficult, but I’ve been inspired by those I have seen prioritize such work and who fight alongside the community while not neglecting the individual representation that is often required.

People involved in social justice work often feel pressure to cut back on that work in order to focus on obtaining the much coveted A’s the competitive vortex of law school makes them believe they need to get a job. I never had to show my transcript—replete with a dreaded C—to get work because my other commitments were more relevant to my interviewees than the hours I spent in the confines of the Nehum Gelber library. It’s vital to stay committed to, and involved in, the work you really care about while at law school in order to have the relevant experience and dedication the places you truly want to work are looking for. No poverty law clinic, legal aid clinic or progressive law firm—just by way of example—is looking for someone with five years experience in a corporate law firm! That’s why the oft-uttered phrase “I’m just doing it for a few years so I can do what I really want to do” is utterly false and completely illogical. Keep up the good fight!

Kathy Ramsey is a lawyer at Community Legal Services of Pointe St-Charles and Little Burgundy, a non-profit organisation that was created in 1972 by law students and area residents at a time when the thought of free legal services was a veritable revolution.

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La Foire aux Pacotilles - Marguerite Tinawi Pacotille : une certaine quantité d'objets quelconques. Sans valeur.

Dans un langage un peu moins châtié, des bébelles, des cossins…

Chers futurs zé futures collègues, laissez-moi la joie de vous conter la plus célèbre Foire aux Pacotilles de McGill (c-à-d « les Journée Carrières de la Faculté de droit »), un phénomène unique en son genre!

Ce qui vous impressionnera d’abord, c’est l’incroyable esprit de corps vestimentaire des professionnels de la foire (j’allais dire « des foireux », mais ç’eût été quelque peu déplacé). Les vendeurs de pacotilles sont tous invariablement affublés d’un « costume-cravate », tandis que leurs comparses féminines arborent LE tailleur gris. Ou noir. Ou bleu marin. Mais PAS orange. Ni rouge. Ni mauve.

Ni vert. Ni jaune. Ni rose. Non, non, non! Le vendeur de pacotille n’aime pas se compliquer la vie. Il ne connaît que trois couleurs – gris, noir et bleu marin – et qu’une coupe – le complet pour le vendeur, le tailleur la vendeuse.

Une fois l’uniforme endossé, le vendeur de pacotille va essayer de vous convaincre que sa job est LA meilleure au monde. Moi je me demande comment une cinquantaine de personnes dans la même salle peuvent tous clamer avoir LA meilleure job au monde? En tout cas, les vendeurs de pacotille, eux, en sont convaincus et persuadent la plèbe (vous, en passant) à grand renfort de cartes d’affaire, pamphlets, discours soporifiques, sourires Minute-Maid, poignées de main et naturellement… distribution de pacotilles.

Ah, ces chères pacotilles! Mesdames et Messieurs, laissez-moi vous dire que la Foire aux Pacotilles de votre nouvelle Faculté est une foire de qualité. Les incontournables sont immanquablement au rendez-vous : stylos, crayons (en bois pour le Ministère de la Justice, ils n’ont pas les mêmes moyens que le reste), fluos avec Post-it qui surgissent lorsqu’on dévisse le haut, gommes, pochettes plastifiées transparentes (trop-trop-belles… j’ai craqué l’an dernier), bouteilles d’eau... Dans le plus haut de gamme, il y a les porte-clés rouge flamboyant (comme quoi, ils ne sont pas si allergiques aux couleurs vives… à doses homéopathiques), des gadgets qui ressemblent à un chronomètre ou à une Pagette, des théières, des cuillères à glace, des mini-backgammon magnétiques (là, franchement, on s’approche dangereusement de la pacotille de luxe!)…

Mais le top du top de la pacotille, Mesdames et Messieurs, c’est ni le minibackgammon ni le porte-clé (bien trop commun, pfff!).

La Palme de la Pacotille revient à… une boîte! Une boîte en carton. Remplie de… céréales. Si, si! Ce sont les célèbres « MuësLEX »!!! En manger vous donne automatiquement LA meilleure job au monde. C’est prouvé.

A bien y penser, le nec plus ultra de la pacotille, c’est une anti-pacotille. C’est un objet qui a énormément de valeur aux yeux de bien des personnes dans le monde. Surtout lorsqu’elles passent la journée le ventre vide.

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Bah… des grands cabinets qui distribuent des céréales… ça s’peut pas!!! Vous ne me croyez pas? Eh bien, demandez aux Vieux de cette Faculté ou attendez les Journées carrières… vous verrez!!!

-Marguerite Tinawi est née la même année que Utada Hikaru cette étudiante en deuxième année a une passion immodérée pour Chostakovitch, la rue de Rennes, Poldi, les poèmes d’Aragon mis en chanson par Ferrat, les artichauts, Olivier Martinez, le Code Civil version papier et les pianos Yamaha – à queue, bien entendu. Ne vous laissez surtout pas impressionner par son apparence extrêmement studieuse; profitez plutôt du diablotin qui dort en elle…

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- TESTIMONIALS How I Survived Law School...with my sanity and principles intact and Other Words of Wisdom

-Compiled by Joshua Parr

Something a friend of mine told me before I started McGill law that helped me a lot was to make sure I knew why I was there and what I wanted to get out of it before I started; he said that if I didn't have answers to these questions and a determination to stick to those goals and values, I would have new answers supplied to me. I've kept this advice in mind the whole time and I've found it really helped.

When I first started out in first year, it seemed that no one wanted to be a corporate lawyer. My year was full of fascinating and generous people intent on making the world a better place, who had nothing but contempt for the idea of working for big money. And now, by the end of third year, it seems the majority of them have signed up to work for corporate law firms. I don't think it's just that everyone was dazzled by the prospect of a high salary, because most people I've talked to about their firm jobs dread the prospect of working them and don't feel that the dip in quality of life is balanced off by the salary – they haven't even really sold out in the sense of compromising values for money. It's hard to understand, but I think it's just the overwhelming power of suggestion that comes from everyone around you who you look up to and respect doing something, and you feeling that you have to follow suit – even if it doesn't seem to make sense to you.

One reason this power of suggestion is so overwhelming is because it doesn't take the shape you'd expect. Some 60-year-old ghoul in a power suit is not going to break into your room at night, throw an infant on the floor and exhort you to stomp on it, and then drag you by the ear to a gloomy grey cubicle. Instead, it comes from the people you like most. The people who work in the career placement office are wonderful hardworking people. They are among the nicest and most genuine people you'll encounter at the law faculty. What you must remember is that they are employed to ease your transition into a corporate firm job; the fact that they are so good at their jobs is actually a problem if that is not what you want to do, as it's extremely difficult to resist pressure from wellmeaning people.

The principal source of persuasion is your peers themselves. The radical Marxist who was so intent on never taking a firm job in first year will suddenly pop up in second year one day in a power suit. You'll ask her what's up, and she'll explain apologetically that she has an interview, and cough out some rationalization.

Two weeks later, she'll be wearing a suit again, and will have stopped apologizing. A couple of weeks later, she'll have accepted an offer. Eight years later, 32

she'll still be at the same firm.

So how do you overcome this? First, by taking my friend's advice – never lose sight of why you started your law degree and what you wanted from it. No matter how distant and fogged-out those goals may seem to become around recruiting time, my thinking is they have a way of returning from oblivion in the form of a sense of dread in your last days before graduation...after you've already signed on for a job you now realize you really don't want.

Second, and this may sound horribly individualistic, but don't hitch your wagon indelibly to anyone else or the choices they make. Surviving the culture at McGill law often means deciding that you're the only sane person in a bowl of lunatics, even if all the lunatics have decided that you're the crazy one. Part of the phenomenon of selling out is trying to get other people to sell out – misery loves company.

By Joshua Parr who is a fourth-year law student. He applied to McGill while volunteering for a year at a faith-based homeless shelter for the non-status population on the Texas-Mexico border. While at McGill, he has been active in the campaign for a comprehensive regularization program for Canada's non-status community.

Don’t waste your time reading the assigned materials. If you do feel strongly about reading everything assigned, start with the commentary, not the cases, and budget at least half as much time again to find and read some critical commentary. I got through most of first year by not reading the casebooks and instead reading feminist critique of private law. Everything came into focus when I read commentators who could explain why these foul-tasting pills they force feed us are so impossible to swallow. Don't be blinded by volume - a classic 'confuse & co-opt' strategy of those with power - the more judges' opinions you read, the more likely you are to believe them. Never under-estimate the importance and value of getting angry and expressing it. The social costs might be too high in the classroom ("now, let's see what these [fanatic] feminists have to say about the duty of care ..."), but, at the very least, outside the classroom, seek out a group of friends who share some of your values and frustrations. And remember that there are professors lurking here who share your concerns. You have to work just to stay afloat in this place, but you have to work even harder to stay awake.

By Genevieve Renard Painter who works on gender, development, and human rights issues. She is nearing the end of a law degree, which has focused on the critical study of human rights and feminist approaches to the nexus between power and law. She hopes to return to her previous career as a lobbyist for gender equity and social justice, while remaining grounded in grassroots activism and the other things that matter most (including cooking & dancing).

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...How I Survived and Other Words of Wisdom continued...

1) Challenge conformity.

2) Challenge racism, sexism, clasism and other forms of overt discrimination that take place regularly in the faculty.

3) Challenge professors of seminar courses who dominate the discourse.

4) Expect to be alienated, isolated, and bombarded with falacious arguments by militants of the status quo. Rise to the occasion.

5) Define your own academic career: Seek greener - and more progressive pastures at UQAM and even UdeM. Be radical with your electives. Don't waste them on finance 101 or management courses that will look good and boost your average. Take a drama therapy course or a sculpture course and then write a term essay on how your work is impacted by the prevailing intellectual property regime.

6) Make friends who will not be lawyers.

7) Travel beyond Ste-Catherine, St-Laurent, St-Denis, Mt-Royal, and Crescent street.

8) Volunteer at a legal info clinic (not necessarily the McGill one, but it's a good start).

9) Schedule a meeting and wear a power suit if you want something from anyone in a position of administrative power in the faculty. Expect bureaucracy but challenge it.

10) Finish your required courses ASAP, then take a semester abroad and try to extend it to a full year.

11) Write term essays in the summer on work you are doing anyhow.

12) Try to get work in a small law firm one summer (i.e.: Immigration, Aboriginal, Housing, Family, even Business). Sometimes Pro Bono work can translate into a job (but do the Pro Bono for a law firm, not for an NGO with no connections in the alternative legal community).

13) Meet people whose work you believe in and develop a network of contacts not because it is beneficial to you but because you can be beneficial to them.

14) Find a project that you can make a long-term commitment to that will give you useful experience (i.e.: start an organic food cooperative, organize a series of community legal information seminars, etc.). You'd be surprised how many people will get involved if you ask.

15) Focus your energies: pick and choose your activities and then make a commitment to see them through to the end and do them well.

By Michael Simkin who is from Montreal. He received a degree in science from the McGill School of Environment and a Master of Space Studies from the International Space University before coming to McGill Law. Since he began his law studies, he has been involved in a wide variety of activities including coordinating the campus Organic Food Coop as well as volunteering at the McGill Legal Info Clinic, Project Genesis, and Dans la Rue. Most recently, he worked with street youth using theatre as an empowerment tool for discussing issues of youth criminalization in Montreal. He began the Quebec Bar in August 2006. For more from Michael: www.law.mcgill.ca/quidarchive/2005/05112211.html

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I entered law school rather naive. Granted, I suppose I had the excuse that I was several years younger than most of my peers and that my decision to apply to law school occurred two days before I applied. I ended up in law school largely on impulse, with only vague reasoning as to why - some combination of social justice and environmental issues. Good intentions, surely, but basing four years of my life on such ambiguous ideals is slightly absurd in retrospect.

This would also have effects on my reaction to, and continuing tenuous relationship with, this entity of law school. I was dismayed immediately upon entering class, and I struggled both with the material and maintaining continuous attendance. Most law courses encourage/require you to accept certain assumptions (private property, hurray!) and instead of engaging myself with the material so as to better challenge it, I came down with the ostrich syndrome (if you can’t see it...). This continued for about two years as I flirted (frequently and with increasing intensity) with dropping law school entirely and switching to a more appropriate faculty (education or social work). After two years of such nonsense, I made the conscious decision that I ought to either quit (two years down the drain) or make law school work. The former being a pretty intimidating option, I opted for the latter.

I’m now entering my fourth year with some regret that it is my last, because I feel now that half of law school will have evaded me upon graduation (perhaps that should be the other way around). And no, I’m not talking about missing out on coffee house or free corporate handouts (doughnuts included). What I suggest, if I may be so bold, is to develop an active relationship with the material and challenge it whenever possible. My response in my first two years was the immature one, and it amounted to giving up. Fortunately, I remained where I was and I’m now in a surprisingly good place with law school - although less so with “the law.” You may have to force it, but you will receive a thorough foundation (forgive the pun) in a critical social tool which will be of tremendous use in future radical pursuits. I made the mistake of equating education with indoctrination (a reasonable fear, by the way), and so by refusing the latter and I stifled the former.

I’d like to return briefly to my rather naive intentions. I should say now that it was not that my intentions themselves were naive, but rather my approach to these intentions was naive. I expected law school to nourish these, thinking I’d be entering a bastion of progressive causes. I refused to challenge myself, concluding I was in the wrong place because I felt very much alone. Hopefully this disorientation guide will help you realize that there are alternatives to the law school escalator (one path, going up). Be prepared to force your own path.

And so to quote Bruce Cockburn, “Got to kick at the darkness ‘till it bleeds daylight.”

By David Perrier who is in his fourth year of law school.

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...How I Survived and Other Words of Wisdom continued...

First, call it law school, not the Faculty of Law. Case matters.

Second, keep your friends from before; if need be, make new ones outside of law. They are your lifeline.

Remember: you may not survive law school, but it will certainly survive you.

Keep your options open.

Realize, early, that private law is about protecting the status quo: that property law establishes it; that contract law ensures expectations based on it are met; and that tort law protects it from any unexpected change.

Realize, too, that if you're unhappy with the status quo, private law will not help you.

Wonder out loud, in class: why tort law is about causation and fault, rather than about accident compensation and risk protection; why nobody mentions that torts were all but abolished in New Zealand in 1974; why contracts are about the meeting of the minds rather than the equitable allocation of goods; why the Supreme Court's Chaoulli judgement uses the right to life and security of the person to undermine universal health care; why the same court, just a few years earlier, in the Gosselin decision, decided that welfare benefits of $170 per month were not a threat to life and security of the person; why property law is about houses, shares and debts, and not about welfare benefits; why protection is sought against government, and not corporate, abuse of power; why, in Homex Realty and Development Co., the guru of judicial review, David Mullan, reprints only the dissenting judges of one of the rare cases where the majority exposes such abuse; why the same people who adamantly argue for free-market competition turn around and, just as adamantly, argue for intellectual property monopolies when it suits their purposes; why the soaring prices of health care are not seen as an IP issue; why some people in Canada are protected by labour codes, while others are only covered by labour standards acts, and others still cannot avail themselves of either; and why so little of all this is talked about by people who are claimed to be the "Future Leaders of Canada."

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Become a Future Leader of Canada: make alliances with social justice groups outside of the faculty; bring them in to present their cause; support social movements, and let them support you.

Become a Future Leader of Canada: surround yourself with inspiring people; and become one, yourself.

By Cory Verbauwhede. During his time at law school, Cory frequently wondered out loud, in class, about difficult social issues, to the dismay of many of his colleagues, yet to the delight of some. In first year, he helped coordinate Equity/Access's groundbreaking Street Youth and the Law conference, which started an ongoing and fruitful alliance with OpĂŠration Droits devant, a street youth rights advocacy group. In second year, he was instrumental in making a small but unprecedented protest happen at the law school against the cuts of over $100M in student aid to QuĂŠbec students, helping secure an overwhelming majority vote for this action after the Law Students Association's Judicial Board struck down the first resolution to that effect for lack of "due notice." In third year, through his internship with Dans la rue, and with the help of Pivot Legal Society in Vancouver, he participated in bringing rights-on-arrest cards to thousands of youth who are routinely thrown in prison for unpaid Montreal municipal bylaw fines. Now that he is beyond the reach of law school, he will continue to make the eyes of those comfortable seeing social programs disappear roll, and perhaps even help bring change? Maybe. At the very least they will have to suffer his relentless questioning of accepted, though indefensible, practices!

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ACT NOW!: Needed Changes at the Faculty

-Julia Nicol

It’s no easy task to change the law and it’s not much easier to change a legal institution such as the Faculty of Law. There are many forces pulling the Faculty in multiple directions - funding, student interests, professors’ expertise, etc. After spending two years at the Faculty and speaking with a large number of people, I’ve realised a few things I feel are essential to creating a greater space for radical lawyering. Fostering such a space is important if we are to maintain the motivation and hope of being able to promote social and environmental justice as lawyers during our time in law school (and beyond!). I am focusing in this article on the ways to work within the system, but of course there are a diversity of tactics that law students and lawyers can adopt to make change. Some may opt to take to the streets, while others may not, but we should develop alliances and support the diversity of our work for social justice.

Working towards change requires commitment and action. And making changes at law school requires action. The powers that be need ideas and contacts.

Though it may be a difficult decision to make as you become a busy law student or when you are already involved in projects outside of the Ivory Tower, the administration needs people to work with if the faculty is to become a more progressive space. Engage them!

What types of changes do I envision at McGill’s Faculty of Law: Recruiting students: McGill is a very privileged little bubble and the Law Faculty is even more extreme. Every year (I’m guessing, but haven’t seen the stats) the diversity of the student body improves but there is still a lot of work to be done on commonly-mentioned issues such as ethnic diversity but also in less discussed areas like economic class. Initiatives are being developed that you can get involved in or you may have ideas of your own.

Courses: McGill’s Faculty of Law represents itself as a leader in human rights, listing large numbers of classes in the catalogue without mentioning they are often not offered. Pushing for greater diversity of courses in reality, and for critical analysis within all courses requires cooperation with the administration as they plan which courses are offered and hire new profs, as well as with professors either before the beginning of the term or as things go along. Obviously, some will be more open to your suggestions than others. Working as a research assistant may also influence the choice of readings and provide an outlet for change for future years’ courses.

Practical experience: It’s not only corporate lawyers that want concrete skills.

A lot of us come into law school with a strong critical analysis of the existing systems and are interested in learning how to use the law to challenge the status quo in concrete terms. Volunteering and working at the McGill Legal Information Clinic has taught me how little I’ve learned in the classroom about how to go 38

about fighting a cut in someone’s welfare payments or finding out the steps needed to fight for custody of their children, despite the sometimes interesting philosophical and policy debates we’ve discussed. The best way to learn these skills is through practical opportunities with lawyers and organisers in the community. These programs open many students’ eyes, whether previously interested in social and environmental justice or not, to new issues and perspectives they would never understand in the same way through a lecture or a reading.

They allow students to learn how the law really operates, how the system works, and how the status quo is maintained by the law. Experiencing this first hand provides a deeper understanding that can inspire students to be active agents for social justice. This should be a part of our legal education as well.

These opportunities also make substantive law courses feel much more relevant.

More opportunities like the Legal Clinic Course (LCC) should be available either through increasing the number of times the LCC can be taken or by developing new programs. Perhaps the LCC should even be mandatory.

Career placement: The Career Placement Office is meant to serve the needs of the entire student body. It does a great job for the corporate sector which pays for its own events, but it struggles for funds and knowledge of alternatives.

Greater funding is required for events like Public Interest Career Days and people need to express their interest to those in charge. Providing information on alternative careers is essential as the current team’s past expertise has not been in this sector.

Presence of firms: We feel the presence of firms everywhere- in our Orientation packages, Coffee House sponsorship and Lectures. It makes sense since many students are interested in corporate law but the problem is that the radical lawyers out there don’t have the money or time to compete. This creates a very lopsided perspective for students. So many give up hope as they feel the big firms are their only alternative. It also builds the stress levels of all as people start to get articling positions as early as their second year, and others panic as they’re left behind. A lesser presence of firm branding and recruitment in the Faculty and/or an increased presence of alternatives would help a lot in providing continued inspiration and hope for an alternative use of our legal education.

What do we do now?

There are a number of official and unofficial approaches to take with varying levels of cooperation with the administration. I’d suggest, especially given that we’re all out of here in 3-4 years, that finding allies within the institution who will be here a little longer to carry things through is essential to grounding any real change.

Speaking out is the most important. If we are too busy with real world, nonIvory-towers issues to speak out at school (no matter how understandable that may be), we give the impression that our perspectives are not at the Faculty and thus need not be addressed. The bigger the numbers of voices heard within the Faculty, the more seriously the perspective will be taken.

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Acting and providing concrete suggestions are also crucial to go from complaining to changing things and to show the administration we’re serious about what we want to do. There are committees you can join (e.g. Equity Committee, Career Placement Office Committee) or you may choose to develop student groups with a common front to discuss issues with decision-makers. Or, you may choose a more confrontational strategy.

Whatever approach you take, I’d suggest having small, realistic goals (considering your likely, other outside obligations and your course load) so that you can achieve something rather than having dreamed of something big that goes nowhere since it’s too overwhelming to complete. Work with others so that info flows and each of the small goals creates something bigger.

All in all, there is a lot to be done if you are willing to invest the time. By creating change in the Faculty, we still affect the outside world beyond the walls of academia as students move on into the working world with greater understanding, critical skills and knowledge of the alternatives available to them. And that, I hope, will contribute to greater social and environmental justice as they use their skills and pass on their knowledge to others.

Julia Nicol is a 3rd year law student who has had an interest in social justice since her early days as a nerdy, eccentric kid in grade three reading about slavery and the holocaust. Ever since, she's been busy studying, working, travelling and trying to figure out this complicated world out there and the best strategies for positive change (or at least her own perspective of it!).

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The Myth of Meritocracy

-Karin Baqi

Welcome class of 2009(ish)! You made it – you’re the cream that has naturally risen to the top due to your hard work and innate intelligence. Look around – you and the people you’ll meet on top of this hill are among the best and the brightest! Many of you will go on to be leaders in business, in government, in the courts and in the academy...

If you haven’t heard this b.s. yet, it’s coming. While it’s true that many of you will go on to assume positions of wealth and power, the b.s. of it is the notion that you will have gotten there purely (or even mostly) by “merit.” Indeed the meritocracy myth – the idea that people move ahead in life as a direct result of their individual talent, initiative and achievement – is a principle upon which the legal profession (and the status quo it staunchly supports) sturdily rests. The meritocracy myth tells us that in our liberal democracy, where everyone is equal before the law, if you just work hard enough, you too can be a “success!” It tells us that those who do hold positions of power in business, in government, in the courts and in the academy have them because they happen to be the hardest working, the brightest, the most meritorious. Of course it tells us little (other than what can be assumed) about the people throughout all our communities that maintain our standard of living – the ones that work harder than we will ever know, for little pay and no benefits, often in crap conditions for crap bosses. These people are disproportionately women, people of colour, new (or old) immigrants, but they are also the people upon whose backs the (false) promise of liberal democracy rests.

The reality is that the system is designed to privilege the dominant race, class, and gender (and generally those of all three). A black kid from Pointe Ste. Charles, for example, just doesn’t have anywhere near the same opportunities as say, a white kid from Westmount. The former will grow up in a community that is overpoliced and underserved, while the meritocracy myth tells us that “merit” is why the law class is largely made up of kids like the latter. Meritocracy is a myth precisely because it ignores the fact that people simply aren’t equally situated with respect to legal (and political and economic) institutions.

While it doesn’t take a genius to realize this, it’s a fact that legal education and practice encourages us to ignore.

The meritocracy myth has wide-reaching impact on the distribution of wealth and power in our society by virtue of what is defined as “merit” in capitalist society (i.e. formal education, good grades, high-paying and high-powered jobs generally at the expense of other people’s land and labour). However I will more narrowly focus on the myth as it relates to law school admission and “success.”

The Myth and Getting In Though an A average in your (or my) intellectually vacuous finance degree and 41

that LSAT score earned through costly, fancy test prep (and class and cultural privilege), hardly make one the “best and brightest,” such criteria are at most schools, a pretty big part of the admissions equation. Many law schools and corporate firms insist that they take a more “holistic” view of “merit” and look to other experiences. Like that exchange you went on in Provence – oh, and that year you spent teaching English and surfing in Thailand. Apparently these things establish that you do deserve to be here, that you’re an intelligent, well-rounded, global-minded individual. While these are certainly interesting and enviable experiences, they are also ones that only relative privilege allows. This is not to say that the students that do get in (or the ones that undertake these experiences) aren’t quality people. Only that the overt display of self-congratulation among many students, and especially many lawyers, is tacky false consciousness (not to mention totally elitist). This is also not to say that law schools never consider obstacles that disadvantage some students. Only that despite its ostensible role in preparing students to pursue justice, legal education, for its part, gives no systematic consideration to racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, homo- and transphobia - or any other forms of oppression that subvert real justice. Instead the thought process goes like this: “maybe there are few women partners in firms because they simply can’t hack working 70 hours a week for the man” as opposed to “maybe the fact that most men do not equally share domestic responsibilities, nor do most firms encourage it, and the fact that as a society, we simply still do not fully respect women (see: disparities in earning power, political representation, myths, stereotypes, double standards, abuse, violence, etc. etc.) has something to do with it.”

Buying into the myth of meritocracy does a disservice to all of us. Its proponents will put forward examples, maybe even themselves, as “proof” that the system rewards properly qualified, competent individuals, regardless of their background.

They tell us that if some people of colour, aboriginal students, openly queer students, women, etc. can rise up the ranks and happily assume their place, no real problem exists. Some of these same students will be co-opted into the very structure of oppression that has made them have to work at least twice as hard to succeed. However, all too often their success will depend, in no small part, on remaining grateful to the powers that be. The message sent is of an Oprahmeets-Darwin variety: “look at me! I studied hard, got good grades and now I too can get invited to fancy cocktail parties!” as opposed to “let me figure out how I can use my privilege to better serve and work with my community.”

The Myth and Surviving Law School What constitutes “merit” in legal education, especially in first year (the most 42

important time for securing coveted New York and Bay Street jobs), takes the extremely narrow conception of good grades on 100% finals. While this method of evaluation should in itself pose obvious red flags for educators sincerely wishing to equip students with useful skills for pursuing social change, the 100% final is an institution of legal pedagogy. On top of this, the curriculum in all schools is (deliberately) comprised of courses in contracts, tort, property and constitutional law, but is not complemented by any analysis of the historical, social and economic arrangements (capitalism, colonialism, occupation, slavery, etc.) that inform its content.

The law school socialization process is akin to frat-culture – endless drinking and the implicit pressure to do it because that’s how you will fit in. During exams there’s a false camaraderie between students that otherwise never speak to each other, a strange sense of solidarity in fighting the man, though you know that one (or both) of you will eventually become him. Against a backdrop of fear, self-doubt, rivalry, and exhaustion (all rites of passage to the law school experience) it is not surprising that what constitutes “merit” in the legal profession does not typically involve cooperation or empathy. Rather hierarchy and brute competition are seen as fair and natural. The complete deference to law profs and later, extreme kowtowing to senior lawyers and judges (as opposed to just simple respect) are seen as rightful homage to those of substantially more “merit.” Graduates are churned out to fuel elite interests, slaving to maximize profits (or defend the abuse of state power [!!]), even if they did not attend law school for this purpose. “Merit” in the profession means winning – outcome with disregard for (or at the expense of) process.

Academic “merit” requires “thinking like a lawyer” – a process in which law students apply the case law method to reproduce the type of legal reasoning employed by an overwhelmingly privileged, white, male bench, all the while accepting the uncontested assumption that such reasoning is natural, objective and free of partisan interest. This is not to say that people that excel in this endeavour are not bright, merely that equating this reproduction of thought as the highest form of “merit” is problematic. By its nature, “thinking like a lawyer” presumes that laypeople (let alone those more marginalized that the average layperson) are simply not qualified - and should not be qualified - to understand the law. While those that buy into the meritocracy myth do not see this as problematic, as layperson Lucy was never smart enough to get to law school, it speaks volumes to the interests that the law actually represents.

Of course there are no absolutes, and no, it isn’t all hopeless. While some people will take offense to this last page, that’s not my purpose. But I also cannot apologize for expressing an opinion that cannot safely be expressed in the law school classroom. None of us, and especially not me, are perfect and without contradiction. Overcoming the intellectual and spiritual straitjacket of law involves engaging in critical thought and on-going self-reflection on our own privilege and power. For many of us this may be a long work in progress, as it is for me, but one that starts with creating avenues in which we can safely critique 43

and be critiqued. It’s about trying to remember that when we think like lawyers, to act like humans.

This article borrows ideas from Duncan Kennedy’s “Legal Education as Training for Hierarchy” and Stephen Halpern’s “On the Politics and Pathology of Legal Education (Or, Whatever Happened to That Blindfolded Lady With the Scales?)”

Look them up and read them both now.

About me By the time you read this, Karin will be 111 days from completing her law degree. She is a bit worried about what will follow, but hopes to eventually overcome her 8.5 years of post-secondary training in neoliberal domination. She knows she isn’t a martyr, so don’t beat her up for having an opinion. She can both dish it out and take it and enjoys a good debate, not for the sake of being argumentative, but because she believes in something journalist William Greider once wrote: “Creating a positive future begins in human conversation. The simplest and most powerful investment any member of a community or an organization may make in renewal is to begin talking with other people as though the answers mattered." She enjoys cupcakes, her bicycle, used book stores and the company of most people, even law students.

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The Humanities Up There

- Gene Kruger A couple of days at the shiny mansion on the hill: it is entirely possible that you find the rarefied air up there somewhat hard to breath. After spending some time with braggarts who talk too much, student-mercenaries who think about the career placement office even when they’re asleep and a stack of coursepacks with enough liberal ideology to choke a horse, you might want to say, “Okay, I didn’t exactly expect truth and justice, but could everything just be a smidgeon less obnoxious?” Confronted by a full year of immersion in the private law, something that is emphatically not about global social transformation, shortness of breath is maybe the least of your worries. While all this and much more is true, I loved (most of) my time at the Faculty and found it to be a radicalizing experience. In the following, I want to outline part of why this was the case for me. I am a bit of a humanities junkie and this was my way into the Faculty. Of course, such a way is anything but universal. Nevertheless, I think my experience was more than just idiosyncratic and that maybe, just maybe, my little ditty can offer you an approach to finding some breathing space (why not?).

The Faculty is not designed to train activists, that much we know, but it is not necessarily designed to train corporate lawyers either, even though there is a more than palpable slant in that direction. As a point of entry, it is helpful to remember why all the professors are teaching here in the first place. After all, these are very smart people who could be making a pile of money in private practice. Instead, they spend a lot of time thinking and writing about, of all things, teaching the law. The reason they do this is because they view (love?) the law the way that a literature professor views literature or an historian history: for them, the law is a humanity. This is hard to understand from an external point of view because the law is not supposed to be an end unto itself, like poetry. It is supposed to do something (whether that something is to legitimate domination or create a just society or, as is more likely the case, both). The thing is that alongside its instrumental dimension, the law is also a cultural artefact, a language that opens up a distinctive way of thinking about social life.

All of this might be true, but so what? How does this help me? If you have a humanities bent, in certain classes with certain professors, the most the above can do is make things a little less boring. The reason I think the Faculty’s humanities orientation is important is because, with a lot of professors, it means that they are interested in exploring issues that test the status quo (albeit not in a radical way). It means that the Faculty’s classes are about more than just learning the rules. And in such an environment, a lot of really fascinating possibilities come out, even if such possibilities are not actually the focus of the class.

For example, I happened to take common law property with a professor where the cases included a claim by a union to have a property interest in keeping a steel mill open and one where the US Supreme Court held that the right to welfare is something that comes close to a property right. Now, the union lost 46

(but with a better lawyer they might have won) and the welfare case is not about social transformation. Even if it was, nothing the US Supreme Court says could ever really halt the onset of a global capitalism that makes it really, really hard to believe in a democratic socialism in which welfare would be something other than a palliative. My point is that, for me at least, reading these cases was an opportunity to think about the limits of the law and the limits of the prevailing social order. The professor probably included these cases because they are interesting illustrations of how far common law doctrines can go. But the cases were there, ready to occasion some interesting thoughts. And there are similar examples in most courses.

As another example, the Faculty offers legal clinic courses where you get credit for interning at various community centers around Montreal. During my internship, I found out that undocumented migrants are not eligible for any of the worker protection/benefit regimes in Quebec, although, depending on who hears your case, this might not be true in Ontario. Now, the Faculty gives you the tools to understand why the legal basis for this exclusion is highly contestable, just as it is dubious policy. In addition though, because of the humanities orientation of the Faculty, there was a deep roster of professors with whom I could explore the issue, who stimulated me to think about it creatively. Why does a humanities orientation make the difference? In my view, it is because the humanities have a lot to do with imagining what is possible as opposed to merely examining the actual. Of course, for a lot of professors, their interest is only in legal possibility: why this legal regime and not another? Why this doctrinal development and not another? At the same time, there are a lot of professors who are interested in possibility over actuality at a policy level too. While these professors are not the least bit radical, their interest in possibility gives them a certain openness to radical ideas.

In terms of more policy-like reflection, the dominant conceptual framework of the Faculty is legal pluralism, the idea that you have to think about how legal normativity interacts with other normative orders. For me, this conceptual framework, which pops up in many classes, was always an opportunity to think about how the law fits (or does not) into social change. Again, while no legal pluralist at the Faculty is a radical, their insights frequently inspired me to think (quasi) radical thoughts.

These are just a few illustrations. If I had more space, I would include tons more (and other students have better ones: I knew someone who earned six credits writing a 100 page essay on unlawful assembly). The upshot is the Faculty is rife with these kinds of possibilities, even in first year. After all, what are contract and property law but crash courses in the background legal entitlements that make capitalism function? Learning this stuff is not going to teach you how to change the world, but it will give you insight into how the world is the way it is. If you approach it from a certain perspective, this kind of knowledge can have a radicalizing dimension (possibly maybe?). And again, these classes can occasion interesting ideas: it just happened to be my contracts professor who suggested to me in private conversation that corporations should 47

have finite lives, like human beings.

In sum, I had a lot of opportunities at the Faculty to critique the prevailing social order and I was helped in this by a lot of professors. To be sure, most class lectures and discussions will never be your ideal image of what should be happening. A lot of it will be thoroughly, hopelessly obnoxious (read “offensive”).

For many of my more radical classmates, it became a matter of gritting their teeth and bearing it. I understand why this was the case for them and I respect it. For me though, the Faculty’s humanities orientation gave me the space to do the things I wanted to do. Even in the most inhospitable environments, I learnt things very much worth learning. Of course, a humanities orientation is not for everybody. But if you have leanings that way, if you bear in mind that this is the main orientation of the Faculty, it might help you breathe a little easier.

Gene Kruger is a recent graduate of the Faculty. Botched by rational thought, he's a fellow who, in a Shel Silverstein kind of way, would one day like to have a good time.

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In the Streets and In the Courts: How the Seven-Year Squat Fought the Law and Won -Mandy Hiscocks and Amy Miller In June of 2002, Canada hosted a summit of the eight largest economic national powers, the G8, in a remote Rocky Mountain resort. In solidarity with protests taking place around the world, activists from across the Northeast called for two days of action in Ottawa under the banner "Take the Capital!" During the events in Ottawa, police and protesters alike were surprised when the first day’s march stopped at 246 Gilmour Street, a house in the city’s downtown. Infamous for having been left to rot by its owner, the house at 246 Gilmour had been unoccupied for over seven years.

In Ottawa that year the vacancy rate was 0.2%. For the 12 000 families on the seven year waiting list for social housing, it is criminal that usable, liveable buildings like 246 Gilmour remained empty and vacant, while the absentee landlord courts condo developers and parking companies for more profitable offers. On June 26, 2002, amidst the actions and rallies of "Take the Capital!", 246 Gilmour Street ceased to be vacant. Unveiling from a second floor balcony a banner that read: "Sick of Waiting? OCCUPY!", the Seven-Year Squat was born.

Suddenly, people had a safe place to sleep and the massive project of reversing the landowners neglect began. Garbage was cleared out, floors and walls were cleaned, peeling paint was stripped, dangerous areas blocked off or fixed, gardens planted and hundreds of meals prepared and served. The work was nonstop. The occupiers aimed to convert the building into usable, liveable housing, run by the collective of individuals who lived and worked there. The Seven-Year Squat attempted to open discussion with the City of Ottawa to secure their support for the conversion of 246 Gilmour Street into social housing. Reacting instead with massive surveillance and continual police intimidation and harassment, the Mayor’s office made it clear that they were yet again refusing to address issues of poverty and homelessness in Ottawa.

Fortunately, support for the action came from every other direction: tenants of nearby buildings, trade unionists, housing and anti-poverty activists from Ottawa and Hull, and even a few sympathetic city councillors. People from many of Ottawa's communities toured the house to see or participate in the work being done, and dropped off donations of food and furniture. Finally on July 2, due to mounting public support, a meeting was secured with City officials. Yet neither the Mayor nor the Councillors who promised they would attend were present when the meeting finally occurred. In disgust, the Seven-Year Squat broke off negotiations - it was clear that the City had no intention of meaningfully engaging in negotiations with the 246 Gilmour occupants. That night hundreds of police officers moved in, declaring the three square blocks around the squat a "crime scene" and arresting and evicting anyone within that zone. They shut down the entire neighbourhood, preventing media and the public from 49

witnessing the violent raid and arrests that ensued. The Ottawa tactical unit, in full riot gear, moved in with pepper spray, tear gas and batons, brutalising occupiers, bystanders and media alike.

In all 22 people were arrested on indictable charges including break and enter, multiple counts of mischief, unlawfully presence in a dwelling house and obstruct police. Over 110 criminal charges were laid.

Nine court appearances and 26 months later, the 5 remaining Seven Year Squatters had their 6 weeks in court in September and October 2004. With the Crown finally settling on 3 counts of mischief under $5000, break and enter and obstruct police, the defendants each faced a maximum possible sentence of 18 years in prison. While this was of course very unlikely, the Crown had indicated he would likely push for jail time in the range of 6-9 months. Each of the SevenYear Squat defendants self-represented, though there had been a great deal of support from many people with experience in the judicial shitstem. The trial was broken up into two parts. From August 30th-September 2nd the defendants argued to have their case thrown out on Constitutional grounds. The second part, the Trial by Jury, began on September 27th and ran until October 22nd. The legal struggle is an alienating and expensive process for anyone, but with community support, significant change is possible. Sadly, the City has demolished 246 Gilmour. The real crime remains poverty and homelessness.

The Seven-Year Squat lasted only seven days but the legal stuff, from date of arrest to our final court date, took about two and a half years. Most of that involved set dates, meetings, phone dates, email discussions and a lot of reading up on legal procedure and precedents. 22 people were arrested; a few split off from the group early and many took diversion later on so that in the end only 5 of us were tried. But those five people owe our success in part to basic strategy decisions made earlier on as a much larger group in long and sometimes frustrating meetings, as well as to the amazing support from many ex-defendants and the Ottawa activist community as a whole. People cooked meals for us and our court supporters every day, ran last minute errands that we were too rushed and stressed to deal with, made space for out of towners in their homes, looked over our arguments, and showed up to the courthouse in large numbers. We tried to have regular community meals in the park where we could spend time with supporters in a less stressful environment. The courtroom was never empty, and on the day of our closing arguments it was packed.

It is this sense of involvement - of both the defendants and the community that is missing when lawyers take on a case. Often they neither fully explain what they're doing to the accused themselves nor ask for their input, let alone open it up to other interested people. People are far more likely to come out to a trial when they can understand what's going on and feel like their input is needed and appreciated - and as self-representing individuals, we provided that.

In return, we as defendants were far more inspired and confident knowing that people were there for us both physically and in spirit.

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In the bigger picture, it is crucial that the court be aware that the outcome is important not just to the accused but to a wider community. Also, it is crucial to avoid the media-fuelled division of activists into "good" activists who raise awareness but know when to stop and "bad" activists who go too far and get arrested. After all, often times - as was the case with us - there were tons of people participating in the action and it is in part a matter of circumstance who is there at the time of the bust. In retrospect, it's difficult to pin down how much of the following we already knew, and how much we learned during our time in the courts or have pieced together since, but here are some of the more important things we'd like to pass on to people considering defending themselves.

First of all, not having a lawyer representing you in court means you have to work harder and make some sacrifices. It's important to think hard about the time and energy you'll need to put into running your own trial, to consider what you would be doing otherwise, and decide what is more important and useful to your life and your activism.

There's obviously no right answer to this. Not using a lawyer also means you'll make mistakes, but those mistakes - just like the successes - will be yours, and you can claim full responsibility for them. Like any time people refuse to be told what is best for them or allow their lives to be put in others' hands, this is an amazingly empowering thing. This isn't to say that we didn't value the input of legal professionals (who after all have spent a lot of time learning all this stuff) because we did occasionally consult with lawyers and paralegals we trusted for explanations and advice, and are grateful to them for their input. But the final decisions were always ours and we alone are accountable for the evidence and arguments that ended up as part of our case.

Defending yourself also gives you a lot of flexibility in terms of how the trial will proceed. Lawyers are restricted in what they can do because they have been trained to get their clients off, or get them the lightest possible sentence, while being respectful of courtroom decorum and having to keep their career and reputation in mind. Self-representing accused have a lot more leeway in some very important areas. For example, when making legal decisions you can consider how they will affect not only yourself and your future but also others who were charged at the same event or action. As well, you can consider other activists currently in the legal shitsem or who will be in the future, and how your trial will affect the movement in general. It also allows you to remain true to your principles. This opens up a range of possibilities when it comes to pleading 51

guilty or taking diversion vs. going to trial and being tried individually or as a group. I allows you set a range of goals: Do you want to set a good precedent by winning? Do you want to make the trial political? Do you want to focus on learning the system or setting non-verdict precedents even if it might sacrifice the verdict itself? Do you make the trial technical or political or both? And it allows you to decide between judge alone or judge and jury; to choose your witnesses and your case law, and so on. When you aren't relying on a lawyer, you can weigh these options in the context of solidarity in much the same way you would make decisions outside the courtroom.

Lawyers believe that the system is fair, or at least must act as if they do. As activists we know better, therefore our decisions can and must take into account privilege and oppression. Criminal records are more damaging to some lives than others are. Group trials may help or they may hinder the most vulnerable in your group. Judges and jurors can be (and probably are) prejudiced and this can (and probably will) be reflected in verdicts and sentences. Going to trial is more difficult for some than others for a multitude of obvious and not-so-obvious reasons; a precedent-setting case could affect a lot of people if you win but also if you lose; and so on. There are other reasons we feel it's important for people to defend themselves. Legal aid is becoming harder and harder to get, so it's imperative that more of us know the system and can help demystify it for others who don't have the option of having a lawyer. Defending an action in a courtroom can also be very informative when it comes to avoiding arrest at a similar action next time, or beating a similar charge in the future. For example, here of some of the many (!) things we learned. Research into potential squats (who actually owns them, if city ordinances have ever been issued, if the landlord has plans for the building, and so on) is pretty easy to do and could have a huge effect on the trial. Video surveillance starts further away from the action itself than you probably thought... The list goes on and on. Many times throughout the trial we thought "if only we'd known this" or "that was such good advice" - and the details we learned are far too many to put in this article. But the knowledge we came by is incredibly useful and we want to share what we learned with those who need to know it. Please feel free to email us any time, we'd love to hear from you. And good luck!

Amy Miller is an organiser based in Montreal. Mandy Hiscocks works, lives and organises in Guelph Ontario. Both were self-defendants of the 7 year squat trial and were acquitted of all charges.

The Seven Year Squat’s case is called Regina vs. Ackerley et al. They made a constitutional motion , under s. 7 of our great Charter to request financial assistance for their court costs and legal fees. As it stands, one has the right to self-defend, but not the right to financial assistance if one doesn’t have a lawyer. Though the judge did not have jurisdiction over Legal Aid Ontario, he ordered the Attorney General to pay for the Seven Year Squatters’ costs. This was a major victory, setting a precedent where self-defendants argued a Charter motion, won, and got the state to cough up the dough. Using plenty of case law on property, using international law, arguing diminimus, colour of right, freedom of expression, honest belief, and more against the charges of mischief and obstruction, the Seven Year Squatters got a hung jury. The jury deliberated for 5 days, longer than for most murder or rape trials. The Crown decided that it would not be in the interest of the state to pursue the charges again and the Seven Year Squatters won a stay of proceedings!

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Grades? Get Over It!

-Sam Singer and Tatiana Gomez

The Administration’s official position is that there is no curve at McGill Law. This would imply that students are granted the grades they deserve. However, you’ll soon learn that the administration does have a “target zone” in which grades should fall, which means that most grades must fall within the sanctioned B range. Hence the expression “you pay your fees, you get your B’s”, which we heard coming from the mouth of some of the senior teaching staff in our first year. As such, professors must account for their grade distribution and if they have “too many” A or A- or B+, they must justify it. Thus, students are not necessarily granted the grades they deserve in the competitive evaluation methods of our legal education system.

The “target zone” provides certain law sectors with easy criteria for selecting students interested in clerkship positions, graduate studies in law, the corporate sector and some government positions. For those interested in other law areas (including family, criminal defense, labour, poverty, and immigration law) and for those interested in radical lawyering in general, GPA is not as relevant. In fact, many lawyers/NGOs/community based legal clinics/non-profit firms don't even ask for grades. For these sectors, grades are not an essential selection criteria - relevant experience, whether paid or not, is much more important.

However, for most law students, no matter the irrelevance of getting those “A’s” to their future aspirations, learning how to approach the “target zone” is a huge hurdle in first year. Being the over-achievers that got them into law school, the challenge of “beating the target zone” leads most students to obsess over every assignment’s minute details and work 50 hours on an assignment that can really be completed in 15. Not only is such a level of time investment often unachievable for law students with other commitments, it is also unhealthy, leading to levels of anxiety that are detrimental to most students’ mental health. The mythological need to “beat the target zone” in order to be eligible for work after law school does not reflect the reality of the selection criteria used by the sectors that inspired many of us to apply for law school. Moreover, trying to “beat the target zone” leaves you with little time to do more important and more productive things with your time (like work that extra shift to pay your bills or organize!).

In law school, grades often seem arbitrary and/or unfair. If you find yourself questioning your path and skills because of the “target zone”, accept quickly that grades neither reflect your overall abilities nor do they mean that you “can’t hack it as a lawyer”. You’ll learn after your first year that exams do not test your knowledge of the material, but a particular set of skills. They test your ability to synthesize and verbalize the material within the allotted time, using the sanctioned language. Some might argue that this means that you are starting to “think and talk like a lawyer”, however “real world lawyering” works differently than the classroom exam despite myths to the contrary, especially radical 53

lawyering. Moreover, thinking and talking like a lawyer is neither the virtue it is hacked up to be nor does perpetuating such thinking lead to innovative and progressive applications of the law. Rather, radical lawyering involves subverting such thinking. It involves developing genuine relationships of equality and mutual respect with those we work with, demystifying the symbolic authority of the state, recasting how legal conflicts are characterized in the law (by revealing the socioeconomic and political foundations of legal disputes), and developing legal strategies that expand political consciousness and increase people’s sense of personal and political power.

First year students spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to get good grades (as if B’s aren’t good grades). What we learned, as students who struggled to reject the model presented to us, but inevitably find ourselves caught up in it and waiting to stay within the “target zone”, is regurgitate, regurgitate, regurgitate. While most professors will claim that they reward innovative and critical thinking, the truth is that critical thinking is only permitted within a sanctioned framework, and that true free thinking is not. So, in Civil Law Property for instance, when asked to speak to the “absolute right of ownership” on your exam, make sure to make a few “critical” comments, but certainly don’t question the foundations of private property or you’ll find yourself with a little surprise.

Obviously, some professors do reward students who genuinely think outside the box, however they are the exception. We are convinced that the outcomes of exams do not reflect what you learned or your abilities, but rather how well you were able to answer the exam questions in the way the professor thinks they should be answered according their analysis.

One “skill” that exams are meant to test is your ability to “cogently” expose both sides of an argument. You will soon realize that thinking and talking like a lawyer includes being able to argue both sides of an issue since “law is argument and proof and lawyers have to expose both sides in order to decide which is the most compelling in coming to a conclusion”. Apparently, this is one of lawyers’ strengths because it makes them neutral and even handed in their arguments, however it also means that lawyers will argue anything for anyone for any reason - unscrupulously. As a pedagological approach, not only is it an impoverished one, but it also serves as a tool of indoctrination. That is, by having students constantly argue both sides, our educations are depoliticized and students are discouraged from thinking critically about what they are arguing, for whom, and the ethical and social justice considerations behind their arguments. Further, arguing both sides obscures the fact that law is not just argument and proof, but also ideology and power and when we ignore this fact, we are indoctrinated to think that law is neutral and lawyers are even handed. As one professor stated, maybe when we get to the revolutionary milestone of switching to pass/fail evaluation, will we address this as well.

So, when writing exams be critical, but beware. And even when you choose to regurgitate, know that you are regurgitating and don’t lose your true voice.

Sadly, we must jump threw their hoops to get the degrees to do what we really want to do – just don’t lose yourself in the process. Most of all, remember that 54

grades are arbitrary and meaningless and that when you buy into them, you are buying not only into the system, but into the rat race.

Sam Singer and Tatiana Gomez skipped way too many classes and didn’t do enough of the readings.

They googled and wikipediad their way through first year. They both worked and organized in addition to doing full-time school and fell perfectly well into the “target zone”. They are now in their second year.

Sam Singer didn’t quit his job as a travailleur de rue/milieu at a community organization in CentreSud when he started law school. Without the help of his study buddies, with whom he alternated classes, exchanged notes and summaries from generous upper years and studied for ten hour catchup sessions, he would never have made it through first year.

Tatiana Gomez, the daughter of working class immigrant parents, is an organizer with Solidarity Across Borders, the Immigrant Workers’ Center, and the People’s Commission, in addition to supporting the work of other organizations.

“Googling” Your Way through Law School So you arrive in first year of law school and often can’t make sense of most of what the professors, your readings, and even some of your fellow students are talking about. When faced with unfamiliar vocabulary (good faith?! contract of adhesion?!) schools of philosophy (Lockean what?! Hobbes who?!), the internet is your “law partner” and will have answers to many of your questions. Even better, for those of us who don’t have as much study time, because of choices we make or limitations we have, the internet can spell out an area of law in broad strokes when reading 800 pages two days before that 100% final just isn’t possible.

“Google” (www.google.ca) offers a quick path to such exam-saving websites as: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page - an all-in-one encyclopaedic website with summaries of most major law topics, including some major cases. (It’s open source too!)

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http://www.oqlf.gouv.qc.ca/ressources/gdt.html - Le grand dictionnaire terminologique is an online dictionary offering translation from English to French, vice -versa, and definitions of French terms. http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com provides summaries of Canadian law topics. http://dictionary.law.com provides definitions of legal terms and law related concepts.

Constitutional Law http://www.constitutional-law.net/ with small summaries of main constitutional law issues under their topics section. http://www.solon.org/Constitutions/Canada/English/ has links to all Canadian constitutional documents. http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/ccs/keywords.cfm provides definition of many constitutional keywords. http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/ccs/index.cfm provides summaries of many constitutional law topics.

Contracts http://www.duhaime.org/contract/ provides summaries of most Canadian common law contracts topics.

Torts http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/index.php/Tort - provides summaries of American common law torts topics and many major tort cases.

Re-politicizing Law

-Erica Martin

We are learning to be lawyers- we are different. We are better. -- We are entering a world of honorable work, requiring different thought processes and new working styles. Better. We’re going to learn to think legally.

Legal thinking isn’t thinking analytically- often it is- but there are some things you can’t/shouldn’t analyze. And its not quite thinking critically either- I’ve seen many actual thinkers isolated for their critical analysis.

Not analytical, not critical. Legal: Law is a good, in and of itself, and can be studied independent from the implications it has.

In your first year of classes you will hear “That’s a political question, not a legal question” so many times that the ridiculousness of this phrase will eventually 56

fade: as if our studies do not have massive political implications (!). As if you can learn law, independent of the political culture from which it evolves, or which it supports (!). I know, I know – you came here to learn about law, not about politics. But law is political (see pgs. 1- of this handbook). Sure, in classes you’ll hear anecdotes and read cases where the disenfranchisation and oppression is so evident that some political discourse will be allowed. But the mores and values of our legal system runs so much deeper then these examples, and this is hidden behind the myth of neutral legal studies. This apolitical neutrality is at best naïve, and at worst, co-optive.

Law is nothing without its context. Law isn’t a science. It’s a product of our society. And examining law disconnected from these social forces helps us sleep better at night, but at the expense of real comprehension of the systemic violence we support.

But what about that day we covered the horrible racist history of our judicial system in Constitutional Law- aren’t political discussions sometimes tolerated if it’s “Identity Politics”? (as if all identities are the same). Sure- but only in small doses, only on specific topics, only in designated classes, And only if you agree that our judicial system has only a racist history, not a racist (sexist, classist) present.

Tokenism plays heavy in keeping this academic experience apolitical – pretending that these broad issues of sexism, classism and racism don’t underlie everything we learn.

We’re all brought here to share our perspectives. I know I feel good when queer issues come up and the queer students feel like they’re expected to say something. Or that one day we did Critical Race Theory – if you didn’t have white skin you really should share with the class.

No, no, no- not your perspective on everything. Save it for when it comes up gender inequity is only relevant 1/39th of the time.

There will be a token day. There’s a day for queer issues. And a day for race issues. And if the class doesn’t get too bogged down with Fuller and Dicey, we might get to gender issues at the end of the syllabus. And then we can treat our intelligent, brilliantly analytical classmates like token students. Then we can really value what they’re saying. (jackasses.)

1. Property law can be studied without examining the assumptions of a capitalist society, as if Aboriginal rights can be examined without a study of imperialism, and Public International Law without examining the tyranny of the nation state system, Intellectual Property without the fucked up assumptions of that human creativity can be commodified. Etc.

Erica Martin in is a Law II, and has been selling out ever since she left the motherland, Newfoundland, at 16. After selling out as president of NDP McGill for several years, she sold out even more by going to law school. Then she sold out even more by getting involved in student politics. She hopes this handbook, and the amazing radlaw community will ensure she has a soul for her 22nd birthday.

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Agitate, Educate, Organize!

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Resources Activist and Grassroots Community Organizations

Immigrant Workers’ Center: iwc_cti@yahoo.com or (514) 985-2085 Solidarity Across Borders: www.solidarityacrossborders.org Workers’ Solidarity Network: precaireencolere@gmail.com Justice Coalition for Adil Charkaoui: justiceforadil@riseup.net Indigenous Peoples Solidarity Movement: ipsm@resist.ca

Progressive Legal Organizations

People’s Law Office (Chicago): www.peopleslawoffice.com National Lawyers’ Guild (U$A): www.nlg.org Law Union of Ontario: www.lawunion.ca Canadian Civil Liberties Association: www.ccla.org Center for Guerilla Law: www.guerillalaw.com Law Students, Recent Graduates and Workers of the Law Union of Ontario: www.srglwg.blogspot.com The Sylvia Rivera Law Project (NYC): www.srlp.org Social Activist Law Student Association (Halifax): societies.dsu.ca/salsa/index.html Ligue des droits et libertes: www.liguesdesdroits.ca American Civil Liberties Union: www.aclu.org Transgender Law Center: www.transgenderlawcenter.org

Legal Collectives

(For general information on Legal Collectives see page .. ) The Midnight Special Law Collective (Oakland).:www.midnightspecial.net Libertas (Montreal/Quebec): libertas.taktic.org New York’s People’s Law Collective: nycplc.mahost.org DC’s Justice and Solidarity Law Collective: justiceandsolidarity.org Austin’s People’s Legal Collective: http://piano.geo.utexas.edu/fing/aplc/ Legal Support Ottawa: www.flora.org/legal Up Against the Law Collective: www.defenestrator.org/upagainstthelaw/ Common Font Legal (Toronto): www.ocap.ca/archive/legalguide/index.html Just Cause Law Collective (Santa Cruz): www.lawcollective.org

Resources

The Critical Lawyers Handbook: www.nclg.org.uk/book1/contents.htm Colours of Resistance: colours.mahost.org/ Planting Seeds Community Awareness Proejct: http://www.pscap.org/

Campus Organizations

For a list of campus-based activist organizations check out the Quebec Public Interest Research Group-McGill website: http://ssmu.mcgill.ca/qpirg/links.html 59

McGill Radical Law Community Basis of Unity We resist liberal legal discourse and challenge accepted norms in legal theory and practice in so far as they maintain and re-create relationships of domination and subordination in society. We embrace modes of social organization based on direct and participatory democracy that provide the means for self-determination and grassroots empowerment.

We resist all forms and systems of domination including but not limited to capitalism, imperialism, and feudalism, and reject systems of oppression including but not limited to, patriarchy, racism, heterosexism, and class. We recognize and condemn the law's legitimizing role in these structures and we embrace the full dignity of all human beings.

We support social movements, advocating forms of resistance that are not limited to advocacy and litigation nor confined to human rights discourse and support oppressed people's struggles for justice.

We embrace an anti-authoritarian organizational philosophy based on decentralization and autonomy.

lawdisorientation@gmail.com

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