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Ultra Vires is the independent student newspaper of the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. We provide a forum for diverse viewpoints on topics of interest to our readers. We aim to foster dialogue on academic and social issues between students, the faculty, and the broader legal community in Toronto, Ontario, and Canada. Our content does not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board. We print six issues per year. Ultra Vires is printed by Master Web Inc.
EDITORS-IN-CHIEF
Harry Myles and Shae Rothery
BUSINESS MANAGER
Griffin Murphy
ASSOCIATE BUSINESS MANAGER
Ashley Chana
NEWS EDITORS
Thomas Russell and Nicolas Williams
ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR S
Yashleen Jhand and Amanda Oprisan
FEATURES EDITORS
Angela Feng and Hye-seon Jung
ASSOCIATE FEATURES EDITORS
Julia Allen and Erin Lee
OPINIONS EDITORS
Stephen Mapplebeck and Rebecca Rosenberg
ASSOCIATE OPINIONS EDITORS
Manreet Brar and Abhirami Sasitharan
DIVERSIONS EDITORS
Amy Kwong and Fievel Lim
RECRUIT EDITOR
Hussein Fawzy
EDITOR-AT-LARGE
Vivienne Stern
ONLINE EDITOR
Alyssa Wong
STAFF WRITERS
Claire Bettio, Natasha Burman, Luka Knezevic, and Taylor Rodrigues
RECRUIT REPORTERS
Janice Fung and Jeffrey Liu
VISUAL COORDINATOR
Jennifer Sun
Thomas Alexander and Ian T. D. Thomson
SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATORS
Kaitlyn Nelson and Jasveen Singh
LAYOUT EDITOR
Alexandra Fox
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NEWS
50 Years of Community Justice 3
The Great CUPE Strike 3
Students’ Law Society Update 4
Faculty Council Off to a Slow Start 4
Faculty Council Fails to "Run" 4
Lights! Camera! More Lights! 5
U of T Law Hosts 11th Patent Colloquium 5
LSO Approves Mandatory Minimum Wage for Articling Students 5
The Awkward Question of Divestment in Fossil Fuels 6
Censure UofT Movement Hosts Its Inaugural Lecture 7 Toronto Votes for More of the Same 7
On the Annual Recruit Special 8
Toronto Summer 2023 2L Recruit Numbers 8
Vancouver Summer 2023 2L Recruit Numbers 10 Calgary Summer 2023 2L Recruit Numbers 11
Ottawa Summer 2023 IP Recruit Numbers 12 2023 Toronto Recruit Survey Responses 13 Balancing the Recruit and School 15
Class of 2024 Recruit Demographics Survey Results 16
Factors Associated with Hiring in the Toronto Recruit 18
Do You Fit the LSO’s Archetype? Congratulations: The Recruit Is for You! 20
From the UV Archive: “Failing” the 2L Recruit 20
Dear Readers,
The 2022 instalment of UV’s highly anticipated annual re cruit special is finally here! Af ter yet another hectic recruit season, we’ve got you covered with 2L hiring numbers from coast-to-coast, student demo graphics and comments on the recruit, tips for juggling the re cruit with school, and a healthy amount of (well-deserved) criti cism of the process altogether.
As we wrap up the semester, this issue also includes an in vestigation into the Law Soci ety of Ontario’s Inclusion In dex, a 1L reflection on the first few months of law school, hot tips for de-stressing activities around Toronto, and some to tally real practice exam ques tions to help you score HHs across the board. We’ve even hooked you up with a study playlist—we know you could use an alternative to your usual “lofi hip hop/study beats” play list by now.
We’ll be taking a short break until January to refresh and re charge. In the meantime, best of luck with the final stretch of exams and papers—you got this! As always, if you have any comments or are looking to get involved with UV, you can reach us at editor@ultravires.
ca.
See you next year!
Harry Myles & Shae Rothery Co-Editors-in-Chief, Ultra Vires Vol. 24
A Guide to De-Stressing Around the City 21
Film Review: The Visitor (2007) 21
Wines to Pair with Your Mother’s Favourite Christmas Songs 22
Concert Review: BLACKPINK’s BORN PINK World Tour in Hamilton 22
The Fate of the LSO Inclusion Index 23
Food Insecurity Amongst Professional Students and Graduate Students 23
People Forced to Flee: History, Change and Challenge Book Forum 24
Taking It 1 L at a Time 26
Taming the Wild West of U of T Law Syllabuses 26
Why Law Students Should Learn Coding 27
Highlighting is a Waste of Your Time and Resources 27
First They Came for CUPE… 28
Intra Vires 29
Let the Stars Decide Your Career 29
10 Things to Do With Your Copy of UV 30
Room Booking Roundup 30
You Are What You Cook 30
Totally Real Exam Questions 31
The Ultra Vires Crossword 32
Ultra Vires Presents: Library Lockdown 32
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As part of the U of T Law reunion on October 20, 2022, the Faculty of Law celebrated the 50th anniver sary of Downtown Legal Services (DLS), U of T Law’s community legal clinic and clinical education program which provides legal services to over 2,000 low-income families and residents in Toronto every year. After opening remarks by Dean Jutta Brunnée, DLS Direc tor Prasanna Balasundaram moderated a panel discus sion with student caseworker Nina Patti (2L) and former client Rossana Ibarra.
Each year, approximately 140 law students provide legal services under supervising lawyers through DLS to University students and low-income families and residents of Toronto, including those who are particu larly vulnerable and at the intersection of overlapping social barriers. The DLS clinical legal education pro gram focuses on a critical and reflective legal practice that seeks to challenge the underlying social realities of the law and legal institutions.
Ultra Vires reached out to current and former student caseworkers to ask about their roles in DLS and their impacts on the community. We posed the following question: what is something from your experience that will stick with you throughout law school and your ca reer beyond?
(2L,
One thing that I have learnt from my clinic/poverty law experi ence is that low-income people brush up against the law mul tiple times. They often face multiple, overlapping oppressions, such as precarious immigration status, temporary housing, and exploitative working conditions. Race, class, and gender often intersect to produce many of these vulnerabilities. When you're poor, you'll encounter the law more frequently, which takes a lot out of you. From filling out social assistance forms and updating those forms when you change your housing situation, to keeping careful track of documents and evidence, that most people would normally throw away, because of an ongoing immigration mat ter. All of these are things that poor, marginalized people have to stay on top of. To merely exist within the administrative state as a poor, marginalized person requires much that you don't see.
I have learnt that clinic lawyers can help support people through these frustrating realities—I have learned to be proactive about checking in with clients regularly to make sure they are feeling heard, and if I am unable to support them in something, to be
proactive about seeking referrals that address their concerns. I have also learnt about managing client expectations and the importance of not overpromising anything to a client. It's been really hard for me personally because I always want to reassure clients and not have them worry. Still, my client experiences at DLS have taught me that part of being empathetic is under standing that they are frustrated and not worsening those frustra tions by promising them an outcome that you cannot guarantee. The unfortunate reality is that the law is never applied even handedly or neutrally, as law school might have you believe. Depending on the decision-maker, outcomes can differ rather markedly, so I think it's important to assure clients that you're trying your best to reduce that randomness, but ultimately you cannot guarantee them an outcome.
Justin
Nathens(2L, Summer 2022 and Fall 2022 Full-Time Caseworker, Criminal Law & University Offences Division)
I have worked with DLS since 1L when I volunteered for the record suspensions program. Working with clients to navigate the criminal legal system has intensified my understanding of its oppressive nature and disproportionate deleterious impacts on low-income and otherwise marginalized communities. My ex perience at DLS has motivated me to pursue a career in criminal defence work, ideally continuing to work with low-income cli ents, so that I can play a role in mitigating these impacts.
Further, working as a DLS caseworker elucidates the access to justice crisis. The legal system is incredibly obtuse, and designed for the convenience of Crowns, judges, and court staff. Aside from limited interactions with duty counsel, self-represented ac cused get very little help in navigating the system, and often re ceive worse resolution outcomes. Witnessing the ways in which the Court treats self-represented accused emphasizes the cruelty of the legal system and has impressed upon me the unfairness inherent to the criminal process.”
Marie Fiedler (3L, 2022–23 Part-Time Caseworker, Housing Division)Had it not been for my clinic experience, I would not have had the opportunity to learn tenant defence law. While Property Law is a mandatory class for 1Ls at U of T Law, at most, I’ve heard of professors dedicating one day of class to landlord-tenant law. DLS is one of the only opportunities that U of T Law students have to gain substantive and practical knowledge in many areas within poverty law.
Over the past few months, negotiations between the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) and the Ontario government over the issue of wage increases for Ontario education support workers spi ralled into a moment of crisis with consequences for labour rights across this country. At the time of pub lication, a tentative offer will soon be voted upon by members of the union, with a result of the vote to be
released on December 6, 2022.
CUPE represents roughly 55,000 Ontario educa tion workers, including librarians, early childhood educators, and custodians. In anticipation of the end of the 2019 collective agreement between CUPE and the Ontario government, negotiations began in July of this year. A major point of contention was the issue of wage increases. CUPE sought annual increases of
Following my time as a student caseworker, I’ve recognized just how unique of an opportunity DLS provides for students like myself to gain hands-on legal experience to complement our law school education. DLS provided me with an incredible opportu nity to learn on my feet and work through legal issues alongside staff lawyers and peers in a supportive and non-judgmental en vironment. The staff lawyers at DLS are particularly attuned to the needs of students—striking a balance through their supervi sion between supporting caseworkers and providing us with the trust and autonomy needed to grow on our own. Beyond sub stantive law, DLS allowed me to learn the practice of law by
Working at DLS was an incredible experience in teaching me practical legal skills while illustrating the failures of our legal system to adequately address the housing crisis and confront the overwhelming power differential between landlords and tenants. The resilience and solidarity of my clients was truly inspiring and reinforced my career ambitions to support communities against exploitation and oppression.
11.7 percent for all workers, but the Ontario govern ment instead offered a two percent raise for workers making less than $40,000 per year, and a 1.25 per cent raise for all other workers.
In response to the lack of agreement, 96.5 percent of CUPE workers, totalling 45,433 members, voted in favour of striking on October 3. On October 30, CUPE issued a strike notice that support workers would hit the picket lines on November 4.
In response, the Ford government passed Bill 28, the Keeping Students in Class Act, 2022 (“the Act”). This legislation imposed a four-year contract on CUPE members, restricted applications under the Human Rights Code, and utilized the section 33 notwithstand ing clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (the Charter) to nullify CUPE member’s sections 2, 7, and 15 Charter rights. The Act marked the second time the notwithstanding clause was enacted under the Ford government.
In response, CUPE members walked out in pro test on Friday, November 4, along with members of other unions, such as the Ontario Public Service Em ployees Union and Unifor, and supporters from the public. Large rallies occurred outside of Queen’s Park, as well as the Education Minister’s constituency office in Vaughan, Ontario. Ultra Vires was present at the protests, where representatives from a variety of unions spoke to the public about the importance of an
active public in holding the government account able.
Following these demonstrations, the government applied to the Ontario Labour Relations Board to have the demonstrations by CUPE declared an ille gal strike under Bill 28. However, this argument be came irrelevant on November 7, when CUPE agreed to end the walkout in exchange for the On tario government repealing Bill 28. The repeal of Bill 28 has been celebrated as the result of inter-union coordination and public support for labour rights.
CUPE declared the agreement to repeal Bill 28 as a massive victory for organized labour and workers’ rights. After some delay, the legislation was repealed on November 14 under Bill 35, while negotiations resumed on November 8 with the Ford government promising an improved offer.
On November 20, CUPE representatives an nounced that a tentative offer had been reached with the Ontario government which will provide wage increases of $1 per hour in each year of a four-year collective deal. The offer would result in annual wage increases of 3.59 percent on average across the bargaining unit, amounting to approximately 15.2 percent compounded over the four years of the agreement. CUPE represented workers began to vote on the tentative offer November 24, with results to be released on December 6.
Ford government backtracks on attempt to utilize the notwithstanding clause to prevent CUPE exercising Charter rights
Congratulations on making it through an other month of law school! With exams just around the corner, make sure to check out the Students’ Law Society (SLS) study resources. They can be found on our website under the Resources tab.
On October 28, the SLS hosted a Hallow een Party at the law school. We would like to thank the Faculty, the events team, and facil ity managers for their support. We would also like to give a big shoutout to our sober volun teers, who helped us maintain a safe and sup portive environment for the duration of the event.
While there were many excellent costumes, one student rose above the rest to win this year’s Costume Contest. Jarren Fefer’s (1L) iconic Lord Farquad costume holds the 2022
Congratulations to all the 2Ls that partici pated in this year’s formal recruit for 2023 summer positions. The recruit is a long and stressful process so we hope that you take some time to recover before heading into the exam season.
The SLS has received numerous reports of inappropriate firm conduct during the re cruit, including violations of the Law Society of Ontario’s Recruitment Procedures. The SLS is in conversation with the Career Devel opment Office and has flagged these issues for senior administration. While this type of behavior is not new, the SLS is taking a more systemic approach to advocacy this year as compared to previous attempts to hold firms accountable.
The SLS hosted the first Trivia Pub Night of the year at Imperial Pub. Despite technical difficulties, Alex Rego (3L) provided profes sional level hosting skills.
Congratulations to Pi(law)tes 3.0 for com ing in first place, composed of Griffin Mur phy, Thomas Popov, Katherine Pacoli, Ian Harbell, Naya Samara, and Haya Sardar (3Ls).
There was overwhelming interest and lim ited spots for this round of trivia, but keep an eye out next semester as the SLS will be host ing this event again!
The SLS has been receiving constant feed back regarding insufficient study space in the library. Now that the building is open to the
public, undergraduate students are permitted to use the law school as a study space. How ever, the main floor of the law library is open to law students only for the remainder of the semester. The law librarians will be enforcing this policy.
We understand that this entire saga has been disruptive and frustrating. With tuition as high as it is, we believe it is reasonable to expect dedicated and accessible law student study space. The SLS has raised this to senior administration on numerous occasions and we look forward to coming to a resolution. In the meantime, there will be four silent study classrooms available for use in Falconer Hall during the exam period. Associate Dean, JD Program Christopher Essert recently provid ed more information on the matter in an email to students.
On October 26, 2022, Faculty Council met for the first time in the 2022–23 academic year, mostly for housekeeping items. The October 5 Faculty Council meeting was cancelled. As usual, Dean Jutta Brunnée kicked off the meeting. She began by recognizing the passing of Professor Karen Knop and said more details will be an nounced soon on how the Faculty will recognize her contributions and scholarship.
In lighter news, Dean Brunnée welcomed the new 1L class, touting their geographic, gender, and sexual diversity. She celebrated the return to in-person classes and in-person events, and thanked faculty and staff for this successful tran sition. Dean Brunnée welcomed the addition of three recent faculty appointments: Assistant Pro fessor Abdi Aidid, SJD Candidate Jean-Chris tophe Bédard-Rubin, and Professor John Bor rows. She also welcomed the appointment of the Faculty’s first Assistant Dean, Equity, Diversion and Inclusion, Ada Maxwell-Alleyne; Interim Assistant Dean, JD Program, Eleonora Dimitro va; and Director, International Human Rights
Program, Sandra Wisner. Dean Brunnée said the Faculty is looking to hire five new faculty mem bers this hiring cycle: two in business law, one in international human rights, and two in any area of law.
Students’ Law Society (SLS) President Meaza Damte (3L) then gave remarks. She welcomed the 1Ls and the successful SLS executive and repre sentative candidates following the conclusion of the SLS Fall General Election from September 21–23, 2022. SLS President Damte said the SLS was looking forward to working with the Faculty this academic year and communicated two con cerns the SLS has repeatedly heard from stu dents. First, upper year students are disappointed that the diversity of courses has declined from 131 in 2013–14 to 76 in 2022–23. Second, stu dents are pleased with the change in the Faculty’s Lecture Recording Policy but are concerned that the policy is not being implemented uniformly.
Newly-elected Graduate Law Students’ As sociation President Jasween Singh Gujral (GPLLM) gave remarks. He said that many U
of T graduate law students are foreign-trained lawyers trying to become licensed in Ontario. He asked the Faculty to expand their web page on licensing.
After a few late attendees enabled the Faculty Council to make quorum, the meeting moved onto items for approval. Minutes of the March 30, 2022 Faculty Council meeting were ap proved.
Assistant Dean, Graduate Programs, Emily Orchard, moved three minor modifications to the Master of Laws (LLM) Program, that were all passed, effective September 1, 2023: (1) in creasing the writing requirement for the course work-only LLM from a minimum of 3,500 words to 5,000 words, (2) creating a full-year Directed Research Project course, and (3) allowing a Di rected Research Project to satisfy the writing re quirement. The modifications are intended to make the LLM more rigorous and give students more writing options.
Assistant Dean Orchard sought approval for a new Trial Advocacy LLM Course and an Em
ployment LLM course. Both were approved, ef fective January 1, 2023. The new courses are in tended to meet the increasing number of LLM students and their post-LLM career interests.
The second Faculty Council Meeting of the academic year, and the last one of the calendar year, was held on November 16, 2022, and is cov ered in a separate article in this issue. This aca demic year, the University Budget Presentation will be presented at the January 11, 2023 Faculty Council meeting instead of the November meet ing due to conflicts with the presenters’ sched ules.
The Faculty Council is the governing body of the law school and makes policy decisions relat ing to U of T Law, usually on recommendations from special and standing committees. Member ship of the Faculty Council includes all full-time faculty members and elected student representa tives from the JD and graduate programs. Facul ty Council Agendas, Minutes, Reports, and meeting schedules are published on the e.Legal Faculty Council page.
Dean Jutta Brunnée kicked off the November 16, 2022 Faculty Council meeting welcoming attend ees. There were not enough members of the Faculty Council in attendance to reach quorum, so items could not be voted on. The minutes from the previ ous Faculty Council on October 26, 2022 are avail able on the e.Legal Faculty Council webpage but remain unapproved. The following items were pre sented to attendees.
Students’ Law Society (SLS) President Meaza Damte (3L) gave appreciative remarks, thanking the Faculty for allowing the SLS to use Flavelle House for the SLS annual Halloween Party on Oc tober 28, 2022 and for facilitating trick-or-treating in the law school on Halloween. SLS President Damte said students greatly appreciate the coffee and tea provided daily in the Atrium and the addi tion of two new coffee syrups, especially the pump kin spice creamer which is the “talk of the town.”
Damte reminded the Faculty that in-firm inter views for the 2L recruit took place November 7–9, so many 2Ls did not get much time to rest or do
work during the November 7–11 Reading Week. She noted that student attendance in classes is down due to increased cases of the flu and COVID-19. In light of this, she asked professors to be compassion ate and understanding. Damte said the SLS hopes to work with the Faculty to make sure the Fall 2022 exam schedule goes smoothly. During the last Fall exam period, the Faculty quickly changed in-per son exams to online exams in response to a rise in COVID-19 cases.
SLS President Damte also thanked the Career Development Office (CDO) for the substantive re sources they provided for the 2L recruit, the prepara tory work they did with students, and for being oncall during key 2L recruit dates. She appreciated that the CDO was also helping students to obtain noncorporate jobs. Damte said that the SLS and CDO are collecting complaints about employer violations of the Law Society of Ontario’s 2L recruitment pro cedures. She encouraged anyone with complaints to contact the SLS or CDO. Damte flagged that they had already received more complaints from this 2L
recruit than in previous recruits.
Professor Mohammed Fadel asked about the na ture of students’ recruit complaints. SLS represen tatives responded that many of the complainants alleged that employers explicitly asked students if they were their “first choice” or that employers reached out to them during the no-contact period on November 9, 2022.
The Graduate Law Students’ Association (GLSA) President Jasween Singh Gujral (GPLLM) gave brief remarks outlining the GLSA’s priorities: (1) filling the vacant GLSA positions, (2) updating the GLSA website to make it more useful and in clude more existing resources, and (3) holding a GLSA holiday party.
Professor Benjamin Alarie presented the 2021–22 JD Admissions Report for attendees. He began by thanking everyone who contributed to the Re port, especially Dean Brunnée and Senior Recruit ment, Admissions and Diversity Outreach Officer Jerome Poon-Ting. Professor Alarie noted that de scriptive statistics on JD Admissions are generally
stable year-over-year and unsurprisingly, 2021–22 JD admissions closely resembled admissions from the previous year. However, Professor Alarie high lighted a few changes and trends.
First, the median LSAT score and median GPA (which is based on a student’s best three full-time years of undergraduate study) of admitted students have slowly been trending up over the years, reach ing a median LSAT score of 168 and a median GPA of 3.88 for the current class of 1Ls. Second, the number of Indigenous applicants has been sta ble at about 30 per year, but as the strength of the Indigenous applicant pool has been increasing, U of T Law has been making more offers to Indige nous applicants. Third, the COVID-19 pandemic appears to have increased the number of requested deferrals, JD transfer requests and JD applica tions—especially in the 2020–21 recruiting cycle.
The next Faculty Council Meeting is scheduled for January 11, 2023. The main substantive item is expected to be a presentation on the University’s budget.
The late November weather has turned, and the first snow of the season has fallen. For some, holiday decorating has begun, and we can officially close the door on spooky season for this year.
Returning to the Jackman Law Building for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Students’ Law Society’s (SLS) annual Halloween bash closed out the month of October. With decorations, pizza, drinks, and a DJ, the Rowell Room and the Atrium
were abuzz with all manners of costumed law students (shout out to Jarren Fefer’s (1L) Lord Farquaad for winning the costume contest!). There was, however, one feature of the party that seemed to be unanticipated by both at tendees and organizers alike. Throughout the party, the big question became why were all the lights in the Atrium on?
Ultra Vires reached out to the SLS to find out what exactly happened on their end: “Leading up to the Halloween event [...]
lighting tests were conducted and an auto matic shut-off was set [in the Atrium] (for clarity, the lighting in the Jackman [Law] Building is controlled through a secure on line system and cannot be manipulated manually).
On the night of the event, the lighting in the Atrium did not turn off at the expected time. Members of the Halloween Subcom mittee and the Social and Finance Com mittee worked with a facility manager as
well as two sets of electrical engineers in an attempt to resolve the issue over the course of two hours. Eventually, thanks to their help, most of the lights were turned off.” Sometimes things don’t go as planned, but I think I can speak for all attendees when I say that we nonetheless had a fun, spooky, and safe time! So, thank you very much to the SLS for their efforts in organizing the Hal loween party and in remedying the situation with the lights. We appreciate you!
The 11th Annual Patent Colloquium was held at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law on Friday, November 11, 2022. This marked the first in-person colloquium since 2019. Over 100 individuals attended the event in person and online.
As in previous years, the Patent Colloquium aims to serve as a forum for intellectual property (IP) law prac titioners to discuss new and controversial issues in Ca nadian patent law, and how it affects their work. Each panelist provides a brief presentation on the major points for their topic, followed by a moderated discus sion with the audience.
This year, the panels explored patent law’s response to emerging technologies. This included panels on the new patentability requirements for computer-imple mented inventions (CIIs), the impact of artificial intel ligence (AI) on patent law, and the status of the “inven tive concept” in Canada.
The first panel was moderated by Justice Manson of the Federal Court and included Matt Norwood (Ridout & Maybee LLP), Isi Caulder (Bereskin & Parr LLP), and Kevin Siu (Gilbert’s LLP). Determining the patentability of CIIs is difficult, since section 27(8) of the Patent Act excludes “any mere scientific principle or abstract theorem” from being patented. It is unclear where computer algorithms fall in this category.
The panelists focused their discussion on the recent decision Benjamin Moore & Co v Canada (Attorney General ), 2022 FC 923 (“Benjamin Moore”). Here, the Federal Court overturned the decision of the Commission of Patents and set out a new legal framework for assessing subject matter eligibility that focused on purposively construing the claims, assessing if there is a practical application of any scientific principle or abstract theo rem, and, if so, assessing the claim on the basis of other patentability requirements (i.e., novelty, obviousness, and utility). This marked a development from Chouei faty v Canada (Attorney General), 2020 FC 837 (“Chouei faty”). The panelists noted that while Choueifaty also rejected the controversial “problem-solution” ap proach, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) continued to apply the old test, which led to Benjamin Moore. It will be interesting to see how (or if) CIPO changes their practices given the new case law.
The second panel focused on the question of whether AI can be the inventor. This is especially a concern for patent law where one of the require ments to be granted a patent is disclosure from the inventor. If an AI created an invention, can we jus tify granting it a monopoly? Moderated by Emily Kettel (Bennett Jones LLP), the panel consisted of Jordana Sanft (Lenczner Slaght LLP), Gervas Wall (Deeth Williams Wall LLP), and Brian Chau (Nor ton Rose Fulbright Canada LLP). They discussed how different jurisdictions are grappling with this question, with most arguing that AI cannot be the inventor, at least for the purposes of patent law. Canada has yet to comment on the debate. Some of the audience members raised that while the topic is theoretically very interesting, in practice, it is un
likely this would ever pose an issue for their clients as they would advise them to just name themselves or another human as the inventor on patent appli cations.
The final panel looked at the status of the “inven tive” concept in Canada. This was moderated by Jus tice Russel Zinn of the Federal Court and included Yoon Kang (Smart & Biggar LLP), Ron Dimock (Gowling WLG), and Meghan Dureen (Sprigings In tellectual Property Law). The “inventive concept” has been raised in recent Canadian jurisprudence to in validate patent claims on the basis that the invention claimed is obvious. However, there is no consensus on how and when to assess the inventive concept. The panelists discussed how the inventive concept differs from traditional claim construction and the unique
problems it raises in drafting valid patents. While Kang pointed out that parties in most cases agree on the inventive concept, the panelists still noted that it is problematic that this concept exists without an explicit statutory basis, and can be used to invalidate an other wise valid patent.
The patent colloquium is hosted every year by the Centre for Innovation, Law and Policy. New this year, the Faculty’s Legal Innovation and Technology (LIT) Group was heavily involved in organizing and run ning the event. They expect to continue their collabo ration for future colloquiums.
Editor’s Note: Sabrina Macklai (3L JD/MI) is the co-founder of the Legal Innovation & Technology Group (https://lit-group. ca), which helped organize this year’s annual patent colloquium.
The long-running debate about a man datory minimum wage for articling stu dents has finally come to an end. Following years of reviews and postponements since the 2018 approval of a mandatory mini mum wage for Ontario articling students, which was set to come into effect in May 2021, the Law Society of Ontario’s (LSO) Convocation approved a mandatory mini mum wage for lawyer licensing candidates in Ontario of $620 per week on October 27.
A 2021 report from the Professional De velopment and Competence Committee on Experiential Training Enhancements stat ed that approximately 10 to 15 percent of articling placements are unpaid or paid be low minimum wage, amounting to about 130 to 150 placements in Ontario. The re port further stated that inadequate remu neration for articling students could create exploitative work arrangements.
With the articling program being one pathway to obtain the required experien
tial training in order to be licensed to practice law in Ontario, unpaid or under paid positions could present unfair barri ers to economically disadvantaged candi dates entering the legal profession, especially with mounting costs of law school tuition and student debt. The man datory minimum wage for articling stu dents aims to resolve this issue.
However, on the other side of the debate, there are law firms and clinics that are not able to afford articling student salaries.
These smaller firms may have to forgo the hiring of articling students now complete ly, in turn reducing the number of avail able articling positions and making for an even more competitive job market.
Law Society benchers and members of the profession are left divided on the out come. Some wonder when the intervention from the LSO will stop, or if this will lead to a “slippery slope” of regulating lawyers’ income. Others welcome this mandate as a change that was long-overdue.
According to the University of Toronto As set Management Corporation (UTAM) 2021 Annual Report, U of T currently holds ap proximately $4.2 billion dollars in its endow ment. For more than nine years, there has been an ongoing effort by faculty members and students to pressure UTAM to divest from all investments in fossil fuels.
In October 2021, U of T President Meric Gertler announced that UTAM would be di vesting all direct investments in fossil fuel companies within a year. On November 7, 2022, U of T celebrated its success in divest ing from direct investments in fossil fuel com panies and announced considerable progress towards its goal of divestment from indirect investments in fossil fuel companies by 2030. However, behind all the celebratory lan guage, there remains considerable dissatisfac tion from environmental groups at U of T. This month, in order to better understand this announcement, Ultra Vires (UV) met with representatives from the student group Cli mate Justice UofT, Erin Mackey and Léo Jourdan, as well as faculty members of the or ganization Divestment & Beyond, Professors Paul Downes and Paul Hamel.
Many students at U of T who arrived prior to 2019 will likely be familiar with the demon strations and debates of the Divest U of T movement. However, for the uninitiated, this brief recap will likely suffice. Readers inter ested in learning more can find a complete timeline of the student and faculty efforts to realize U of T divestment from fossil fuels in Amanda Harvey-Sánche's 2022 working pa per entitled "U of T Fossil Fuel Divestment Timeline."
A starting point for understanding the Uni versity’s divestment from fossil fuels is a re port by the student group Toronto350, The Fossil Fuel Industry and the Case for Divestment by the University, which was published on March 3, 2014. On March 6, 2014, Toronto350 pre sented President Gertler with a petition re questing that U of T fully divest from direct investments in fossil fuel companies. In re sponse, President Gertler put together an ad visory committee to investigate the petition. The advisory committee released a report on December 15, 2015 in favour of immediate targeted divestment from fossil fuel compa nies found to be disregarding the internation al effort to limit average global temperatures. The idea stemming from this report that insti tutions such as U of T have an obligation to divest from companies disregarding interna tional efforts towards climate change became known as the “Toronto Principle.”
On March 30, 2016, President Gertler re leased his rejection of his own advisory com mittee’s recommendation, opting for an en tirely different strategy to address climate change. Instead of divestment, the University would focus on environmental, social and governance factors when choosing invest ments. The decision was considered a shock ing reversal of the Toronto Principle, result ing in media attention, student demonstrations, and a response from members of the advisory committee.
It was following this reversal in policy that U of T’s chapter of The Leap formed, super seding Toronto350 with the renewed mission of promoting divestment. In the fall of 2019, a coalition of students, faculty members, and staff likewise founded the interest group Di
vestment and Beyond as a response to Gertler’s 2016 rejection of the Toronto Prin ciple. After a series of joint open letters, peti tions, and activism on campus throughout 2020, changes finally came about in 2021.
On July 1, 2021, U of T transferred $6.9 billion of its pension assets to the University Pension Plan, transitioning control of the money away from UTAM. Following this transfer, on October 27, 2021, President Mer ic Gertler announced that UTAM would be divesting all direct investments in fossil fuel companies within the endowment within a 12-month period. The announcement also stated that UTAM would divest from all indi rect investments in the fossil fuel industry by 2030.
On November 7, 2022, U of T reported that UTAM, as described in its most recent Responsible Investing Report, had success fully delivered on its commitment to fully divest from direct investments in fossil fuels and made considerable progress towards its goal of complete divestment by 2030 of indi rect investments. The announcement cele brated that it had exceeded its carbon foot print reduction target, hitting a reduction of 30 percent in the portfolio’s carbon foot print.
When UV reached out to Mackey and Jourdan of Climate Justice UofT, the two ex plained student discontent with the fact that this divestment effort did not include the en dowments of the federated colleges of St. Mi chael’s, Trinity, and Victoria. The endow ments of these colleges are worth approximately $89 million, $69 million, and
$506.7 million respectively.
When UV reached out to Professor Paul Hamel and Professor Paul Downes, faculty members and long-time advocates of divesti ture, we obtained a different perspective.
When asked about the University’s 2022 announcement, Professor Hamel had this to say:
“Remember the announcement was that they had divested completely […] their di rect holdings in fossil fuel companies. Did you find anywhere what [the holdings] were or how much [was invested]? It is simply not stated anywhere. There is simply no state ment […] you cannot get that data.”
Professor Hamel stressed that at a univer sity, evidence is the gold standard. As things currently stand, there is no evidence to cor roborate UTAM’s claim that they have di vested from all direct holdings in fossil fuels.
Professor Downes echoed these concerns: “without more evidence or data to back up the President’s claims, it is impossible for us to be sure that he is not deceiving the University about UTAM’s divestment achievements to date.”
Regarding the progress that UTAM cele brated in its 2021 Responsible Investing Re port, Professor Downes stressed that the Uni versity was being misleading with its claim that the carbon footprint of its endowment investments had fallen by 29.8 percent since 2020, because this is a measure relative to the size of the endowment. In reality, the absolute reduction in carbon emissions related to the investment portfolio is only 8.5 percent. It is public knowledge that the University plans to double the size of its endowment through its “Defy Gravity” campaign, leading Professor Downes to worry that the University will con
tinue to release misleading statistics to track its progress.
Looking ahead to UTAM’s goal to divest from all indirect investments by 2030, Profes sor Hamel expressed great concern: “as far as we’re able to tell, they can’t even know what’s in their portfolio.”
Professor Hamel explained that a large portion of U of T’s endowment is invested in complex “manager of manager” funds. The result of this choice is that the University may not even be able to understand what the car bon footprint of their portfolio truly is. Fur ther, Professor Hamel explained that U of T is not allowed to report on a large amount of the funds that the endowment is invested in, meaning that there is no way for the public to understand what the funds are or what they are composed of. Finally, Professor Hamel commented that it is unclear what the Uni versity means by divesting from all indirect investments in fossil fuels, or whether it is even possible.
When UV asked what he saw as the pur pose of U of T’s divestment announcements, Professor Hamel lamented that it appeared to be, to a large degree, an act of advertising; an effort by the University to appear attractive to prospective students and donors.
Professor Hamel and Professor Downes agreed that progress in this area likely re quires a call for increased transparency on the part of the University, as well as pressure from donors.
Readers interested in the continued effort to promote fossil fuel divestment at U of T should consider looking into the grassroots student group Climate Justice UofT on Twit ter and Instagram (@climatejusticeuoft) and sign their current petitions.
The University of Toronto applauds itself on divestment efforts while student groups and faculty members remain unconvinced
In 2021, the Canadian Association of Universi ty Teachers (CAUT) Council voted to censure the University of Toronto for failing to address aca demic freedom concerns. The censure came after the Faculty of Law cancelled Dr. Valentina Az arova's appointment as the new director of the In ternational Human Rights Program, contrary to the unanimous decision of the hiring committee. The Faculty's Dean Iacobucci withdrew her offer after David Spiro, an influential donor to the law school, raised concerns that Azarova's human rights work on Israeli occupation would damage the University’s reputation. Spiro is a former board member of the Centre of Israel-Jewish Af fairs (CIJA), a lobbying group that shores up sup port for the State of Israel. Unsubstantiated allega tions of antisemitism were weaponized against Azarova by CIJA and its supporters.
The scandal unearthed to what extent money governs the University's academic environment. It revealed deep-seated problems concerning donor interference, the absence of collegial governance, and the Palestine exception to academic freedom. In their article "The Storm Over Academic Free dom, Collegial Governance, and International Human Rights at UofT's Faculty of Law," Faculty Professors Anver M. Emon and David Schneider man define the Palestine exception. They explain that "despite claims to freedom of speech and aca demic inquiry, study or talk of Palestine is often subjected to scrutiny, critique and censorship in ways few if any other subjects are." The Palestine exception is apparent in the influence of pro-Israel lobbying groups like CIJA on academic decisionmaking and what the Arab Canadian Lawyers As sociation identifies as anti-Palestinian racism in a recent report.
On October 27, 2022, Censure UofT—a group
of faculty members—hosted their inaugural lec ture titled "Facts, Speech, Censorship: A View from the Question of Palestine." The event is the first of a lecture series hoping to continue the con versations that the Censure movement sparked, especially following the failure of the University to take accountability following the scandal. Nadia Abu El-Haj, an American writer and anthropolo gy professor at Columbia University, gave the talk. She mentioned that she herself experienced cen sorship during her run for tenure when the David Project, a pro-Israel campus group, relentlessly targeted her.
Supporters of Israel recognize that the State is losing support on the international front. Mean while, pro-Israel groups are intensifying their ef forts to silence criticisms of Israel, including ha rassing people through a stream of legal suits and doxing individuals on websites like Canary Mis sion. In Europe, the United States, and Canada, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alli ance’s definition of antisemitism, which risks equating criticism of the State of Israel to antisem itism, has been used by groups such as CIJA to censor speech on Palestine. This flawed definition effectively creates a climate of fear around speak ing up about Israeli human rights violations. In October 2022, Independent Jewish Voices pub lished a report entitled Unveiling the Chilly Climate: The Suppression of Speech on Palestine in Canada, which quantifies this climate of fear by documenting the lived experiences of repression of various academ ics, students, and Palestine solidarity activists across Canada.
While El-Haj admitted that secrecy does much
political work for the Israeli state, she questioned whether censorship is truly essential to preserve its power, as its machinery continues to act seam lessly even in the face of publicly-available facts. El-Haj's recognition challenges the popular liber al assumption that the public simply does not know the extent of Israel's human rights viola tions. Instead, she questioned, "What more do we possibly need to know to compel some sort of dif ference?"
To meaningfully reckon with this question re quires a radical rethinking of the very terms of our arguments and political strategies.
Vincent Wong, an Assistant Professor at the University of Windsor Faculty of Law and a for mer member of the committee that voted to hire Azarova, found it "powerful and symbolic" that Censure UofT’s inaugural lecture would "reclaim the law school space by directly confronting the chilling effect on Palestinian rights and featuring a prominent Palestinian academic who is herself a target of Israeli nationalists and their harassment campaigns."
The Censure UofT movement is inspiring for the lessons it teaches students about power. "A lot of people think, well, we'll just battle this out in the courts," says Dania Majid, staff lawyer with the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario, president of the Arab Canadian Lawyers Association and programmer for the Toronto Palestine Film Festi val. "But the courts don't have a role in isolation. [...] The courts are conservative. You really need the movement behind it.” Majid continued, “that's what the success of the Azarova campaign dem onstrates. The success came from the fact that the movement was built through awareness building,
talking across faculties, talking to artists and stu dents and academics and media folk and politi cians.” To Majid, “this is what actually empowers people, it's not doing this work in isolation, it's creating these networks. At the end of the day, it's the movement that directs the work, and lawyers are in service of that."
The CAUT lifted its censure of the University on November 25, 2021. While the underlying is sues have not gone away, student organizing around the Censure has lulled. Majid encourages students to see potential in these slower periods.
"The lulls in movements, because we're so pro ductivity centered, scare us. A lull is an okay time, it allows for reflection, and I think we need reflec tion after the Azarova scandal—what worked, what didn't work, what are long-term things we want to see coming out of this.”
Majid went on to speak to the difficulties in sus taining momentum within student movements: "what I see in student movements is that every new cohort is coming in, and every new cohort is reinventing the wheel, because transfer of knowl edge has not happened." Majid's observations help us understand why it is so critical to continue conversations about the Censure movement, even though the Censure itself has since been lifted: it allows us to build institutional memory at the University to support student movement work to come.
Editor’s Note: Fatima Aamir was an organizer with the Students for Censure movement in the summer of 2021 before starting law school and currently leads the Univer sity of Toronto Law Union's
The 2022 municipal elections provided few, if any, real surprises. The mayor and much of the city council remain the same, much to the chagrin of progressive voters who hoped for more action on zoning, tran sit, and budgetary spending (e.g., the Toron to Police Service annual budget). Here is a detailed breakdown of the results:
Mayor John Tory won a resounding third term with 62 percent of the vote, easily de feating plucky upstarts Gil Peñalosa and Chloe Brown. The major sticking points in Tory’s campaign were his commitments to keep taxes below the rate of inflation and his support for the transit development plan laid out by the province. Throughout the cam paign Tory only attended two debates, a far cry from the more than 20 he attended when first seeking election back in 2014. Critics will also recall John Tory’s pledge in 2018 that he would not seek reelection in 2022. Unfortunately for Mayor Tory, there is spec ulation on the horizon that he will be unable to keep at least one more promise during his time as mayor, namely to keep taxes low. The city faces a $857 million budget shortfall and Tory’s recent efforts to get funding assistance
from the provincial and federal governments were rebuked. Although Tory could appeal to the federal government for assistance, an other potentially more realistic avenue is for Tory to try to address the shortfall through some combination of increased taxes and public services cuts.
The largest chunk of the Toronto city bud get comes from property tax revenues which makes it an attractive place to start in trying to address a significant shortfall. Critics of this approach say that it will exacerbate housing costs. Proponents on the other hand say that it is appropriate to tax Toronto home owners since the price growth of their homes has vastly outpaced inflation and they cur rently pay lower property taxes than any other city in the province. The alternative would be to have the city cut public services in areas like Toronto Public Library spend ing or the Toronto Transit Commission, which would more drastically impact low in come individuals. Some argue that the bud get shortfall could be addressed by abandon ing costly car-centric infrastructure projects like the Gardiner Expressway, but this sug gestion has gotten little to no real traction inside City Hall.
The last thing to keep an eye out for is how
John Tory will use the new “strong mayor” powers granted by the Ford government ear lier this year. The new powers would allow John Tory to enact bylaws with the support of only eight out of 25 city councillors, as suming the bylaw aligns with “provincial priorities.” It is unclear what degree of align ment is required for the powers to be lawfully exercised, but Tory has already announced that he would use the powers to create a housing division in the city to address the lack of housing. Zoning reform has long been a topic of debate in the city as roughly 70 percent of the land in Toronto is zoned only for detached homes. It is unclear what ex actly the division seeks to accomplish, but zoning reform should be top of mind if they seriously wish to address the dearth of hous ing in the city.
The Faculty of Law is located in Ward 11 University-Rosedale, which elected Dianne Saxe to the city council. Saxe worked as a lawyer both in private practice and in the Ontario government prior to entering poli tics. She was also the Environmental Com missioner of Ontario from 2015 to 2019. She was the deputy leader of the Ontario
Green Party up until this past August. Her platform focused on housing, mobility, along with climate change and sustainabil ity. However, her responses to Vote Com pass have attracted criticism for her argu ably negative attitudes towards encampments and the construction of more shelters. From 2018 to 2022, the city coun cillor for Ward 11 was Mike Layton, son of former NDP leader Jack Layton, who was a well-known, well-regarded progressive voice on city council. There will likely be significant pressure on Saxe from constitu ents who likely expect her to continue sup porting progressive policies. Layton likely would have won reelection but decided to withdraw to focus on his family.
Other notable municipal election results include the elections of Alejandra Bravo (Ward 9), former director of the Broadbent Institute, who replaced former deputy mayor Ana Bailão; Ausma Malik (Ward 10), former school trustee who is now the first Toronto city councillor to wear a hijab; and Jamaal Myers (Ward 23) who graduated from the New York University School of Law and worked as a corporate associate in New York for a number of years. All three are expected to be progressive voices in City Hall.
For the last 24 years, Ultra Vires (UV) has re ported on the annual Toronto recruit for 2L sum mer student positions. In recent years, UV has likewise collected data on the Calgary, Vancou ver, New York, and Ottawa intellectual property recruits. UV publishes this data in an effort to create transparency for those who choose to par ticipate in the recruit process, with the hope that students feel more informed in their decisionmaking.
Last year, UV added two metrics to our recruit statistics: the number of on-campus interviews (OCIs) and in-firm interviews conducted by em ployers. This year, we’ve brought in another met ric: the number of applications received by each employer. We hope the addition of these data points will provide students with a more fulsome picture of the recruitment process.
In this special edition of UV, you’ll find the long-awaited Calgary, Toronto, and Vancouver Summer 2023 2L recruit numbers, anonymized feedback on the Toronto recruit process from our students, demographic data, and more. Like last year, U of T Law ranked first for the percent of 2L hires in the Toronto recruit, with 37.74 per
cent of the Class of 2023 securing a summer posi tion.
The recruit is often framed as the only path to gainful employment and students face immense pressure to both participate and be successful. The prestige of a Bay Street position, the tremen dous financial constraints caused by outrageous tuition fees, and the general law school culture can draw students into the process. But, the re cruit is not the be-all, end-all. You do not need to participate in the recruit to find a fulfilling job. You do not need to succeed in the recruit to have a rewarding legal career.
We recognize that the UV recruit special rein forces the fiction that the recruit is a requisite to the law student experience. We remind readers that each year, many students do not find jobs through the recruit and later find work in aca demia, in-house, government, boutique firms, legal clinics, and public interest organizations.
To balance the recruit-centric narrative, we’ve included content from students on the in equity of the recruit and tips for juggling the pro cess with school. We’ve also republished an arti cle from the UV archive written by a previous
law student (now lawyer) who “failed” the recruit, but was able to find “success” through alternative hiring processes. We likewise encourage readers to see Justin Nathens’s (2L) article from the Octo ber issue on why he chose not to pursue the re cruit, as well as similar pieces in the 2021 Novem ber recruit edition.
Last, but not least, we’d like to thank our Vol ume 24 team for their hard work putting this is sue together. A special shout-out goes to our Re cruit Editor, Hussein Fawzy (3L), and Recruit Reporters, Janice Fung (2L) and Jeffrey Liu (2L), for reaching out to employers, compiling survey data, crunching numbers, and putting it all to gether in the articles you see here. We’d also like to thank Jennifer Sun (3L) for lending her visual chops to our cover art and recruit graphics. Thank you to the employers who took the time to respond to our requests, and in doing so, sup ported our venture for transparency. Finally, a massive thank you to all the students who took the time to share their experiences with us after a long and tiring process. We appreciate your hon esty and vulnerability. No matter the outcome of this particular process, it’s all going to work out.
We’re proud of you.
Mental Health Resources:
• Supporting a student in distress: studentlife. utoronto.ca/service/faculty-support-for-re sponding-to-distressed-students/
• U of T MySSP is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week via telephone, video, or chat in multiple languages
Students can contact:
• The Health and Wellness Centre (M–F, 9am to 4:30pm): 416-978-8030, or visit the Student Mental Health Portal online
• CAMH 24/7 Psychiatric Emergency Depart ment: 1051 Queen St. W, or call 416-535-8501
• Talk Suicide Canada helpline: 1-833-4564566
• See also: ontario.cmha.ca/documents/areyou-in-crisis/; camh.ca/en/suicide-preven tion/get-help
This year’s recruit saw a reduction in the number of participating employers with only 66 employers as compared to 77 in the prior year.
As was the case in past years, U of T Law had the highest number of students em ployed, both in absolute terms and as a pro portion of their class size.
Most of the large full service Bay Street firms did not significantly change the size of their summer classes, with the notable ex ceptions being Torys LLP who hired an ad ditional five students (19 in 2022, 24 in 2023) and Stikeman Elliott LLP who hired six fewer students (30 in 2022, 24 in 2023).
Among the firms that responded to our survey, Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP hired the highest number of students (33), followed by Borden Ladner Gervais LLP (28) and McCarthy Tétrault LLP (27). Torys hired the highest number of U of T students (10). In past years, Blake, Cassels & Gray don LLP has led in both hiring categories— however, by the time of publication, they had not provided their data.
Similar to last year, Ultra Vires (UV) col lected two new data points: the number of on-campus interviews (OCIs) and in-firm in terviews employers conducted. In addition, UV asked the number of applications each employer received. In an effort towards more transparency and informed decision-mak ing, we hope this additional information will provide students with a clearer picture on how the recruit process works.
While this data can be used to provide meaningful insights, it can also be miscon
strued in ways that can elevate anxiety. We have outlined some of the limitations of this data and variables not accounted for in the table, to avoid misleading conclusions:
1. It is common for employers to offer more OCIs and in-firms relative to final of fers because employers are aware that students interview with many prospec tive employers.
2. Firms also tend to interview more can didates than positions available in an ticipation that some students will de cline their offers.
3. The number of students interviewed varies by law school. The table includes the total number of OCI and in-firm in terviews conducted for the entire recruit process. While the total number of OCIs a firm conducts may give the impression
of high competition, a student’s chance of converting their application to an OCI is also dependent on the number of students a firm decides to interview at their particular school. For example, OCIs run for two days at U of T and Os goode Hall Law School, as opposed to other schools. The variance in the num ber of OCIs conducted at each school may impact the chances of students pro ceeding into the in-firm stage as well.
4. Some of the OCI and in-firm numbers in the table are approximations (as indi cated by the symbol “~”).
Notes:
1. At the time of publication, there was a 68 percent response rate from the firms.
2. The total net number of students hired
in the recruit was 369 (the total number of hires minus the returning 1Ls).
3. In calculating the percentage of 2Ls hired per school, we used the approxi mate class sizes of Ontario law schools from the Ontario Law School Applica tion Service. We acknowledge there may be variations of this data provided by the Law School Admission Council, which was used for out-of-Ontario schools.
Editor’s Note: At the time of publication, some major employers who participated in the survey in past years had not yet provided their data, which may skew comparative results. We will update our online spreadsheet at ultravires.ca to reflect any further information provided from employers after the time of publication. The current and historic total hires chart has been abridged for print. See ultravires.ca for the full chart.
The Vancouver 2L recruit, governed by the Vancouver Bar Association rules, concluded on October 27, 2022. Ultra Vires (UV) reached out to the 22 employers that participated in oncampus interviews (OCIs). At the time of publication, 21 employers responded.
Students from the University of British Columbia’s (UBC) Peter A. Allard School of Law continued to obtain the most number of offers in the recruit, even after accounting for the disparity in responding employers (62 students hired by 21 employers for 2023 vs 55 students hired by 25 responding employers for 2022). The University of Victoria (UVic) and Thomp son Rivers University (TRU) rounded out the top three, with 27 and 17 successful candidates, respectively.
Outside of British Columbia, the schools with the greatest number of successful candidates were Dalhousie University, with nine students receiving an offer, followed by the University of Calgary and University of Ottawa, with six students apiece.
As in previous years, out of all Vancouver employers, Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP hired the most 2L students, with 22 hires. McCarthy Tétrault LLP and Borden Ladner Gervais LLP were tied for second, with 13 students apiece.
Note: We will update our online spreadsheet at ultravires.ca to reflect any further information pro vided from employers after the time of publication.
This year’s Calgary 2L recruit saw a reduction in employers with only 13 firms participating, compared to 22 in the prior year. Ninety-two percent of employers responded to Ultra Vires . None theless, the total number of students hired remained stable with 62 successful candidates, com pared to 65 successful candidates in 2022.
This year, Norton Rose Fulbright hired the greatest number of students (10), followed by Bor den Ladner Gervais LLP (eight).
Consistent with last year, Alberta schools stole the show with 23 successful candidates from the University of Calgary, followed by 10 successful candidates from the University of Alberta.
Many employers noted that the low number of successful candidates from eastern schools was due to the lower number of applicants from these schools. One employer commented that they received fewer applicants from all Ontario schools and McGill University combined than from the University of Calgary alone.
Editor’s Note: We will update our online spreadsheet at ultravires.ca to reflect any further information provided from employers after the time of publication.
The Ottawa intellectual property (IP) recruit concluded on Thursday, October 27, 2022, with at least 21 students hired. Seven firms participated, recruiting both 1L and 2L students. Six of those firms shared their results with Ultra Vires (UV).
As in previous years, the Ottawa IP recruit focused on hiring 1L students, hiring 14 students from 1L and seven students from 2L.
Gowling WLG (Canada) LLP hired the most students this year, with six in total. Smart & Biggar LLP followed closely behind with five students hired, a drop from last year’s eight hires. This year, Osler Hoskin & Harcourt LLP resumed hiring for 2L students, hir ing one lucky 2L.
In terms of school rankings, U of T once again had the most stu dents hired from the Ottawa IP recruit. Surprisingly, there were zero students hired from the University of Ottawa (uOttawa), whereas uOttawa students tended to secure nearly half the available
positions in previous years.
Starting last year, UV asked firms to share the total number of students hired with a graduate degree and the total number of stu dents hired with a background in science, technology, engineering, and/or mathematics (STEM). There is a common belief that these qualifications can help students enter into the IP law sphere. Al though the sample size is too small to draw significant conclusions, of the 21 students hired, all 21 had STEM backgrounds, and nearly half of the students hired had graduate degrees. This is consistent with last year’s recruit when of the 19 students hired, 17 had STEM backgrounds and nine had graduate degrees.
Editor’s Note: We will update our online spreadsheet at ultravires.ca to reflect any further information provided from employers after the time of publication.
As part of Ultra Vires’ recruit coverage, we sur veyed the Class of 2024 to gather data about their results,demographics, and experiences throughout the recruitment process. The responses to the longform survey questions were anonymized, edited, and reproduced below.
Do you have any comments on the Career Development Office (CDO)'s services during the recruitment process?
When asked to rate the CDO’s helpfulness on a scale from one (not helpful at all) to five (very help ful), the average response was 4.08. The comments were generally quite positive.
I really appreciated how available the CDO was for quick advice during the recruit. Being able to call Theresa [Chan] at 8pm if necessary was so helpful, and I’m grateful for how much of their time they gave up!
Theresa was an incredible resource for navigat ing the recruit. From talking through employers as a whole, to advising on how to respond to firms pressuring/suggesting your first choice and how to keep other firms interested when you al ready first choiced someone else, to talking through your feelings about making a final deci sion, and just as a general emotional support...
Theresa knows how to make you feel confident in your abilities, secure in your choices, and that everything will be okay.
Nevertheless, some respondents cautioned against relying entirely on the CDO’s advice, par ticularly for those interested in public interest posi tions.
I sometimes received advice from the CDO that was completely different from what professional mentors, lawyers in the field, and other upper years told me, so I felt like I needed to take every thing they said with a grain of salt. Still, they were extremely accessible and willing to help!
It would be great if they had more support avail able for non-Bay Street options. The vast major ity of their advice, info sessions, and career pan els are geared towards the large business law firms and I felt like I had to make my own con nections and do my own research for the other options.
Very helpful to understand the corporate firms and the process, but the advice felt a bit cookiecutter at times. I followed my gut and ignored their cover letter advice, which I think helped me a lot in the recruit. The CDO recommended that I include a paragraph on legal research (which I have done in limited quantities with zero enthu siasm). I instead wrote about a work experience that I was more proud of. I truly think that writ ing about my actual strengths instead of writing a conventional CDO-approved cover letter went a long way with the firms (I got asked about it a lot in on-campus interviews (OCIs))—the stan dardized approach isn't always the most effec tive.
Do you have any comments on networking?
Eighty-nine percent of respondents engaged in some form of networking before applications were
due—most commonly through coffee chats, but also by attending virtual open houses/firm tours and information panels. Sixty-four percent of re spondents who received an offer engaged in some form of networking with the firm that ultimately hired them.
The respondents who had positive comments generally emphasized networking as a means of gathering more information, name-dropping, and distinguishing between firms.
I genuinely don't think networking made all that much of a difference for getting OCIs or infirms. I'm glad I did the coffee chats though be cause it was helpful to have a sense of some of the firms and what things stood out to me before the recruit started. Once it did, I wouldn't have had the time to sort out what I was looking for in a firm.
If cold-emailing, try to go for students/young associates. They are closer to the law school ex perience and are often more open to talking.
The employers love to hear that you already spoke with someone from their firm. I found name dropping very helpful as it shows interest and also often gives you a mutual connection with your interviewer.
However, many students had doubts about the efficacy of networking, particularly past the appli cation stage.
Networking is important for law firms, but not for government positions. I got OCIs from al most all firms where I did some networking, and zero from firms where I didn't talk to anyone there.
Beyond name dropping on your cover letter to get OCIs, not necessary for securing an offer.
Not necessary in most cases. It does help to have something to talk about in interviews, but net working is mostly just a waste of time because you can find all the relevant details on the firm's website anyways.
Hate it, 0/10.
Do you have any comments on the virtual events (e.g. receptions, panels, ask me anythings (AMAs), game nights)?
Seventy-four percent of respondents attended at least one virtual event during the recruit. When asked to rate their perception of their attendance’s effect on receiving an offer on a scale from one (no influence) to five (significant influence), the average response was 1.71. When asked to rate whether their performance at virtual events or interviews was more important in receiving an offer on a scale from one (virtual events are more important) to five (interviews are more important), the average re sponse was 4.83. Not surprisingly, comments on virtual events were mostly negative.
The virtual events were awful! You know we have been in interviews for upwards of eight hours that day. If firms truly respected our time and mental health, they would respect the need to rest and process all our experiences from that day in the evenings. It baffled me that they don’t get that and instead try to monopolize our time.
I wish we did away with them entirely. I would have loved in person events like a dinner, for the opportunity to really see the culture in action. But virtual events just ended up turning into more interviews, as “social coffee chats” are hard to keep truly social over Zoom.
Nevertheless, for those who had the time and energy to attend them, virtual events may help in signalling interest and gathering more information about a firm and its culture.
I do think that going to them signalled ongoing interest to a few firms—particularly for the so cials (less so for the panels). However, the firms signalling interest in me did it well before they knew if I had gone to the socials and I think only used the socials to gauge whether I was interested back.
I think that watching how people at the firm in teract with each other can be a good indication of the firm's culture. Also, it can be a good way to figure out what sorts of skills a specific firm is looking for/what to emphasize in a cover letter (ex: Cassels was all about "entrepreneurial spir it").
Did any of the employers you interviewed with ask you inappropriate questions or make you feel uncomfortable?
Among the 44 students who responded to this question, 22.7 percent responded affirmatively. Most of their negative experiences had to do with pressure from employers to give them “first choice language.”
I felt a lot of pressure to first choice. There were a lot of times when I could tell the recruiter or interviewer was trying really hard to get me to say it, but I’d already given it to my favourite firm. I had a few recruiters ask me directly where the firm stood in my rankings, which made me deeply uncomfortable.
I got asked if somewhere was my first choice. Again, on the second and third day firms would repeatedly ask if there was “anything else you wanted to tell them.”
On Day 2, my interview was essentially com pletely dedicated to eliciting a first choice answer from me, which was very off-putting and uncom fortable as I was not ready to do so at that time
Eighty percent of respondents ended up giving first choice language to only one firm, while 4.5 percent indicated to multiple firms that they were their first choice. The remaining 15.9 percent ab stained from using first choice language through out the entire in-firm process. Fifty percent of re spondents changed their first choice employer during the recruitment process, most commonly during in-firms.
the LSO’s discrimination and harrassment re source. The resource contains information related to the Discrimination and Harassment Counsel (a confidential and free service independent of the LSO for those who witnessed or experienced ha rassment or discrimination by a lawyer or parale gal) and the LSO complaint procedure.
The Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care told me they had already filled one of the two positions they were hiring for at the beginning of the my-in-firm interview.
A Seven Sister firm contacted me during the blackout period to tell me I wouldn't be extended an offer. As I had first choiced them previously, some prior notice would have been considerate to allow me to show greater interest in other firms.
BLG rescinded my third-round interview.
Davies asked me what my ranking was.
One Bay St firm told me they were going to give me an offer before the offer time.
Not naming the employers, but I was asked sev eral times in kind of shady language where the firm ranked for me or who I was thinking about.
UV reached out to Davies regarding the allega tion above. The LSO Procedures dictate that em ployers must not put undue pressure on students to either accept an offer or reveal their intention to do so. Amanda Fiorelli, Director, Student Program at Davies, responded: “those from Davies that par ticipate in the recruitment process are trained in the LSO student recruitment procedures, and Da vies abides by both LSO procedures and [National Association-Law Placement] (NALP) best practic es.”
UV likewise requested comment from BLG on the allegation of a rescinded third-round inter view. The LSO Procedures state that an employer must carry out an interview if they have communi cated an intention to do so. According to Madori Sakamoto, the BLG Manager of Professional Re cruiting, BLG investigated the matter and “found no record of such an occurrence.” Sakamoto fur ther stated “BLG is committed to following LSO Recruitment Procedures as well as prioritizing those Procedures when structuring our process and preparing our lawyers for the interview pro cess.”
Upon request for comment regarding an alleged hire prior to offer day, the Ministry affirmed their interviewers adhered to the LSO procedures. The LSO states that an employer must not extend an offer of employment to a student earlier than offer day.
What advice would you give to someone participating in the process next year?
About 21 percent of respondents reported wit nessing employers breaking LSO procedures. Some respondents withheld the names of offending firms. Students who wish to complain to the LSO about firm conduct during the recruitcan consult
Responses to this question were quite varied. Some of the most common advice expressed that extensive preparation and research were key to success.
Did you experience any employers not following Law Society of Ontario (LSO) Procedures?
in advance.
Put together a strong application package and take as many OCIs as you can. It really helps you to refine your answers to common interview questions. Be kind—make sure to thank your interviewers/support staff/hosts.
Start researching firms, networking, writing cover letters/resumes well in advance of the ap plication deadline. Details matter—extensively edit and get anyone who is willing to read over your materials to do so (especially the CDO)! My other piece of advice is that I would also suggest networking with your favourite potential employers throughout the process and not just prior to applying.
Prepare thoroughly for the interviews. I prepared an answer to each of the past questions listed in the CDO database. I also printed out a cheat sheet of my interviewers each day with their pic ture, name, title, practice areas, and anything interesting from their bio that might be worth talking about. This helped me to feel prepared and confident.
Others emphasized the importance of deeply considering what you want out of your legal career and paying close attention to the firm’s culture.
It’s so important to really sit down and think about what is most important to you before inter view week begins. I went into it with a strong sense of what I was looking for, and I think it helped me stay strong through a lot of pressure from employers. We all know “culture” is big, but what specific aspects of a firm culture are most important to you?
Also, pay careful attention to how a firm treats candidates, because it’ll surely be similar to how they treat their students. If a firm is not being respectful of your time, you likely won’t want to work there anyway.
Don't apply to places just because you feel like you should if you don't think you would be happy there!
Keep an open-mind throughout the process. I had talked to students who summered at all my firms between OCIs and in-firms, which really helped me think through a ranking beforehand, but my first choice changed over the course of the week. I learned a lot about my original second choice firm that I loved throughout the process and that firm also seemed to be the most excited about me. When my initial first choice firm started signal ling interest, I realized that my second choice was actually the better fit. This also means that if a firm you love drops you early—it might not actually have been the best firm for you!
Regardless of how the recruit goes, many re spondents emphasized that participants should keep their head held high.
No matter how much you prepare, it is often a game of luck and has nothing to do with your self-worth. Also, more opportunities will come up later on. This doesn't decide your career for life.
This process can be so arbitrary, and rejections are in no way a reflection of your worth. Lean on your support system.
It doesn't hurt to be over-prepared BUT it's im portant to remember that hiring decisions aren't necessarily personal. Not getting an offer at the end of interview weeks doesn't necessarily mean you messed up or you're unqualified—there could be so many factors at play that we aren't even aware of.
It’s important to remember that there’s more to life and law school than the recruit as well.
Know that there are many options outside of the recruit, so it's not the end of the world if you don't get a job through this process! The school does not do a very good job of showing you those options, but know that they are there and that so many students find amazing jobs outside of the
process every year.
Try to stay on top of readings heading in because after it's over, exams are almost here.
What did you not want your interviewers to know about you?
Many students kept feelings of anxiety and un certainty about their career choices to themselves.
That I'm not 100 percent sure I want to stay in Toronto long-term. I ended up alluding to it in one of my answers to a behavioural question anyway because I couldn't think of another an swer for what they had asked me. I don't regret it because I was honest, but it probably worked against me.
That I am still figuring out what I want and I am not necessarily looking to become a partner.
That a big reason for applying to a private law firm was to pay off my school debts.
That I was seriously considering jobs in other areas of law.
That I was very, very nervous and stressed out prior to interviews.
That I have anxiety.
That I know nothing.
What, if anything, would you change about the recruitment process?
Overall, students were highly critical of the structure of the recruit, ranging from call day pro cedures to the pressure that employers put on stu dents to use first choice language.
Call day—use a portal instead of playing tele phone tag. It was unnecessarily stressful to schedule.
The virtual events were so time consuming. I wish we had longer to make a decision. I wish there was less focus on first choice language.
I think first choice language unnecessarily limits options and stresses students out due to the gam ble of deciding who to give the language to.
Many students voiced concerns about how the pacing and scheduling of the recruit made it diffi cult to make decisions carefully about their future and that the recruit dominated their time.
I would push the deadline to apply back. It seemed crazy to be applying for summer jobs for next year when I was focused on my current sum mer job.
It was dumb to have Toronto applications due during the NY recruits because it led to undue stress (especially since Toronto OCIs were months away at that point). I think first choice language unnecessarily limits options and stress es students out due to the gamble of deciding who to give the language to.
It's too fast. Students can't get feedback from firms or really take time to weigh options. I slept 4 hours on Monday and Tuesday night—I had interviews and events from 8am–10pm on Mon day (without more than a one-hour break), then had to write thank you emails for another two hours and research my Tuesday interviewers for another hour and a half—took a one hour screen break at midnight because I was barely alive. I went to bed at 2:30 and got up at 6:30. There was no time to cook dinner or go for a walk, let alone think through how I actually felt about the firms or call friends to get sanity. I also missed signals from firms on Day 2 and 3 because I was exhausted. There has got to be some way to lighten the daily load for students or find a way to make time (BEFORE giving first choice lan guage—ie. not the blackout) for students to take care of themselves and consider their options. Day 3 is totally unnecessary IMO. Not coming back for Day 3 should be the standard, and people should only continue to have meetings if they truly need more info to decide. I had some calls on that day that were a total waste of time for me. Also, social events are only good if they’re
in person. Virtual events are a complete waste of energy. I also wish there was more transparency. The guessing game of figuring out where you stand is awful for both parties.
Regulation around first choice language and 24 hours where you can actually weigh the firms. I was having to make very important decisions at the end of the day when I was exhausted. A 24 hour cooling off period may help students actu ally help with their decision-making process, where they aren't bombarded by emails and calls.
Others emphasized that students suffered from information asymmetries that kept them guessing and worried throughout the entire process.
Allow firms to tell you if they're going to give you an offer so that you know where you stand. It is not an equitable process. It's hugely based on your ability to seem charming/make good small talk with upper-class people, so social capital plays way too big a role. I would also completely gut out the mind games/aspects that are completely irrelevant to one's ability to be a good lawyer (i.e. the obsession with first-choice language, the "call day" scheduling fiasco which should just be online, etc.).
I think that people should be more honest about firm culture and their experiences. I think that the concept of only saying good things about firms ultimately harms students. I would have really appreciated it if anyone, even anonymous ly, gave me a real honest take on the firm they worked for. Students have the resources to com municate this information discretely amongst themselves, and I think they should. Everyone deserves to be able to make an informed decision about where to begin their career. These giant firms don't need to be protected. Students should take back some of the power.
Less behavioural questions. As a [woman of co lour], I personally don’t feel that structured be havioural questions add much in the way of eq uity. Whether a firm can put people in front of you that have enough in common with you to carry on a more conversational interview is also a huge testament to diversity.
Students were critical about how the LSO’s pro cedures unduly favour employers, as well as how these procedures are inadequately enforced.
This might be an unpopular opinion but I do think some of the LSO rules are really unhelpful. Finding out about an offer earlier gives you so much mental relief and forcing the firms to wait when they’ve already made the decision just adds unnecessary stress to students, and forces them to keep other employers they aren’t really consider ing dangling on the hook. It’d be much more ben eficial to let the process end early and end our suffering before Wednesday at 5pm.
I didn't have any firms actually break the LSO guidelines by saying I'd get an offer before 5pm, but some firms certainly gave more positive indi cations than others. But then there are firms who barely stray from the guidelines, which can make it difficult to read where you stand with them. I know it's easier said than done, but I feel like the guidelines should be an all-or-nothing approach. Otherwise, the way certain firms interpret the guidelines can cause a lot of confusion for read ing where you stand with certain firms.
A greater focus should be given throughout the process on reducing pain points for students and reducing the first choice politics and game play ing between firms and candidates.
The rules create a huge power imbalance and information asymmetry between firms and stu dents. The call day procedure makes no sense because students have to make quick decisions before even knowing all the options open to
them. Employers should be mandated to send ITCs before the blackout period, like they do for in-firms. That way students could evaluate all their choices.
Are you satisfied with the outcome of the recruitment process? Please explain.
About 84 percent of respondents reported that they were satisfied with the outcome they achieved in the Toronto recruit. Students generally had great things to say about their employers, even if the process itself was draining.
I got a good job at a good firm. It was not my first choice but I feel lucky that I will get good experience at a "prestigious" firm.
I got my top-pick firm, and although it was an absolutely miserable and exhausting process, I feel like I learned a lot not only about the firm I'm going to work at, but also the other firms who do similar work. I made some valuable con nections outside of the firm I ultimately accept ed, and I think the recruit, for all its faults, is a good way to get to know a lot of firms quite inti mately, quite quickly.
I went into the week with a strong idea of what I wanted, found a firm that really matched it, and had the love reciprocated. Now it’s finally over and I can catch up on my two missed months of schoolwork.
I am happy because I received an offer and I feel like lots of hard work is paying off. Was the pro cess itself satisfying? No. But a positive outcome is rewarding.
Year after year, students at the Faculty achieve great results during the Toronto recruit, but never theless look back on their experience with a sour taste in their mouth. Many respondents advocated for wholesale changes to the entire recruitment process.
I think that this whole process benefits firms more than students. There is a feeling of scarcity and competition that is completely unnecessary. People are pressured into making decisions that are not what they really want because they are afraid of waiting to look for anything else. I think the whole idea of a formal recruit should be re-examined.
This whole ordeal was a brutal rat race. My mental health was in the trenches. I’m happy and grateful that I secured a job, but it took me weeks to recover.
This process is horrendous. I was the lucky per son where every single stage of the process went better than I expected and I was getting a lot of interest and early validation from multiple firms I liked. I was still MISERABLE and stressed out of my mind. Everything was so uncertain, there were so many mind games, the stakes felt so high, and it was so so fast. I also had no time to sleep or cook dinner, let alone access my support networks and normal healthy coping mecha nisms during a stressful time. If the process had gone even slightly worse (ie. literally even going the way I would have expected it to) I cannot imagine how hard it would have felt. I feel in credibly fortunate with the way things went for me, but this process is designed to inevitably take an insane and unreasonable toll on participants' mental health and I'm sure even more so when it doesn't go smoothly.
I feel like we don't acknowledge financial pres sures enough. I wouldn't have cared so much about the outcome if I didn't have all this debt. The recruit is the easiest way to break into a high paying job. Yes, there are a lot of jobs still out there post-recruit. But, not as many of them are well-paying, come with good chances of hire back, etc. At the very least the recruit was a chance to get some financial peace of mind. I question whether coming to U of T Law will be worth it in the end.
I know what you’re thinking, “balance during the recruit? Please.” Nevertheless, here are a few words of wisdom that might make your recruit experience a little less all-encompassing.
Cover Letter & Resume Season: Balance? Sure!
This part of the recruit is perhaps the easiest to procrastinate. That summer deadline? A lifetime away. It’s easy to let the weeks slip by, especially when they’re sunny and school-free. The reality is, being proactive is the only way to avoid a fe verish frenzy of drafting and coffee chats (which I can assure you are best to avoid).
How early should you start? There is no one answer but, at the risk of saying something al most definite: the earlier the better—and proba bly earlier than you think. It may seem intuitive, but this allows you to spread the burden of cover letter revision, resume drafting, and coffee-chat planning, which will all eat up much more time than you would hope.
Start early and you can enjoy your free time, and have a sense of relief when your friends are panicking at the last minute!
This might seem like common sense, but when stress is high, it's easy to dive right in and go about your preparation in a, shall we say, less than ideal way. Starting with the Career Devel opment Office (CDO) resources gives you a sense of what the recruit process looks like at a high level, allowing you to figure out how much time you have to work with and what you should be prioritizing.
It also helps you avoid wasting time reinvent ing the wheel when it comes to things like resume formatting.
On-Campus Interviews (OCIs): You can have a little bit of balance, as a treat
1. Start Early (Again)
A little bit of recruit preparation adds up, and means you can keep up with readings and even P that Admin midterm. As much as you want to avoid the last minute cover letter drafting, you definitely want to avoid the last minute mock in terview sprint.
It's productive! You might find you develop
more insightful answers or start to see a theme in your application materials. All things that can help you stand out in a 17-minute interview. You also need to chill. Seriously.
3. Be Strategic
Look to the CDO question bank and use them to guide your preparation. This will give you a sense of how in-depth your preparation should be and will help you avoid over-preparing. If you wish you had more time to deep dive into your favourite firms, fear not, you’ll get your chance during in-firms.
Also, mock early, and mock often. The more practice, the better. And the earlier you begin, the less this will interfere with your other obliga tions.
In-Firms: Time to develop a new definition of “balance”
1. The Macro Balance Mindset
This is marginally less cynical than it sounds. The reality is, in-firm interviews can take up to three full days. And even if they don’t, the process is exhausting and you’ll need whatever spare time you have to decompress, reflect, and prepare for
the next day.
There’s a good chance each day won’t look like the definition of balance between finding time to exercise, getting proper sleep, and pre paring for the next day, or perhaps, catching-up on schoolwork given the interviews.
While you may not be able to have balanced days, you can have a balanced reading week. Re membering that you’ll have a few days after in terviews where you can relax will give you some thing to look forward to.
Whether it’s meal prepping, stocking up on snacks, or laying out your interview outfit, try to get the little stuff out of the way in advance. It makes the process a little smoother and means more of your downtime is actually downtime.
One final piece of advice: Get a recruit buddy. Seek out an upper year, someone who knows the process first-hand. As much as it’s great to have someone to complain to, they can also give you a sense of how to best prepare, and advice on whether you’re doing too much or not enough. I know that the recruit would have been a lot rougher for me without mine!
Every year, Ultra Vires surveys the class of 2L students after the Toronto recruit, with the aim of gathering more information about not only the makeup of their year, but also about their experiences with the recruit. 65 students completed our survey, answering questions about their identity, background, personality, habits, and mental health. Respondents had the option to abstain from answering any ques tion. Their responses have been anonymized, analyzed, and reproduced below.
The majority of respondents fell between the ages of 23 and 24, meaning that most students came to law school either straight out of undergrad or a year after completing their degree.
64.6 percent of respondents identified as a visible minority. Some respondents identified with more than one race/ethnicity.
24.6 percent of respondents identified as male, 73.8 percent of respondents identified as female, and 1.5 percent of respondents identified as non-binary.
54 percent of respondents declared themselves to be atheist/ag nostic. When asked to rank the importance of religion in their life on a scale from one (not at all important) to five (very important), the average response was 1.7.
If this data set is taken to be accurately representative of the broader class, it suggests that students at the Faculty of Law skew slightly towards extroversion.
While an overwhelming majority (86.2 percent) of respondents are the first in their immediate family to attend law school, only 7.7 percent are first generation university students.
81 percent of respondents identified as straight, while 19 percent of students identified as somewhere along the LGBTQ2S+ spec trum.
A large majority of the respondents were born in Canada, at 73.8 percent, though a majority of students had at least one parent born outside of the country.
Overall, the class of 2024 is quite multilingual. On average, re spondents could speak 1.8 languages at a conversational level, with 20 percent being bilingual in English and French. 17 different lan guages could be spoken by the respondents with French being the most common after English.
Prior to law school, students from the Class of 2024 came from a very diverse range of educational backgrounds, ranging from engi neering to art history—they obtained their undergraduate degrees from institutions in Canada, the United States, and abroad. 23.1 percent had already completed a postgraduate degree, while 9.3 percent are currently pursuing a combined degree along with their JD (including JD/MBA students, who made up 3.1 percent of re spondents).
Perhaps to be expected at U of T Law, students were generally high-fliers prior to law school, with 77.5 percent reporting an un dergraduate GPA of 3.8+ and an average LSAT score of 168.2.
80 percent of respondents attended a public high school, most commonly in Ontario, but also elsewhere in Canada, the United States, or internationally.
The most common primary source of financing for law schoolrelated expenses among respondents were family contributions, followed by loans (government and private). Nevertheless, 67.8 per cent of respondents expect to finance some amount of debt after graduating.
Whenever I think the law school has reached rock bottom in terms of supporting students' mental health, they manage to disappoint me even further. There is absolutely no reason for the recruit to be the stressful nightmare that it is—except that UofT's #brand is putting students into extreme debt and then convincing them that Bay Street is the only way out. Dean [Jutta] Brunnée and [Assistant Dean Sara] Faherty need to stop hiding behind free yoga classes: it's time to end this cycle by making tuition reasonable, actually enforcing limits on students' work loads, and working with the [Law Society of Ontario (LSO)] to change this recruit.
It doesn't seem like the Faculty cares about changing the causes of men tal health problems and just wants to treat the symptoms.
The recruit was horrendous for my mental health [and] caused a great deal of anxiety and stress. However, getting the job I wanted has been so positive for my mental health and it is sort of offset now. Still very draining as an overall process.
Law school/recruit fucks over your mental health. There seems to be few resources to help and the University seems to ignore the severe mental health crisis amongst law students. The recruit is designed in such a way that leaves students demoralized, embarrassed and humiliated. Nothing nice to say.
There’s really no protection for students from it, in meaningful ways. The idea is to do whatever it takes to get through all of the predetermined steps, without ever questioning if there’s an alternative route to getting your degree.
The problem lies in the whole legal education system and profession: the strict grading curve and an unnecessarily intense and complicated re cruiting process. It's hard to see that a single law school can make any difference.
The workload and academic pressure feels immense. It feels like the cur riculum and pedagogy is focused on awarding high marks to the people who are able to work faster and harder and not on students actually learning and engaging with the material. It also feels like everything is designed to be as stressful as possible for students, i.e. the recruit pro cess.
55.6 percent of respondents reported a household pre-tax in come of $200,000+.
50.8 percent of students reported having some form of disabling health condition, mental or physical, though we did not limit re sponses to those with a professionally diagnosed condition. Only 33.9 percent of respondents have accessed mental health resources provided by the Faculty of Law or the University of Toronto.
Overall, respondents skewed towards the center-left in terms of their support for federal political parties.
The majority of respondents reported to be generally solitary studiers in 1L.
As was the case in previous years, among the class of 2024, en rolling in law school has led to a self-reported deterioration of their mental health in terms of both frequency and severity. Academic factors had the greatest impact.
When asked to comment on the effect of law school on their mental health, respondents were overwhelmingly critical of ad ministration, the recruit process, and the structure of legal educa tion as a whole:
Finally, frequent alcohol consumption appears to be much more common than recreational cannabis use among respondents. Only 3.1 percent of respondents reported using study drugs (e.g. Adder all, Modafinil, Vyvanse) that they were not prescribed for medical conditions.
Editor’s Note: This article has been abridged for print. See ultravires.ca for the full article and additional graphics. For mental health resources, please see page 8.
Editor’s Note: The information below is meant to express correlations between certain factors and job offers in the formal recruit. The data does not suggest that these factors caused these outcomes nor that a student must have certain qualities (like a specific GPA) in order to be successful. Important factors like personality and interviewing ability are overlooked.
The 2023 2L Toronto Summer Recruit fi nally concluded on Wednesday, November 9, 2022, after many long weeks of preparation following the application deadline at the end of July. Every year, Ultra Vires sends an an nual survey to U of T Law students on the recruit. The purpose of the survey is to bet ter inform future applicants, raise awareness on matters of student concern, and to pro vide a historical record of year-to-year changes associated with the recruit.
This year’s survey saw a decrease in stu dent responses, with only 52 responses repre senting approximately 24 percent of the 2L class size. Of the 52, four students (seven per cent) were in combined-degree programs.
Thirty-nine survey participants identified as female, 12 as male, and two as non-binary. Nineteen identified as racialized and 32 as non-racialized.
Of the respondents, 44 participated in the recruit. Of those, 36 received and accepted an offer through the recruit (82 percent placement rate), while seven did not.
Of the students who accepted an offer, 70 percent went to large firms, 16 percent to boutique firms, 8 percent to government po sitions, and 5 percent to mid-size firms.
About half of all students that participated in the recruit (48.9 percent) expressed that their expected debt level had no influence on their re cruitment decisions, while only 15.6 percent said that it had some influence, but no students expressed that their debt load was the primary influence in their employment decisions.
A significant portion of students found the Career Development Office (CDO) very helpful (42 percent) or helpful (31 percent).
One student’s responses were eliminated because they did not report complete 1L grades. In total, 43 students’ responses pro ceeded to the subsequent analysis. We expect that students who performed better academi cally or were satisfied with the outcome of the recruit may be more likely to participate in the survey. As a result of this self-selection bias, students with HHs and Hs are likely to be overrepresented at the expense of those reporting Ps. The expected grade percentage is based on the Faculty’s grade distribution guidelines to instructors.
Furthermore, compared to the U of T Law Class of 2024 profile statistics, there was an overrepresentation of females who completed the survey (75 percent vs 59 percent). Addi tionally, there was an overrepresentation of non-racialized students who completed the survey (62 percent vs 49 percent).
Correlations Between Grades, OnCampus Interviews (OCIs), In-Firm Interviews, and Offers Received
Similar to previous years, we assigned a numerical GPA to each letter grade (i.e., HH = 5, H = 4, P = 3, LP = 1) and treated cours es as equivalent in weight under the assump tion that employers do not take into account each course’s weight.
From our sample, the median applicant in the 2023 Toronto Recruit had a GPA of 26; this is equivalent to 5 Hs and 2 Ps or 1 HH, 3 Hs, and 3 Ps, etc. The 25th percentile GPA was 24, the 75th percentile was 28, and dis tinction standing (the 90th percentile) was 30.
There was a strong upward trend in the aver age number of OCIs received, the number of infirm interviews received, and the number of of fers received as GPA increased until the 28–29 GPA range, after which the trend appears to de cline for those in the GPA range above 30.
Using the Spearman rank correlation test, the relationship between GPA and number of OCIs was statistically significant with a moderate cor relation.1 The same goes for GPA and the num ber of in-firm interviews received. 2 However, comparing a candidate’s GPA to the number of offers received demonstrated a weak correlation while still statistically significant. 3
In terms of obtaining employment through the recruit (i.e., receiving at least one offer), logistic regression revealed statistically significant asso ciations between the number of OCIs received and employment,4 the number of in-firm inter views received and employment, 5 and the num ber of in-firm interviews attended and employ ment,6 but not GPA and employment.7 Students who both received and attended more in-firm interviews were more likely to secure employ ment. Specifically, students who either received five or more or attended five or more in-firm in terviews had a 100 percent success in securing at least one offer.
Similar to last year, these results suggest that students with higher GPAs tend to secure more OCIs and in-firm interviews, but GPA alone had a weak correlation when it comes to ultimately
securing an offer.
With regard to gender, males showed more success than females at every stage of the recruit. The data set this year did not demonstrate any statistical significance using the Mann-Whitney U test (likely due to a smaller data set). Based on the responses, applications from males were more likely to convert to OCI interviews (61 percent vs 57 percent). 8 Males were also more likely to con vert OCIs to in-firm interviews (60 percent vs 50 percent).9 Finally, males were more likely to con vert in-firm interviews into offers (49 percent vs 43 percent).10 Overall, a larger percentage of males secured employment compared to females (91 percent vs 84 percent).11
This year’s sample showed interesting results with respect to the effect of race on recruit suc cess. Once again, none of the following associa tions tested statistically significant. Compared to applications of non-racialized students, applica tions of racialized students were slightly more likely to convert to OCIs (59 percent vs 58 per cent).12 Similarly, racialized students were slightly more likely to convert OCIs to in-firm interviews (54 percent vs 53 percent).13 However, the results flipped when converting in-firm interviews to of
fers—non-racialized students were more likely than racialized students to convert to offers (44 percent vs 42 percent).14 Overall, non-racialized students were more likely to secure employment than racialized students (92 percent vs 76 per cent).15 The data suggests that non-racialized stu dents had a higher chance of success in the early stages of the recruit, but not when it came to se curing an offer.
Finally, when looking at both race and gender combined, the data again does not demonstrate any statistical significance. Nonetheless, based on our data, racialized males achieved the highest rates of conversion at the OCI and in-firm interview stages, while non-racialized males followed. However, at the offer stage, success is flipped with non-racialized males achieving the highest rates of conversion, with racialized males following.
Editor’s Note: Analysis was limited to male and female genders due to the limited non-binary responses.
1. rs = 0.37659, p (2-tailed) = 0.01281
2. rs = 0.39601, p (2-tailed) = 0.00857
3. rs = 0.11465, p (2-tailed) = 0.46412
4. β = 0.1557, p = 0.0269
5. β = 0.8212, p = 0.0063
6. β = 0.9541, p = 0.0023
7. β = 0.0113, p = 0.9243
8. U-Score = 170, Z-Score = 0.167, Cut-Off = 1.960
9. U-Score = 158, Z-Score = 0.501, Cut-Off = 1.960
10. U-Score = 142, Z-Score = 0.946, Cut-Off = 1.960
11. Chi-square = 0.29, df = 1, p = 0.59
12. U-Score = 203, Z-Score = 0.243, Cut-Off = 1.960
13. U-Score = 201, Z-Score = 0.064, Cut-Off = 1.960
14. U-Score = 193.5, Z-Score = 0.487, Cut-Off = 1.960
15. Chi-square = 1.99, df = 1, p = 0.16
I had a great recruit experience. I received a handful of on-campus interviews (OCIs), the same number of in-firms, and got a job at a prestigious firm. But as someone who has suffered from severe mental illness in the past, it was easy for me to imag ine a drastically different result—one where my dis ability, which I know didn’t affect the quality of my work, would have put me at a huge disadvantage simply because of how the recruit is structured and the kind of person it rewards. That person? Proba bly white, probably upper-class, can make great small talk about things in that demographic’s cul tural zeitgeist, probably cis-gender, hetero-sexual, neurotypical, and mentally healthy. If it’s a marker of privilege, the recruit is structured to reward you for it.
During my OCIs and in-firm interviews, I chat ted with my interviewers about HBO shows, Taylor Swift’s discography, and fancy restaurants around Toronto. I happen to have grown up watching HBO, enjoying white-indie-sad-girl music, and eat ing at restaurants with my wealthy parents. Con necting with my interviewers about these shared interests and experiences felt good—not just be cause it was easier than talking about my profes sional life, but because each of those conversations felt like a way to win major brownie points with the employer.
And I think they really were. It felt like the inter
viewers wanted me to be the kind of person they could be friends with, and I was lucky to be able to play that role. People whose interests, experiences, or ways of communicating do not align with that standard would be disadvantaged by the recruit process. And since the recruit is more about “vibechecking” than anything substantive about your working abilities, finding common ground with your interviewers is paramount (even the Career Development Office encouraged me to focus on building rapport with my interviewers to leave them “feeling good” about me). It’s like being on Love Island: the most privileged applicants are the hottest bombshells in the villa. I think? I’ve never actually seen Love Island. Lucky for me, only one(!) of my interviewers brought up that show, and I was able to quickly steer the conversation toward The Kardashians (a reality TV show that I watch). See my point?
It's also painfully clear that someone struggling with mental illness could be hugely disadvantaged by the recruit process. Spending hours on end being evaluated by a revolving door of new people is ter rifying for even the chillest among us. Add a dash of generalized anxiety, and you’ve got a recipe for panic. Add a sprinkle of difficulty reading social cues, and the Zoom format does you no favours.
In the past, I have struggled with severe depres sion and anxiety. Thanks entirely to my privilege and family connections, I was able to quickly see a
psychiatrist and get on medications (which are not cheap). I just as easily could have fallen through the cracks in our disastrously inaccessible mental healthcare system, and had to go through the re cruit while struggling with challenges that signifi cantly affected my ability to present well to employ ers. Despite the fact that the recruit purports to incorporate accessibility into its processes, do you really think I would have received an offer if I had a panic attack on the Zoom with a Bay Street partner or the Ministry of the Attorney General recruiter?
I don’t think the Law Society of Ontario (LSO) understands that they can’t slap the word “equity” onto their processes and assume they’ve done their part in advancing equity in the profession. I don’t think they realize that disadvantage isn’t just a timeyou-faced-a-challenge anecdote; it isn’t pretty, pre sentable, tidy, or ‘professional.’ Maybe they know this and just don’t want to acknowledge it because if they had to acknowledge it, they would not be able to conduct the recruit this way.
I realize that some of these problems are inherent to interviews in general, and not something the LSO can easily change. But other aspects of the re cruit, like the condensed time frame in which OCIs and in-firms occur, the length and speed of inter views, the convoluted mind games you’re expected to play, the moment’s-notice decisions you’re ex pected to make, and the stuffy social interactions you’re rewarded for being good at, could easily be
reformed. Here are some suggestions:
1. Split up two-hour interviews into shorter ones throughout the day or week or scrap ‘call day’ in favour of an online interview scheduling sys tem.
2. Overhaul the vague signalling and mental gymnastics expected of students (like needing to schedule their favourite employers at 10am, and the fabled ‘first-choice language’).
3. Make an effort to pair marginalized applicants with interviewers to whom they can relate.
4. Offer more accommodations based on person al student needs and make it clear to students that they will not be judged or penalised for seeking these accommodations, and hold em ployers accountable to that.
It is frankly shocking to me that the LSO, which touts itself as being “committed to ensuring equal access for people with disabilities and treating peo ple with disabilities in a way that allows them to maintain their dignity and independence and em bodies the principles of integration and equal op portunity,” has not taken steps to reform the stress ful and inequitable recruit process. It makes me think that the legal profession has not changed much over recent years—it attracts and rewards the same people it always has.
Editor’s Note: Ultra Vires (UV) originally published this article in Volume 20 on November 28, 2018. SuJung Lee graduated from U of T Law in 2019 and completed her ar ticles at Greenspan Humphrey Weinstein LLP. After arti cling, Lee joined Daniel Brown Law LLP as an associate and practices mainly as a trial lawyer in criminal defence. In a comment to UV, Lee noted “I love what I do and stand by everything I said regarding the recruit.”
On Call Day last October, two weeks after my 2L OCIs, my phone didn’t ring. Out of all of my OCIs, I didn’t receive a single in-firm. I was devas tated. Fast-forward eight months to the articling recruit, and my phone would not stop ringing. Not only did I receive over ten interview offers, but I also came out with six job offers, one of which happened to be my dream position.
On the Class of 2020 Facebook Group, a 3L re counted a very similar story. In the comments, a dozen more upper years echo the same. Clearly, what I went through was not a miracle; several of my classmates experienced the same tumult. So what changed for us between 2L and 3L?
As it turns out, nothing really.
After what I saw as my abysmal failure in the 2L recruit, I sunk into a state of disbelief. For the most part, I felt my OCIs had gone well. Was I overly zealous about public interest work? Was my focus on diversity off-putting? Was I too Asian? I spiraled into thoughts that had no purpose, and questions that yielded no answers. This was the breaking point of my already declining mental health since 1L. Law school had found yet another way to tell me I wasn’t good enough, that I didn’t belong, and that I would be a failure saddled with a mountain of debt for the rest of my life.
In breaking, I found liberation. The trauma of 2L cascaded me down an introspective journey. I turned to counselling for the first time in my
life. Here, I had the space to explore the roots of my diminished self-worth, and the absurdity of my fu tile efforts in school. I let myself be angry at the world—I had worked so hard to get into law school, and even harder to survive in it. Yet, it seemed that no amount of work could counter the arbitrary forces that could just as easily favour my other, equally talented colleagues—so much turned on circumstance, timing, and luck. Validation of my anger allowed me to accept my situation as it was: suspended somewhere in this duality of merit and chance.
Instead, I focused on what I could control: seek ing out what I actually enjoyed doing, and what got me excited about law. During my 1L summer, I worked at Downtown Legal Services (DLS) and loved every moment of it. Upon reflection, I real ized I had so enjoyed my first summer at DLS be cause I was attracted to law that directly revolves around people, and all the human drama that en tails. I leaned into courses that naturally interested me, like Wrongful Convictions. I concentrated my academic energy on the issues towards which I felt strongly, like systemic issues impacting the criminal justice system. I became a little braver about reach ing out to lawyers I found personally interesting to chat about their career paths, with no expectation of a job at the end of these talks—supervisors at DLS, partners at prominent firms, and articling students who were once in my shoes. I took to heart the advice of those who were most passionate about their work.
All of these seemingly little acts allowed me to pursue only those paths I knew I would genuinely enjoy. I ultimately ended up spending one of the best summers of my life in the criminal division at DLS, and the rest, as they say, is history.
What I didn’t realize during the 2L recruit was
that it was so much easier to sell myself when I knew what I wanted to do. Moreover, despite what the CDO suggests, the 2L recruit represents only a sliv er of the entire legal market. In contrast, the arti cling recruit offered a much wider selection across many different sectors: litigation boutiques, crimi nal defence firms, public interest positions, and more. Being more attuned to my genuine interests, I was more particular about where I applied (instead of sending the same letter to ten indistinguishable Bay Street firms). When I was more intentional about my applications, employers could more easily see why I wanted to be there. And when they saw that, I was actually able to “be myself” and connect with my interviewers more authentically.
However, I don’t want to downplay the very real concerns that underpin students’ decisions to par ticipate in the 2L OCIs. I understand too well the pressure created by job insecurity and the crushing worry of not being able to pay off our enormous law school debt. This pressure weighs heavier for those who face higher barriers getting into law school— particularly racialized, immigrant students from lower socio-economic backgrounds. I felt that I had both more to lose, and more to prove. The failure to secure a big Bay Street position, with its promise of financial security and social prestige, can make lack of success in the OCIs all the more disappointing. Unfortunately, my story is not one that offers a solu tion, only a perspective. I had to make my peace with the possibility of a lower salary than my Big Law colleagues, and a potential path of job insecu rity. I simply accept that these are not things that I necessarily have control over; all I can do is chase what I can control.
In sum, I didn’t change anything in order to be come “more successful” in the articling recruit—I didn’t improve my resume, networking skills, or
study habits. I just had to take some time to regain my own voice.
As I’ve written elsewhere in UV, it’s easy to lose sight of ourselves in this school. Even as I’m 3LOL ing, the conversations I overhear remind me how difficult it was to be in this building last year. All I hear are 2Ls talking about who’s going for cocktails where, and who’s working at which firm in the sum mer—all at the expense of the silence of the other 50% of students who either did not secure any jobs through OCIs, or chose not to participate at all for a myriad of reasons. The normalization of this dia logue almost masks the fact that the OCIs are a weird little game—except that everyone is provided with an uneven number of pieces, or none at all. As such, I remind everyone to be mindful about con versations on campus about OCIs. If you’re one of the lucky “successful” ones, be proud while also ac knowledging your fortune in the arbitrary nature of this process. Most importantly, be supportive of each other.
To those that do feel alienated by these conver sations—both the 2Ls recovering from the recruit and the many 3Ls who are still in search of an arti cling position—I want to reaffirm that you did ev erything right. You worked hard to get to where you are, and you should feel proud of yourself for being here. There will always be opportunities that come your way. In these opportunities, there are people who will see and appreciate you.
Congratulations on making it here today, despite all the tribulations and internal struggles of a pro fession that is inherently set up to disappoint even the best and brightest! This in itself is your victory, and one that will propel you forward to the next better phase of your life.
Go for a massage, attend a yoga class, or try out a new fitness activity to de-stress this month!
IAM Yoga (680 Yonge Street)
At Yonge and Bloor, sweat out some stress with IAM Yoga’s hot yoga. A single class is $29, and this location offers mat rentals for $2, making it an ideal spot for any beginner looking to try something new without making any commitments! IAM Yoga’s intro package is $69 for new students, which gives you access to unlimited classes for 14 days.
U of T Law Yoga on Campus (Flavelle House, Basement Student Lounge)
In collaboration with Hart House Athletics, the law school hosts weekly yoga classes at the law school on Wednesdays from 1-1:45pm. There is no registration re quired—classes run on a drop-in, first come, first serve basis.
Students are invited to bring their own mats. Students with all levels of experience are welcome. Location: Fla velle Basement Student Lounge (across the hall from the Quiet Space / down the hall from the student kitchen).
Try a new fitness activity this month to get those en dorphins pumping!
Winding down from the hectic recruitment season? Or perhaps looking for ways to help manage stress and anxiety during the upcoming exam season? Ultra Vires has put together a guide to help you regain tranquility with some de-stressing activities downtown and near campus!
Alleviate your anxieties by reducing muscle tension with a massage.
Step Up Clinic (53 Hayden Street)
Step Up Clinic’s registered massage therapy, hot stone massage therapy, and aromatherapy appear reasonably priced compared to the locations below. A 30-minute massage starts at $80, and you can use your U of T health insurance benefit to cover a significant amount. Howev er, Step Up Clinic feels more like a walk-in clinic, so this may not be the place for you if you’re looking for a spa-like ambiance. The receptionist does offer you some water and slippers after checking-in, the massage rooms are dim, relaxing music plays in the background, and you enter a space of peace and tranquility. You can also choose your Registered Massage Therapist through the online portal which provides complete comfort.
Touch Massage Bar (451 King Street West)
Touch Massage Bar offers a relaxing spa atmosphere for a relatively reasonable price, with a curated massage menu for every need, a café-bar, and a retail boutique with wellness products. A full body signature massage is 25 minutes and runs you $95. Plus, they have add-ons to your massage, such as their “Lend a Hand” 10-minute $30 add-on, which offers a hand and arm reflexology
experience so you can release your typing tension after exam season!
Elmwood Spa (18 Elm Street)
If you’re looking for a short massage, this is not the place for you. Elmwood Spa offers full spa days—4.5 or even six hours—and multiple services, including facials, manicures, water therapy, and numerous types of mas sages, including Swedish, hot stone, reflexology, and deep tissue. Elmwood Spa is a clear winner in variety com pared to Touch Massage Bar and Step Up.
The shortest and most affordable massage is a 50-min ute reflexology massage, which will cost you $172. Quite pricey, but you’re in for the most tranquil 50 minutes of your life.
Put your mind at ease by stretching your body and learning to breathe deeply. While tossing on a YouTube video to learn yoga in your downtown 300-square-foot apartment is an effective way to stretch and clear your mind, you might want to try a yoga studio to enhance your experience. We’ve reviewed some places in the downtown core for you.
Yoga Tree (123 Dundas Street West)
Yoga Tree offers guided yoga classes for people at all different stages of yoga knowledge and fitness levels. The Level 1 classes support you as you work on your flexibility and flow. Remember to bring your own yoga mat and clothing to allow for a full range of motion! Yoga Tree has flexible class times and pretty affordable plans. A single class goes for $30, but a student bi-weekly membership offers unlimited in-studio classes for $45!
Sweat & Tonic (225 Yonge Street)
If you love all kinds of fitness classes like yoga, HIIT (high-intensity interval training), and spin— and would love the convenience of going to one stu dio—then Sweat & Tonic may be the gym for you. They have multiple classes running from 6am–9pm weekdays and 8am–6pm on weekends, which allows you to squeeze in a workout whenever you’re free.
Full membership is a hefty sum of $250 per month, but this price includes access to their co-working space, saunas, and meditation pods. You could fit a workout, study, and sauna session in one day and at one location.
Underground Dance (224 Richmond Street West)
Dance away your anxious energy with ballet, K-pop, jazz, or hip-hop classes! A one-class-per-week member ship is $28, which you can cancel anytime.
SpinCo (129 Spadina Avenue)
As the weather gets colder and you have no desire to step foot outdoors—let alone hop on a bike—spin offers a great way to get your cardio in and endorphins pump ing. Not only is it great cardio, but it also makes cardio fun with catchy tunes, club-esque lights, and positive vibes.
SpinCo offers competitive rates for new riders—$50 for two weeks of unlimited rides. They often have themed playlist classes like 2000s bangers or Bieber Fe ver Friday.
On Monday, November 14, the Law Film Society screened Tom McCarthy’s The Visitor (2007). Earnest and poignant, if undeniably dated, The Visitor catalogues a privileged white man’s awakening to and unlikely connection with the struggles of an undocumented immi grant couple, Tarek and Zainab, in New York. The Visitor pulls off something of a tight rope act. By focusing on its white protagonist, Walter Vale, rather than the undocumented experience inside the post-9/11 immigration regime, The Visitor risks becoming a white savior movie. It’s worth noting that The Visitor was released among a slew of well-meaning but misguided liberal race relations Oscar dramas—look no further than The Help (2011).
Fortunately, The Visitor largely avoids these familiar pitfalls. Indeed, Walter Vale’s con nection with Tarek and Zainab ultimately ini tiates their deportation, and his attempts to rectify the situation are ineffective. Walter’s fiery monologue at an immigration detention centre, bolstered by actor Richard Jenkins’ passionate delivery, intentionally amounts to nothing more than sound and fury.
The Visitor doesn’t present the struggles of undocumented people as a teachable moment for white people. However, it’s easy to mistake this message based on a questionable roman tic storyline between Walter and Tarek’s mother. Happily, this relationship is handled tastefully and provides some genuinely tender
moments where Hiam Abbass really shines alongside Jenkins.
Viewed either as a tale of human connec tion or a commentary on systemic racism, The Visitor risks stumbling at critical points. Nev ertheless, it’s able to maintain its stride through the pure sincerity of its script and performers.
Editor’s Note: The Law Film Society is a commu nity of students dedicated to exploring legality and discourse in contemporary and classic cinema. The Law Film Society hosts free monthly public film screenings. The Law Film Society will resume its monthly screening at the beginning of the Winter 2023 semester.
Hart House (7 Hart House Circle)
U of T students who are enrolled in the term and pay ing incidental fees have full and free access to the Hart House facilities, which include a 25-yard pool, an indoor track, and scheduled drop-in activities taking place weekly, like Zumba classes!
The Varsity Pool is an Olympic-sized, 50-metre pool with eight lanes. If you’re tired of exercising your brain muscles and pen strokes, take a dip, tone up your body muscles, and work on that breaststroke.
Basecamp Climbing Bloor West (677 Bloor Street West) Improve your flexibility and coordination while strengthening your cardiovascular health with a few hours of rock climbing! Hop on Line 2 and head West to Christie station for 7,000 square feet of climbing walls with over 100 different climbing routes available for climbers of all levels of experience. Although climbing shoes and harness rentals are added costs, you can buy a day pass for only $25.
Too anxious and crunched for time to enjoy the other activities? Take five minutes to meditate with Headspace.
Headspace is a mindfulness and meditation app that offers guided meditations for focus, sleep, stress, and more. As one of the most popular guided medi tation apps on the market, Headspace aims to easily integrate meditation into a user’s day, which is known to help individuals reduce stress and sleep better.
The app is free to download. Some features re quire a paid subscription, but students get a discount. Good2talk offers free, confidential support to post-secondary students in Ontario 24/7.
Mental Health Resources:
• Supporting a student in distress: studentlife.uto ronto.ca/service/faculty-support-for-respond ing-to-distressed-students/
• U of T MySSP is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week via telephone, video, or chat in mul tiple languages
Students can contact:
• The Health and Wellness Centre (M–F, 9am to 4:30pm): 416-978-8030, or visit the Student Mental Health Portal online
• CAMH 24/7 Psychiatric Emergency Depart ment: 1051 Queen St. W, or call 416-535-8501
• Talk Suicide Canada helpline: 1-833-4564566
• See also: ontario.cmha.ca/documents/areyou-in-crisis/; camh.ca/en/suicide-preven tion/get-help
Understandably, you might believe that playing Christmas music in November is a criminal offence, leading one to reconsider their distaste for capital pun ishment. Alternatively, you may be of the variety who views Mariah Carey as a religious icon deserving of your complete adoration the second Halloween is over. Regardless of where you fall on this spectrum, your mother is unquestionably preparing her Spotify playlist with the greatest holiday hits, ready to blast at 7am the first morning you arrive home post-exams. Accordingly, you need to proactively stock up on a bottle or three to make it through the holidays. Read on for In Vino Veri tas’s recommended bottles to pair with your mother’s favourite Christmas songs.
Quinn Hartwig
tastes gently of citrus and will pair well along side any lighter meal. When in doubt, it’s al ways a safe option. Ensure to serve as chilly as possible!
Reya Manerikar (3L) Song: “Silver Bells” Benjamin Bridge – Pink Piquette LCBO | $5.95If your mother’s favourite Christmas song is “Sil ver Bells,” I recommend pairing it with Pink Piquette.
Song: “Mary’s Boy Child / Oh My Lord” by Boney M.
Cakebread Cellars – 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon LCBO | $129.95
Song: Norah Jones. Any and all Norah Jones.
Santa Margherita – Pinot Grigio LCBO | $20.95
If your mom is like mine, neither the music nor the wine changes around the holidays— that means a steady supply of Norah Jones, best paired with Pinot Grigio.
Like the Drake lyric, mom keeps “Santa Margherita by the lita” throughout the entire season.
Like Nora, the wine is reliably crowd-pleas ing, smooth, and timeless.
Like mom, Santa Margherita is consistently balanced, elegant, fresh, and fun.
An excellent addition to a holiday party, it
Much like the song, this wine beverage is light, airy, and (arguably) divine. The pet nat technique gives this drink the perfect effervescence for a big holiday feast—enough to make you feel fancy without taking away important stomach real estate. You’ll find elderflower and rosehip on the nose, and gentle hints of papaya and passionfruit on the palate.
Piquette means “bad wine” in French. The pro cess involves a second press of the grape pomace, re sulting in an alcohol content much lower than tradi tional wines (around 6 percent). As such, farmworkers were often served piquette to keep them hydrated and lively—two characteristics that will make your visits with loved ones that much more enjoyable this holi day season.
There are two types of people who like Boney M.: those who partied really hard in the ‘70s and those who wish they had partied really hard in the ‘70s. I have a hunch that my mother is the latter, but one can never fully trust the narrative. Regardless, preparing for the holidays will undoubtedly entail enduring eccentric German-Caribbean disco on repeat for my entire stint at home, necessitating a proper wine pairing.
If “Mary’s Boy Child / Oh My Lord” is your moth er’s favourite Christmas song, I recommend pairing it with Cakebread Cellars’ Cabernet Sauvignon. To con firm, I don’t recommend buying the wine yourself—it’s not exactly kind on a student’s budget. But if your moth er expects you to endure Christmas with Boney M., surely she wouldn’t mind a little cellar-snitching as com pensation.
There are several parallels between the song and the wine. Firstly, both cater to a demographic of middleaged folks with conventional, borderline-bland tastes. Secondly, both can be accurately described as “bold,” in their own way. Finally, both will have you singing “oh my Lord” by the end, whether you like it or not. To be fair, this is a nice bottle of wine, albeit traditional: rich notes of chocolate, oak, and layers of blue fruit offer a lovely complexity. Unfortunately, my praise is limited for the song—but a gutsy 14.8 percent alcohol level makes nearly any Christmas playlist palatable.
On November 6 and 7, Korean pop (K-pop) girl group BLACKPINK performed at the First Ontario Centre in Hamilton, their only Canadian stop in the BORN PINK World Tour. This was BLACKPINK’s first world tour since their pre-pandemic In Your Area world tour, where they performed in the same venue in 2019. Both shows sold out and I was lucky enough to get tickets for the November 7 concert through the General Presale.
BLACKPINK consists of four members: Jisoo, Jen nie, Rosé, and Lisa. For their concert, they were backed by the live band The Band Six, which was a surprise as K-pop concerts often rely on pre-recorded backtracks rather than live instrumentals. Like many K-pop con certs, BLACKPINK’s performance was a high-energy affair, with extravagant special effects and countless backup dancers which made it a fun, over-the-top spec tacle. It wasn’t just a music concert; it was a show Before I could enjoy the show, though, I had to get to the concert venue. BLACKPINK’s two Hamilton dates were their only Canadian stops, and they were right at the beginning of the U of T reading week and 2L in-firms. Combined with GO bus strikes that started on November 7 and the rush hour traffic between To ronto and Hamilton, it was a hassle to arrange transpor tation. Fans on Twitter had also expressed surprise that BLACKPINK picked Hamilton, a city not even in the Greater Toronto Area, for their concert. Given BLACKPINK’s popularity, I think they could have sold enough tickets to fill a Toronto venue.
Despite the travel struggles, fans—known as BLINKs—were excited to attend the concert, and the anticipation was high. Many BLINKs lined up hours before the concert to purchase merchandise, such as sweaters and t-shirts, as well as the official lightstick—a light-up black and pink hammer for fans to use during concerts. Many fans also dressed up, styling modern, trendy outfits in the band’s titular colours.
The concert opened with a bang when BLACK PINK entered the stage to perform “How You Like
That,” a forceful pop song with a drum-and-bass-heavy dance break. It certainly set the tone for the rest of the concert, as fans screamed along and waved their light sticks to the beat. The live band added power, as the drums were more emphasized than in the studio ver sion of the song, creating a strong beat that audiences could feel in their bodies. Cannons launched pink streamers into the air and flame machines blasted plumes of fire up in front of the stage. These special ef fects were used generously throughout the concert, per haps to the point of being excessive for the more aggres sive performances of girl-power songs like “Playing With Fire” and “Kill This Love.”
The concert proceeded in four acts and an encore, each separated by a short costume change break. They performed songs from their studio albums Born Pink and The Album and EPs. Musically, there were some minor issues with mixing: occasionally, the band drowned out the girls’ voices, making it difficult to hear the lyrics. Some performances were also clearly lipsynced, which was not unexpected given that K-pop artists tend to lip-sync in live performances.
The highlight of the concert was Act III, the solos. Each of the girls took on a solo stage, performing one or two songs while the others stayed backstage. Jisoo, hav ing released no solo tracks to date, performed a cover of “Liar” by Camilla Cabello with a sexy Spanish-in spired dance. Jennie performed an unreleased track, “You & Me (Moonlight),” featuring a sweet partner dance that gave the illusion of truly dancing in the moonlight, thanks to clever lighting effects. Rosé sang “Hard to Love” and “On the Ground,” showing off the emotional voice that made her famous as BLACK PINK’s vocalist. Finally, Lisa finished off the act with “Lalisa” and “Money,” two hard-hitting hip-hop songs that showcased her dancing skills and the stage pres ence she is most known for. The solos allowed each girl to show off her strengths and work the stage, supported by a cast of talented backup dancers.
However, when the four performed together, there
were some awkward moments, especially regarding their sync and staging. At moments, their dancing was noticeably out of sync, with the girls dancing the same moves all out of time. This was quite disappointing be cause K-pop is so known for its highly choreographed dances. The stage was also quite large for four girls, with the main stage and a thrust stage into the general ad mission standing area. When there were backup danc ers this was not an issue, but space was left glaringly empty when it was just BLACKPINK members. I would have liked to see them use the thrust stage more to be closer to the audience. Plus, the girls lacked coor dination regarding where they stood: sometimes, three members gathered in one part of the stage, with a fourth member on the opposite side—all seemingly un aware of each other.
In the end, I can only describe the concert as an ex perience. It wasn’t just about the music; it was also about the dancing, the atmosphere, and the overall spectacle.
BLACKPINK was dynamic and energetic, and as performers, they kept the energy going throughout the two hour show.
Having completed the North American leg of the BORN PINK tour, BLACKPINK is now in Europe and will be travelling to Asia and Oceania next. Unless you’re willing to travel internationally, you’ll have to wait until the next time they’re in Canada. But, even if you aren’t a diehard BLINK, I highly recommend try ing to snag tickets next time they’re here for a fun-filled K-pop experience you won’t forget.
Anecdotal cost for Hamilton: $130 (upper bowl seating) to $280 (general admission standing); prices also depended on Ticketmaster fluctuations and resale prices.
Europe tour dates and information: https:// www.aegpresents.co.uk/home/blackpink-world-toureurope
On June 28, 2022, the Law Society of On tario (LSO) Convocation (a monthly meeting of LSO benchers) approved a motion not to release the Inclusion Index (“the Index”), an initiative meant to chart equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) progress in the legal pro fession. Ultra Vires (UV) investigated why the Index was not released and, in the process, discovered a far more significant rift within the LSO about the future of equity and how to address systemic racism within the profession.
The Index was developed in 2019 follow ing Recommendation 6 of the Working Togeth er for Change: Strategies to Address Issues of Sys temic Racism in the Legal Profession report. The purpose of the Index was to measure the LSO’s progress in breaking down barriers faced by racialized lawyers and paralegals. Many firms capitalize on EDI branding; however, currently, there is limited regula tion and accountability of equity within the profession. The Index would thus provide a measure of transparency and accountability.
After the June 28 decision not to release the Index, UV received an email from two licensees questioning the Convocation’s deci sion. UV proceeded to investigate the issue over the next four months.
Under Recommendation 6, the LSO would develop and publish an Index every four years based on questionnaires answered by licensed individuals in workplaces of at least 25 licensees. To create the first Index, the LSO collected licensee information in the 2018 Annual Report about self-identity (based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, etc.), experiences related to inclusion, re spect, and safety in the workplace, along with workplace EDI policies/programs.
Using a series of metrics, workplaces would be given a diversity score (based on demo graphics), a commitment score (based on EDI programming), and an inclusion score (based on the workplace culture/environment). Workplaces would then be given an overall ranking and the label of superstar, accidental superstar, inclusive, diverse, accidentally in clusive, accidentally diverse, commitment only, and needs improvement.
To uncover what happened with the Index, UV first considered a Freedom of Informa
tion request to the LSO. Unfortunately, after speaking with several people knowledgeable in access to information law, UV concluded the LSO would likely not be a covered “insti tution” under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act . This in itself raises questions regarding the accountability of LSO decision-making. As a result, Alyssa Wong (2L) and I proceeded to read through the public minutes and transcripts of the LSO Convocations from 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022. Several records were only avail able upon request, but the LSO did not re spond to UV’s inquiry.
Little was mentioned about the Index in the available materials until the May 26 and June 28 Convocations. Prior to the June meeting, the Index faced staunch criticism. In the May 26 Convocation, Bencher Murray Klippenstein claimed that the Index sought to “enforce a system of de facto race and gen der quotas” such that legal professionals “would be hired, promoted and appointed, not based on their competence, their smarts, their skills, their hard work and their contri bution, but, instead, based on the skin colour, facial features and sex chromosomes that they were born with.” This statement seems to imply that hiring, promotion, and ap pointments are currently meritocratic. Bencher Klippenstein also noted the Index was based on an ideology of “wacky wokeism.” Klippenstein later issued a state ment of claim on June 17, 2022 with himself as the plaintiff and the LSO as the defendant to access the Index. Klippenstein alleged the conclusions were invalid due to improper data collection.
During the June 28 meeting, the benchers debated the recommendation by the Equity and Indigenous Affairs Committee (EIAC)— the body responsible for the Index—to not release the report. At the meeting, Dianne Corbiere, the Chair of the EIAC, explained that a confidential peer review of the Index found it was not transparent enough, and the methodology was flawed. Furthermore, the Index was an outdated reflection of EDI progress in the profession since it was based on data collected in 2018.
UV obtained the EIAC report on the In
dex presented to the June Convocation. The report explained the onset of the pandemic in March 2020 impacted progress on the Index, which prompted the peer review by Michael Ornstein, Sujitha Ratnasingham, and Scot Wortley. The peer reviewers presented their findings to the EIAC in May 2022, with the relevant conclusions presented to the Convo cation in June. Unfortunately, UV could not obtain the May 2022 findings as all commit tee materials and minutes are confidential.
During the June 28 Convocation, several Benchers argued for a total abandonment of the Index. Bencher Sam Goldstein called the Index a “race audit” that would divide the profession into “people who are white and people who are not white.” Bencher Michael Lesage felt the index would be a “naming and shaming” of firms and essentially become a form of advertising for the firms that ranked highest, which Bencher Lesage thought would likely be some of the largest firms in the province. Finally, Bencher D. Jared Brown stated: “let's release this turd to the public. Let's show them what you guys have been working on. That's transparent.”
Bencher Julian Falconer noted that the above criticisms (from Benchers Goldstein and Brown) came from the slate that cam paigned against the statement of principles (SOP) in 2019, another equity initiative pro posed by the LSO. In the SOP, licensees would have acknowledged existing human rights obligations (i.e., to not discriminate in practice) and reflected upon how such duties were relevant to one’s practice. The StopSOP slate (now FullStop) subsequently mobilized to repeal the SOP, claiming it amounted to compelled speech. In the June 2022 meeting, Bencher Falconer noted that the slate consis tently campaigned against equity initiatives without providing positive suggestions or al ternatives. In the end, a majority of 40 benchers voted in favour of not releasing the Index.
While it appears as though the Index was not released due to stale results and flawed collection, the actual data is still unknown. This fact raises questions by some in the pro fession about transparency and whether the Index data should still be released as a dem
onstration of commitment to racial justice. Furthermore, questions remain as to the timeframe from the LSO to address these lingering issues.
More broadly, however, it is clear the In clusion Index was caught in the crossfire be tween warring factions of the LSO. Those, like members of the StopSOP slate, oppose equity initiatives of many kinds due to “wacky wokeism,” “stifling” political cor rectness, and a perceived culture war. In September 2022, John F. Fagan—a StopSOP slate member—penned an article celebrat ing the June demise of the Inclusion Index, claiming the actual “fastest and proper way to conquer any residual racism in the On tario legal or paralegal professions” is to “confront [...] individual instances of prov able discrimination based on ethnicity [...] by the traditional methods of accusation, proof, due judicial or quasi-judicial findings, and enforced due consequences for proven discriminators.”
Those in opposition to these licensees, such as Professor Joshua Sealy-Harrington, claim lawyers like Murray Klippenstein think the legal profession is “post-racial” and fail to accept the fact that systemic rac ism is still alive and well. As demonstrated by John Fagan’s article, some feel that “re sidual racism” is best fought via the tried and true methods of the law, relying on the belief that the legal system can effectively address social ills. However, as law students and lawyers know, the wheels of justice move far too slowly, and our legal system is like wise founded on white supremacist settler colonialism. Moreover, the Inclusion Index sought to address systemic racism within the profession (like subtle structural barriers in practice), whereas the method proposed in Fagan’s article addresses individual , intention al discrimination. As a result, other meth ods, like equity initiatives, are required.
It appears as if the LSO is caught in the middle of a staunch tug-of-war, preventing it from addressing systemic racism and other equity concerns. Will one side have to emerge victorious for meaningful action to occur? Or can a compromise be reached? Only time will tell.
Food insecurity, defined by University of To ronto researchers as the “inadequate or insecure access to food due to financial constraints,” af fects 15.95 percent of households across Canada and 40 percent of Canadian post-secondary stu dents. Although country-wide food insecurity rates have remained steady for the past three years, it is increasingly a problem for low income, BIPOC, international, and professional and graduate students at U of T —especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Food insecurity can manifest in a multitude of ways, from the quality of the food being con sumed, to the quantity. Students in particular are known to budget less money for food in compari son to “non-negotiable” costs such as rent and tuition, which can lead to an increase of fast food or less nutritious food in their diets. These types of changes in dietary patterns can negatively af fect one's health, possibly causing heart disease or high blood pressure in the future. However, stu dents cannot be blamed for making such food
choices when backed into a corner due to food insecurity. Furthermore, considering the recent rise in grocery store prices (especially in the pro duce and frozen food aisles), food insecurity is particularly a cause for concern. The question is, what can be done to lessen the impact of food in security in the short and long-term?
Food banks are one of the quickest ways to mitigate food insecurity in the short-term. The University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) began the UTSU Food Bank in 2001 to help ad dress food insecurity among students. After the UTSU Food Bank was shut down due to the pan demic, the U of T Emergency Food Bank was created. The Emergency Food Bank provided students with weekly food box deliveries and giftcards for groceries. Since creation, it has deliv ered over 6,650 food boxes and gift-cards to 600 student households. However, the U of T Emer gency Food Bank has “temporarily run out of funds” and stopped its programming for the time being.
In the long term, data on the demographics of people accessing food banks on campus, which is currently scarce, is necessary in order to tackle the root problem. The Varsity recently published an article about the benefits of recording such data, highlighting the need to make informed decisions on how to upgrade food bank services and tying the issue “to large societal inequali ties.” Another avenue to help tackle food insecu rity is by developing partnerships with commu nity organizations to help fund and support food security initiatives. As of today, the U of T Emer gency Food Bank has formed more than 15 soli dary partnerships. Further, one of the ultimate goals is to de-stigmatize food insecurity on cam pus, coupled with a change in mindset about how food services should be prioritized. The UTSU recommends that U of T look at food services as “a fundamental right” rather than an “ancillary service”.
The systemic and complex nature of poverty necessitates a reconstruction of services for stu
dents, and the current system does not provide enough support to vulnerable communities. With a “chronic lack of sleep coupled with microwav able noodles” being known as the characteristic student experience, food insecurity is perpetually romanticized. Further, many food banks and other food-related services are encumbered by administrative barriers.
U of T, and universities generally, takes pride in delivering education to the next generation. This includes providing an environment where students can excel, which necessarily includes ad dressing student food security. Although services for physical and mental well-being have im proved in recent years, there is clearly a long way to go. With the holiday season coming up and as temperatures continue to drop, take a moment and help in any way you can—whether it is through volunteering your time during winter break, donating to your local food bank or com munity fridge, or using your voice to push incen tives to aid food security on campus.
By Fatima Aamir (2L)
On October 28, 2022, the International Human Rights Program (IHRP) and David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights co-hosted a book forum on Ninette Kelley’s People Forced to Flee: History, Change and Challenge (“People Forced to Flee”) (Oxford University Press, 2022). In the introduction to the event, University of Toronto Law Professor Rebecca Cook explained this event was co-host ed by the IHRP and Asper Centre to explore dis placement not just as an international law prob lem, but to consider the domestic “scaffolding” required for durable solutions.
Kelley brought important expertise to this book, having served in senior management positions at the United Nations High Commission for Refu gees (UNHCR) in addition to Canada’s own Immi gration and Refugee Board (IRB). She began the event by delving into the history of asylum, noting that prior to the mid-20th century, asylum oc curred in an ad hoc and partial manner, and was often offered on the basis of shared identity or on whether refugees could benefit their host country.
As a result, the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (“the Conven tion”) was conceived as a global framework aimed at providing the broadest protection for refugees. However, Kelley pointed out that there are gaps between countries’ commitment to the Conven tion and refugee protection. Importantly, People Forced to Flee does not only examine the tradi tional legal category of refugees, but also inter nally displaced people who face similar barriers to integration, such as government neglect and dis crimination.
Refugees face a host of barriers to integration, in cluding a lack of education and employment op portunities—in addition to poor access to health care and social services. People Forced to Flee documents how the sheer scale of international displacement during the Syrian refugee crisis forced many host countries to reckon with these issues. Kelley analyzes this event as a major cata lyst for change, providing the impetus for develop ment agencies to become more involved in local integration efforts.
Over the long term, humanitarian assistance has gone towards the improvement of institutions, providing more sustained relief for refugees in comparison to mere emergency relief. Yet, it is not always clear to host countries whether a political crisis that produces refugees will be permanent.
During the Q & A of the event, Kelley acknowl edged this, citing crises such as the Israel-Pales tine conflict. This uncertainty affects host coun tries’ ability and political will to plan for long-term
integration. Nonetheless, increased humanitarian assistance as well as a greater role of the private sector in some cases, improves the capacity of countries to host refugees over the long-term. In addition, Kelley noted that recent improvements in data collection have placed the UNHCR in a better position to understand the socio-economic vulnerabilities of displaced communities, which is critical in crafting future policy to meet their needs. Nonetheless, Kelley was careful not to paint an overly rosy picture. She pointed out that while there has been an overall positive trajectory, inter national responsibility-sharing for supporting ref ugees remains uneven, citing lack of political will as a critical factor. Further, while humanitarian as sistance has improved outcomes for refugees, it is insufficient to address the root causes of their displacement and provide durable solutions. Fen Hampson, a panelist at the event and President of the World Refugee and Migration Council, point ed out the increased frequency and scale of forced displacement due to worsening crises like climate change. He noted Canada’s immigration backlog of nearly two million people and that provinces seem to lack the resources to accom modate newcomers—with many in big cities like Toronto ending up in homeless shelters.
In the face of ongoing challenges to the integra tion of displaced peoples, Kelley emphasized the need for long-term, effective solutions tailored to local contexts, recognizing that these are more sustainable when they benefit both forcibly dis placed persons and their host countries. The pan elists at the event added to Kelley’s insights with their diverse perspectives on what such integra tion might look like.
Professor Yin-Yuan Chen, a trained social worker and IHRP and Asper Centre alumnus, brought a socio-legal perspective in his critical examination of the health inequities experienced by non-citi zens. He pointed out that parallel health systems are unsustainable over time, especially as the health needs of refugees generally converge with those of the local population. In addition, most refugees live among local communities, rather than inside camps. To work towards greater inte gration, however, he questioned whether integra tion of healthcare delivery is sufficient, instead suggesting we may need greater integration of healthcare financing. He explained that refugees, asylum-seekers and trafficked individuals might be integrated into the healthcare system, but their source of healthcare coverage is federal funding through the Interim Federal Health Program (IFHP), rather than through provincial or territorial funding, as it is for other residents of Canada. Chen has often criticized this dichotomy for pos ing serious barriers to healthcare for forcibly dis placed peoples, including having service provid ers turn away IFHP beneficiaries, or charging them additional fees at the point of healthcare delivery.
Fen Hampson added that socio-economic insti tutions have a unique role to play in promoting in tegration that benefits both displaced persons and their host country. He recommended that the private sector provide better access to capital and credit for displaced persons to better enable them to become successful entrepreneurs, and that universities address their barriers to access.
Ghizaal Haress, another panelist, visiting scholar, and scholar-at-risk at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law and Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, added that refugees them selves must be involved in the process of design ing these solutions to better address their needs and to empower them with a sense of ownership over their own lives. Haress explained that refu gees do not just leave behind danger and violence when they flee their homes, but also tightly knit social networks, their cultural connections, and their property and assets. The participation of refugees in designing solutions is thus important to better account for the unique hardships they experience and the deleterious impact to their
mental health as a result of displacement, includ ing from trauma, losing their sense of place and belonging, and experiencing ongoing identity cri ses in their new homes.
Following Kelley’s recognition of the uneven bur den-sharing of refugee protection worldwide, Erin Simpson, another panelist and a practicing refu gee lawyer in Toronto, discussed the ways wealthy countries like Canada erect legal barriers for asy lum-seekers. Specifically, she focused on Cana da’s ineligibility, inadmissibility, and cessation pro visions in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA).
Ineligibility concerns a refugee claimant's ability to have the IRB hear their claim in the first place. Simpson explained how the U.S.-Canada Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA)—a policy she and other lawyers argued was unconstitutional at a recent Supreme Court hearing—renders refu gees ineligible to claim if they arrive in Canada through the U.S., as Canada considers the U.S. to be a “safe third country.” Examples of how this eli gibility provision keeps refugees out of Canada are the cases of women seeking protection from gen der-based violence who arrive at the Canada-U.S. border. Under the STCA, these women are ineligi ble to seek refugee protection in Canada as the U.S. is considered a “safe” country. However, the U.S. arguably does not protect these women, as it interprets the Convention narrowly and fails to see gender-based persecution as a ground for refugee protection, while Canada does. Canada finding these women “ineligible” effectively precludes them from accessing protection altogether.
During the Q & A, Simpson delved further into the recent constitutional challenge launched against the STCA at the Supreme Court. The case was put together over the course of nearly six years, with an evidentiary record of over 30,000 pages from individuals who were returned to the U.S. under the STCA and put in jail for seeking Canada’s pro tection. While the Federal Court had acknowl edged how these returns violated individuals’ s. 7 rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (the Charter), the Federal Court of Ap peal’s response was rather abhorrent, as it stated that psychological suffering to the Applicants was not relevant to the s. 7 analysis because they were refugees and were already suffering. Receiving leave to appeal the Federal Court of Appeal’s deci sion thus felt like a monumental moment. Simpson explained that the outcome of this Supreme Court decision will affect whether, how often, and in what ways refugee advocates will use s. 7 arguments in future cases.
The IRPA’s inadmissibility provisions similarly pose a barrier for refugees seeking protection in Canada as they seek to exclude individuals deemed to be a threat to Canadian security. Panel ist Fen Hampson noted later in the event that secu rity tends to overshadow humanitarian concerns as Canada’s government agencies struggle to find a “balance” among their competing duties to offer refugee protection and “protect” Canada from in ternational threats. However, Simpson pointed out that these inadmissibility provisions can be broad in their reach and risk going far beyond “protec tion.” For instance, though these provisions target individuals who have had “membership” in any organization deemed to be a terrorist group, “membership” is defined broadly to include any body associated with the group, regardless of how minor of a role they might have played, or whether they had any say in its operations at all.
Cessation is another mechanism by which Cana da regulates and restricts access to refugee pro tection. It involves revoking an individual’s refugee status if they are seen to re-avail themselves of the protection of their country of origin. If a refugee is a permanent resident (PR), the consequences of cessation become even more severe, as it results in the automatic loss of their PR status, regardless of how many years they had been living in Canada.
Simpson gave examples of reasons for which indi viduals have had their refugee status terminated, including for obtaining a national passport or re turning to their home country to see a dying par ent.
In addition to these severe provisions, Simpson noted that the Canadian legal system can also cre ate barriers for refugees through narrow interpre tation of the law, narrow interpretation of the Char ter, and the administrative leeway given to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and Canada Border Services Agency officers tasked with the administration of the IRPA
At the conclusion of the event, panelist Hampson asked Kelley about what seems like a “dire finan cial situation for the UNHCR,” inviting her to speak more about resourcing and inquiring whether an assessed contribution framework for states— much like the way the UN conducts peacekeep ing—might be useful. Kelley responded that in her experience, anything involving assessed contribu tions and the budget committee of the United Na tions has proved to be a “political nightmare,”
doubting that changing the way the UNHCR is fi nanced is the most effective way to support forci bly displaced peoples going forward.
Instead, she interrogated the role of the UNHCR in supporting long-term goals. Kelley argued that international agencies like the UN need to take a more critical look at when they might withdraw from certain situations altogether and instead transfer their responsibilities to local delivery or ganizations to support more sustainable and con textualized development approaches. The UN HCR, after all, is built for emergency operations, she explained—it lacks the capacity, time and necessary expertise to support long-term devel opment goals.
Kelley’s honesty might sound radical to some, but it reflects a refreshing look at the limits of our exist ing ways of supporting forcibly displaced peoples and opens up creative new possibilities.
Editor’s Note: The recording of the event is avail able on the Faculty of Law's YouTube channel. You can access a digital version of Ninette Kelley's book, People Forced to Flee: History, Change and Challenge (Oxford University Press, 2022) on the UNHCR website for free.
When making the decision about which law school to attend, I was repeatedly warned about ‘U of Tears.’ I was aware of the stories about students ripping out pag es from textbooks or intentionally sending notes laden with errors. Since I, much like everyone else here, am a masochist, I chose U of T despite every red flag. Al though I spent my fair share of time browsing forums to best prepare myself, law school has been vastly different from my perceptions.
So what has law school really been like thus far? Take my thoughts with a grain of salt—I’m only three months in and have yet to write exams. I’m still blindly mak ing my way through the semester.
The first two weeks in Legal Methods were overwhelming, and not because of the content, but instead owing to the fact that you learn more names and meet more people than you can remember.
As someone with a science background
whose readings were optional and there fore always disregarded, once “real” law school started, finishing the readings felt unattainable. I spent one hour on five pages and somehow highlighted every sec ond word under the mistaken belief that the judge’s off-handed comment would be crucial to my understanding (spoiler: it isn’t).
Just when I started getting used to the reading load, the first Legal Research and Writing assignment threw me off my bal ance. I’m not ashamed to admit that by the time I submitted the assignment (yes, 10 minutes before the deadline, pretty good I would say), I was several readings behind in every class. In fact, feeling be hind has been a commonly shared senti ment. It’s only exacerbated when com bined with imposter syndrome. I know many others feel that the Admissions Committee accidentally let them in—I know I do, especially after meeting people
with extensive professional experience or PhDs in topics of which I had never heard. With exam season lurking around the cor ner, it’s even easier to fall deeper into self-doubt when everyone around you has finished outlining and started practice exams.
While you should be confident of your abilities and shouldn’t let other people's stress bother you, that’s a lot easier said than done. We’re all grappling with how to deal with stress and imposter syn drome. The free food and coffee helps. Upper years help as well. Although I feel bad reaching out, upper years have been more than willing to impart their wisdom, summaries, and reassurance.
Contrary to the stereotypes, no one has sabotaged me (yet). Instead, over the course of the semester, most people have been willing to provide resources, share notes, and create study groups. I’m grate ful for the sense of community at the law
school. It’s similar to high school, albeit significantly more intense; you spend all day in one building, you learn most peo ple’s names by seeing them daily, and ev eryone has lunch at the same time. I’ve also enjoyed having the opportunity to connect with both like-minded people and those with diverse perspectives and backgrounds, all of whom are connected through the struggle.
No matter how many times you watch Suits or how many hours you spend perus ing Reddit forums, nothing can truly pre pare you for the uniqueness of the law school experience. There’s no denying that it’s challenging, but I like to believe that everything will be okay. Check in with me again on December 19 once I’ve made it out to the other side of exam sea son.
There’s a reason U of T Law syllabuses drastically vary in content and quality: there are virtually no policies or guidelines governing U of T Law syllabuses. Instruc tors at U of T Law have almost absolute ‘academic freedom’ to make and amend their syllabuses.
When I couldn’t find any policies or rules on U of T Law syllabuses, I inquired to the Associate Dean, JD Program Christopher Essert said, “we don’t have any specific pol icies or guidelines, nor […] are faculty re quired to include any particular informa tion.” However, Associate Dean Essert said he circulates “some language about things like academic integrity and student health and well-being [...] that many members of the Faculty choose to include on their sylla bi.”
Maybe I was “spoiled” in undergrad, but I’ve been disappointed in U of T Law sylla buses. I want U of T Law syllabuses to be better for students’ and instructors’ sake. In this article, I’m going to make some recom mendations to improve syllabuses.
Myself and many other students were shocked to learn last year that the Academic Handbook’s “Reading Requirements” are not actually requirements but mere guide lines. When students brought to the Facul ty’s attention that syllabuses assigned read ings that exceeded the “Reading Requirements”, they were essentially told their only recourse was to change courses. But this is hardly a solution. For example, while in the Winter semester, there are two courses I could in theory switch into, I have no idea if either complies with the “Reading Requirements.”
Ideally, lecturers should publish their syl
labuses before students submit their prefer ences to Cognomos so they can make in formed course selections. This would help reduce course switches and the ensuing classroom disruptions through the Add/ Drop period. The Students’ Law Society (SLS) does run a Syllabus Database for this purpose, but it is incomplete and future syl labuses may differ from past syllabuses.
Recommendation 2: Syllabuses should provide a list of readings by class
I have seen multiple syllabuses that are just a list of readings with no indication of which readings will be covered in each class. Generally, the instructor goes through this list in descending order—but not al ways. Instructors often give little notice (usually 12–48 hours) of the readings that will be covered in class.
I understand it can be hard to budget teaching time, but many law students have children, jobs and other obligations aside from law school. If instructors want students to do particular readings for a particular class, they should give students reasonable notice. It’s better for syllabuses to contain a planned list of readings by day with the un derstanding that it may have to be adjusted than to provide no guidance to students at the outset on when readings will be dis cussed.
list so that students can efficiently learn the area of law. If the equation “more required readings = more student learning” were true, I could maximize student learning by ‘requiring’ students to read every case on Westlaw Canada. Instructors can include additional readings in syllabuses as suggest ed readings, as Professor Kenneth Jull does, instead of assigning excessive required readings.
Props to Professor Hamish Stewart for as signing excerpts from long Supreme Court of Canada cases. Boo to the instructors that assign entire Supreme Court of Canada cas es only to discuss a few paragraphs.
Recommendation 4: Syllabuses should provide clear details on how students will be assessed
A law course shouldn’t be an episode of Whose Line It is Anyways? where “everything is made up and the points don’t matter.” Yet many course descriptions and syllabuses provide scant details on how students will be assessed. All but one of the U of T Law syllabuses I have read, which had essays, did not indicate the essay deadlines. In mul tiple courses, the Instructor did not set the essay deadlines until after the Add/Drop deadline and then set the essay deadline be fore the semester’s final deadline for written work.
their mind. Putting essay requirements into syllabuses helps reduce students’ questions and sets fair and clear expectations for ev eryone.
Recommendation 5: Instructors shouldn’t unilaterally make material changes to syllabuses
One of the few constraints on U of T Law syllabuses is Part B, s. 1.3 of the University of Toronto Governing Council’s University Assessment and Grading Practices Policy: “after the methods of evaluation have been made known, the instructor may not change them or their relative weight without the consent of a simple majority of students at tending the class […] [except] in the case of the declaration of a disruption.”
I had one U of T Law course where the Instructor unilaterally changed the rela tive weighting of the methods of evalua tion. At the time, I was not aware of this policy. Given the lack of policies surround ing U of T Law syllabuses compared to syl labuses from the rest of the University, I wouldn’t be surprised if the instructor thought they had the power to make this unilateral change.
provide a curated list of
Assigning hundreds of pages of required readings per class is not only a ‘violation’ of the Academic Handbook’s “Reading Re quirements”, but also intellectually lazy. A large portion of the value an instructor brings to a law course is curating a reading
Further, it is often unclear in syllabuses what type of essays students are expected to write. There is a wide variety of types of es says from fluffy reflections to gruelling re search essays. When students inquire about the requirements for essays, they unfortu nately often get contradictory answers. I don’t mean to impute any bad faith on the part of instructors; they may forget they al ready gave another student a different an swer or, upon sound reflection, changed
I suggest U of T Law extend this policy to any material changes to the syllabus. In one of my courses, after the Add/Drop dead line, the instructor unilaterally cut approxi mately 25 percent of the course content in the syllabus and replaced it with content vaguely related to the course title or job de scription but clearly in their preferred re search area. I don’t think they should have been allowed to do that. There are some valid critiques of the consumer-driven mod el of education, but surely when students enrol in a course on ‘the law of X’, they should receive a course on ‘the law of X’ (absent extenuating circumstances).
Law students and coding is something you don’t often see together. And yet, as technology continues to expand and improve, we argue that future lawyers must soon become versed in cod ing—or, at the very least, comfortable with knowing what coding has to offer. After all, com puters are the future of law.
Computers process information at an extraor dinarily high pace. This in turn enables us to analyse data at a scale never before possible. While applications of this technology may intui tively seem better suited for science and engineer ing, this could not be further from the truth. The digitization of legal information has already be gun, with massive amounts of legal data (includ ing judicial decisions, acts, and regulations) al ready being used for data analytics.
There are two main ways in which legal data is made useful via computer programming. The first is through data analytics, where large amounts of data are analyzed to uncover interest ing, and possibly unknown, patterns in the data or to visualize trends. This is particularly useful in the legal field, where data analytics can be used to assess judicial behaviour, among other things. For example, data analytics can help us understand what factors are the most critical for certain judges when making a decision, perhaps revealing patterns of judicial bias. In the United States, studies using data analytics have not only confirmed that Republican and Democrat-sup ported judges decide cases differently, but also revealed which cases they are more likely to dis sent on and under what circumstances.
Another way that computer programming can help the legal field is through machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). Computers trained on vast quantities of legal data can be used to predict certain outcomes, which creates the potential to impact the practice of law itself. We are already seeing applications of this tech nology at play, with AI predicting the outcomes of hypothetical legal cases (see Blue J Legal) or reviewing contracts (see Kira Systems). Law firms are also becoming more familiar with the technology, incorporating it into their practices in different ways. At the Toronto-based firm Lenczner Slaght LLP, this sort of programming is already in play with their Supreme Court Leave program. Using quantitative empirical analysis on several years worth of data, Lenczner
Slaught’s model is able to predict the likelihood of particular cases getting leave to the Supreme Court. This information can be helpful when cli ents are deciding whether it is worth spending the effort to push for an appeal.
To expose law students to this emerging area of legal practice, the Legal Innovation and Tech nology (LIT) Group is running Lunch N’ Code sessions. These sessions aim to teach law students the benefits of coding in the legal field, while al lowing them to learn the basics of computer pro gramming. Importantly, these workshops are designed for students of all backgrounds; it is critical that all students get comfortable learning these skills, whether or not they have prior cod
ing experience. The LIT Group has already run two well-received sessions. More sessions will run in the winter semester, and students can catch up on previous material at https://litgroup.ca/lunch-and-code.
Coding is not scary, nor should it be perceived as such. At its core, learning to code is like learn ing a new language (no math required!). Just like any language, computer programming has rules that must be followed; and similar to other lan guages, there is not just one way of expressing your intention. In fact, it is logic (aka a lawyer’s pride) that plays a key role in computer program ming.
As we have discussed, computers are useful in
every field, including, and perhaps especially, law. This is why law students and lawyers should strongly consider learning how to code and un derstand how basic programming works. Even if coding isn’t your thing, it’s important to know the potential coding holds and how it can be used to inform legal work. As more firms con tinue to adopt legal innovation tools, it is critical that law students do not fall behind and prepare to embrace technology in their practice.
Editor’s Note: Sabrina Macklai (3L JD/MI) and Ari Fattahyani (3L) are co-founders of the Legal Innovation & Technology Group (https://lit-group.ca/), which runs Lunch n’ Code sessions throughout the year.
I must confess that I used to be a notori ous highlighter all the way back in 1L. In deed, my case briefs were often colour cod ed green, yellow, pink, and more, with each colour corresponding to a different element of the case (i.e., facts, issues, rules, etc.). At the time, I thought this is what all law stu dents should do, right? When someone thinks of lawyers, do they not immediately think of paper, pens, and highlighters? I certainly believed this stereotype.
However, I noticed something during my exam prep last year. I almost never consult ed my highlighted textbooks when review ing the material, preferring instead to ana lyze my typed up notes and outlines. Indeed, besides tanking the resale value of my text books, my “artwork” served little purpose. In fact, I would say that highlighting was
actually to my detriment. When you manu ally highlight passages you also essentially render yourself unable to type and read at the same time. This ultimately results in readings taking longer, increasing the time crunch on students. So, if you’re feeling the crunch right now to crank out those last few readings and you’ve been highlighting be cause it’s what you think law students ought to do, rest assured that its value is dramati cally overrated.
How overrated? Consider the multitude of research online that suggests that high lighting is actually a “low utility” learning activity. This means that highlighting is not generally an effective learning strategy and ultimately, highlighting a key passage won’t necessarily mean you’ll remember it any better than if you didn’t highlight it at all.
The learning benefits of highlighting are about the same as simply reading the pas sage. One article even describes highlight ing as potentially detrimental because it can come at the expense of more productive strategies. This means that with the free time saved from not highlighting you’ll have more time to actually review and think about the material in a meaningful way. This is definitely better than mechani cally glazing over what you think is impor tant and then writing it down later so you actually have something to consult during exams. Dare I say that by not highlighting one might also reduce the amount of time spent on readings and thus increase the amount of time spent on social activities?
Another problem with highlighting is that it becomes almost too tempting to over
highlight, rendering your materials useless should you ever actually take a look at them again. Not highlighting is also better for the environment because you’re not purchasing single-use markers that rapidly end up in the garbage. Further, your textbooks will remain in a good state and can thus live on for future students to use.
This isn’t to say that highlighting has no purpose in all contexts. I would say that highlighting is great when reading passages during an exam or for emphasis when re viewing someone’s work. For some, high lighting will be a key part of your approach and that’s more than okay. However, when it comes to figuring out what works best for you, don’t be afraid to deviate from the “normal” strategies expected of law stu dents.
Last Monday, November 21, the Ontario School Board Council of Unions (OSBCU) bargaining team averted a strike by 55,000 members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) when they agreed to bring a government offer to the union mem bership. The media relief was palpable, and many parents celebrated that schools would be open on Monday.
Media outlets from CTV to the National Post called this offer a “tentative deal.” But this is not a deal, and it is certainly not a win. Nothing is a deal until it has been rati fied by union membership; until then, it is merely an offer. Already calling this offer a deal, and acting as though everything has been resolved, places the onus on union members to ratify the offer or else be blamed for being “greedy” and “selfish.”
The Ford government, and all other em ployers, benefit from phrases like “tentative deal”, because they create a narrative where it is the union members who, by re jecting the “deal”, are the ones in the wrong—the ones at fault for disrupting production and inconveniencing parents. This social onus on unions to maintain in dustrial peace is literally encoded in our labour laws. Our Wagner-style regime of labour law is structured so as to best enable production to continue: the fundamental
aim of the Ontario Labour Relations Act, 1995 and Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act, 1993 is the quick resolution of disputes and maintaining the flow of commerce.
OSBCU’s President, Laura Walton, stat ed that the government’s offer is inade quate and that she was forced to present the deal to membership because the gov ernment refused to negotiate—they were “not willing to budge any further.” CUPE stated that, if ratified, the agreement would provide, on average, a 3.59 percent annual wage increase for its members. Given that inflation in Ontario is almost 7 percent and rising, this is still a yearly pay cut.
Union members began voting on Novem ber 24. But even if the membership votes to ratify, the fight to protect workers’ rights in Ontario will be far from over. Bill 28—the Keeping Students in Class Act, 2022 , which in voked the notwithstanding clause to make it illegal for education workers to strike, and was quickly repealed due to near-uni versal backlash—was just the latest in the Ford government’s attacks on public sector unions and on workers’ rights. Unions and associations across the province have al ready united to fight Bill 124, the law which caps public sector compensation in creases (including benefits) at one percent a year for the next three years. They rightly
brought an action that Bill 124 is unconsti tutional because it effectively removes unions’ right to bargain. After all, if public sector unions can only bargain for increas es of up to one percent, how is that even bargaining?
By defunding the public sector via the one percent increase cap, refusing to ac knowledge the value of public employees’ work by paying them an inflation-sensitive wage, and flagrantly using the notwith standing clause, the Ford government has shown that it is openly testing workers’ willingness to fight to protect their rights.
Bill 28 and the CUPE crisis are just the beginning. Next it will be health care—an area already in crisis from under funding, worker exodus, and privatization. And these threats to workers’ rights have the potential to further undermine our fragile labour/employment system. Our la bour laws do not place unions on equal footing with employers. The stringent stat utory hurdles unions must overcome in or der to be in a legal strike position; the ban on wildcat, sympathy, political, and un timely strikes; and the Ontario Labour Re lations Board’s very permissive under standing of what counts as a strike, all reduce unions’ practical power. This is not even to mention the situation of millions of
workers who lack rights because they are not unionized, are not considered employ ees, or are migrant and undocumented workers.
We as a society need public sector unions to win, because they fight for rights that benefit all of us. Unions, and the pressure they exerted on past gov ernments, are the only reason Ontarians enjoy the many employment protections and norms we do. When Canadian Union of Postal Workers workers struck for mater nity leave in 1981, they were called greedy; when they won, it was a win for workers across Canada. When in 1872 the Toronto Typographical Union went on strike for a nine-hour workday (nine! hours!), the strike leaders were arrested, but their demands legalised the right to strike and changed what workdays and labour relations looked like for the better. Unions are crucial to giving employees greater power against their employer, and to giving them access to arbitration. When united, unions are a powerful vehicle to fight for change.
Public sector unions are the front line in Ford’s battle to erode work ers’ rights. Their losses are losses for all Ontarians. If we do not sup port them and do not stand with them in their fight, we will fall with them.
Intra Vires declares victory over SNAILS
With the recently posted signs outside of the library’s group study rooms declar ing the rooms “FOR LAW STUDENTS ONLY,” Intra Vires triumphantly an nounces final victory over the invasion of SNAILS (students not actually in law school) who have been plaguing the Jack man Law Building for the past three months. With the addition of signs in front of the coffee and tea station stating, “RESERVED FOR FACULTY OF LAW COMMUNITY MEMBERS,” these au thors finally rest and watch the sun rise on a grateful universe.
Law students’ next step: territory expansion Buoyed by the above-mentioned victo ry, law students are setting their sights on a territory expansion. Now that the home
base is secure, law students are looking to study and pull all-nighters in more exotic locales. While Robarts remains far down the list of possible future conquests, ru mour has it that the Rotman and Crimi nology buildings also offer free snacks and luxury amenities. Onward ho!
SLS to host Halloween do-over with library’s new sun lamps
Missed the SLS Halloween Party? Love the bright lights of the Atrium? Want to dance in a space that is inextricably linked to the feeling of school? If you an swered yes to all of the above, the SLS’s next event is perfect for you! In a throw back to a certain brightly lit Halloween night, the SLS will be hosting their next school dance with all the lights in the building on, plus the library’s new sun lamps shining in your face. There’ll be enough vitamin D to tide you over until
spring.
Diversions section to sell Verified badges for $10.73 CAD
Following the footsteps of self-made genius billionaire entrepreneur business daddy Elon Musk, who personally coded all of Twitter himself, the Diversions sec tion is now offering Verified badges to any UV writer who pays $10.73 CAD (no foreign exchange fees required). The iconic checkmark will appear next to your author credit, and you will be al lowed to publish anything you want. Journalistic integrity in Diversions? Nev er heard of her. This is comedy, people!
Youuuuuuuuu… to reply. After win ning best costume at Halloween for their ghosting, and of course, never to be out done, rumor has it that this Christmas
the lack of prompt replies will be on theme with the Ghost of Christmas Past! As if we weren’t already haunted enough by the most pre-eminent Christmas ghost telling us what she wants for Christmas every year. Are those sleighbells I hear in the distance?
When you wish upon a star
As American Thanksgiving has come and gone, the Christmas countdown of ficially starts! Students may once again hang their stockings, put up their trees, sip hot cocoa, and make fervent prayers to the law school gods to shine down upon you. When asked what kind of of ferings the students put up for the best chance at HHs, the most popular combi nation by far was: gingerbeer, a cricket ball, and a bucket of old oats. Mix the three together vigorously for the best re sults, they say!
As we wrap up yet another recruiting season, many students are left wondering how pivotal their results are to their future career plans. Fear not! You may have gone through hell and back to finish in-firm week, but the stars will ultimately decide your career. No schmoozing required!
Aquarius (Jan 20–Feb 18)
Aquarius is the f-boy of the signs. They’ll rub elbows with everyone at the recruiting event and call you their first choice, only to flash a smile while rejecting your offer to go for your arch-nemesis. After grad, they’re heading straight to Bay Street, but don’t be fooled. Like my ex, they don’t plan on staying for long. You’re redlining docu ments while they’re entertaining a Red District’s worth of recruiters. It’s not long before they land a cushy in-house job, turning over to external counsel any ques tions they can’t find an answer for within a five-minute Google search. Somehow, we still love them.
Pisces (Feb 19–Mar 20)
Pisces wrote in their personal statement that they want to save lives. Unfortunately, they couldn’t score high enough on the MCAT, and so they’re here. They’re defi nitely 'saving lives' by saving their client’s reputation. Don’t worry, Pisces, I’m sure the ducks like suffocating in oil! Pisces cry themselves to sleep every night, but hey, at least their clients are happy.
Aries (Mar 21–April 19)
Can Aries pretty-please respond to my email? For goodness’ sake, it’s only 3pm on a Thursday; they can’t be out of the office already. Wait—what’s that? Aries was spotted at Maddy’s downing shots with the
court clerks? That’s it. I’m applying for a government job too.
Taurus (Apr 20–May 20)
Taurus is what happens when mom and dad were a little too absent during child hood, and now the kid can’t live without academic validation. Congrats on getting into that LLM program! What’s next? Ob viously, a PhD. And if you get that far, why wouldn’t you do a postdoc? And a postpostdoc? Anything to delay being a real adult, right? Don’t worry, Taurus. I think the IHRP will still be looking for a director by the time you’re done with school.
Gemini (May 21–June 20)
Doesn’t everybody just LOVE capital markets?!?!? What could be more exciting than financial restructuring? I puked a lit tle while writing that. Gemini is the freak who not only enjoys burning the midnight oil but took pleasure in going through the recruit. They’re gonna end up being the quintessential partner in the firm. You know, the one that sends you a “plz fix” past midnight on a Saturday when you’re out with friends and your laptop is miles away. You’ll send them the revisions early Sunday morning when you should be nurs ing a hangover. They won’t thank you.
Cancer (June 21–July 22)
You are the one percent. Before you sue me for defamation, I mean you’re the one percent of U of T Law students who will ingly pursue a clinic job long-term. Either you’re actually part of the one percent, and so daddy dearest is paying off that down town rent and tuition, or you genuinely stuck to your morals. Either way, your fu ture involves running a successful clinic and helping the city’s most in-need ...all
while overworking and underpaying your students. That’s the circle of life, baby!
Leo (July 23–Aug 22)
Well okay, Ms. Future Supreme Court Justice. Leos are someone I’d love to hate, but they make being a gunner look so damn good. After clerking at every court avail able, Leo fast-tracked their way into get ting their SCC-approved Santa Claus robes. Even with their busy schedule, they’ll make time to “give back to the youngins” by judging the annual Grand Moot. Unfortunately, they’re that judge who conveniently forgets these are literal made-up problems in fake court and makes student counsel cry. Oops.
Virgo (Aug 23–Sep 22)
Work in Canada? What, are you a peas ant? As if. Daddy’s been holding that spot for you at JP Morgan since you were seven, but you really wanted to prove to others that you’re self-made. You earned your coveted New York job through your hard work and grit on the golf course, where you competed against a dozen other trust fund babies. Goodbye, and good riddance!
Libra (Sept 23–Oct 22)
I honestly have no idea what you’re doing with your life. But that’s okay—neither do you. Someone told me you were doing an in definite exchange abroad and starting your life as a literal bread maker in Amsterdam. But there’s a post tagged on LinkedIn that says you’re returning to your 1L clinic. And wait, where did you get those red bottoms? Something isn’t adding up.
Editor’s Note: If you know a clinic that pays enough for red bottoms, please let the writer
know. For purely… informational purposes.
Scorpio (Oct 23–Nov 21)
Has anyone seen Scorpio since we got the extra line of credit in October? In fact, have we seen Scorpio since 1L? While the rest of us are going broke over this degree, Scorpio was making a curious number of trips to the Cayman Islands. Someone took Financial Crimes and Corporate Compli ance a little too seriously. Scotiabank, if you’re reading this, I promise I have no idea where Scorpio went.
Sagittarius (Nov 22–Dec 21)
Sagittarius are the people you meet and wonder what in the world happened that made them go to law school. Not be cause they’re not smart enough, but be cause they’re just too cool. You were a backup dancer for Beyoncé, and you’re telling me you’d rather do doc review all day? Okay there… Luckily for Saggitari us, they are indeed too cool to be stuck in the law library all day. They’ll end up starting their own business and exclu sively hiring anyone but law students. Go figure!
Capricorn (Dec 22–Jan 19)
You finally did it. You achieved what all law students can only dare to dream about. You quit. Not just working at your legal job, but working in general. While others complained the law library was let ting in SNAILS, you were strategic. You spotted that medical backpack from a mile away, and now you’re on your fourth vacation in two months. And honestly? I’m proud of you. You suffered for over 19 years. It is time for you to shake your ass. On a yacht. In Dubai. IN A THONG.
It’s a Thursday, late in the month. You’ve just left Evidence Law. Thank God class is over—you couldn’t pay attention for the last 20 minutes because you were so excited. The smell of fried dough and icing hangs thick in the air, and the sound of shuffling paper fills the Atrium. This is what you’ve been waiting for—it’s UV time.
You stick to the outskirts of the chaos, sub tly cutting your way to the front. You get
your pick of the Krispy Kremes and a fresh copy of UV. You read with your friends, laughing over lunch.
But as you approach the last page, it hits you. That empty feeling. “What’s next?” you ask yourself. Look no further my friend—be low are suggestions for what exactly could be next. Without further ado, here are 10 sug gestions for what to do with your copy of UV after you’ve read it:
1. Paint night with friends! Use your old copies of UV to protect your floors and tables from paint spillage.
2. Wrapping paper! #sustainablequeen
3. Make a newspaper hat/boat.
4. In lieu of bubble wrap, use old copies of UV to cushion fragile objects when transporting them.
5. Papier maché! There are so many things you could make! Believe it or not, Me
gamind from the Halloween Party made her head out of old copies of UV.
6. Kindling for your holiday fire!
7. Kindling for your non-holiday fire!
8. Leave it lying around your house to convince guests that you can read.
9. Do you have birds? Line the bottom of their cages with some old UVs!
10. Cut out the letters to finally send that ransom note you’ve been putting off.
LAUREN DI FELICE (2L) AND AMY KWONG (2L) WITH ASSISTANCE FROM ALYSSA WONG (2L)
Students studying in the Bora Laskin Law Library get progressively more unhinged as the semester goes on, and there is no better reflection of this than study room booking names. Read on to observe the collapse of our meticulous reading schedules, our am bitious study groups, and our shaky mental states. Please, let us have this tiny sliver of joy in our lives.
• Lord Denning's Seance Attempt #2
• Evidence Combat Unit
• Mechanical Bull scene from Pixar’s ratatouille
• Chamber the Peppercorn Prince
• Trusts; Not Trusts
• Minecraft Law Session (Do Not Disturb!!!)
October
• Crying Post Admin
• I’m a mouse, duh
• Pumpkin Spice Latte Whitener
• Groundhog Day Watch Party; Groundhog Benevolent Society; Groundhogs are government spies; the day after groundhog day
• Blue jays game 1 watch party (BYOB)
• Guaca Bowle Giveaway! Jeb's recipe not incl.
• Rice Law (The Law of Rice)
November
• Post-Spooktober Outlining Grind
• LRW Punishment Dungeon
• silly goose university; Silly Goose Community College
• Legally Dumb
• group nap time (bring your own blanket)
• monday morning cryfest; monday morn ing primal scream; monday afternoon primal scream
• escaped high park zoo capybaras
• covfefe
December
• Amselem Succah-Building Work shop
• Faculty Sanctioned Independent Screaming
• tortfeasors anonymous
• Last Ditch Effort to Pass Law School; Coping with the realization that effort failed
• 19 snails in a trenchcoat
• Pain
• crying screaming throwing up
• Failure is always an option
Lol, right? Right?!
A famous proverb says you are what you eat. Is it also true that you are what you cook?
My interest in cooking can be traced back to my childhood, when I was close to both of my grandmas. Both of them were experienced in cooking and loved to cook. My cooking lessons started from observing from the sidelines, where I learned that the criteria for Chinese cuisine are colour, appealing aromas, and flavour. My grandmas started their cooking journeys by reading cookbooks. They told me that they just read the books and left the rest to instinct. Per haps this is the origin of my unbridled style of cooking. When it comes to seasoning, unlike modern recipes that are quantified, the old reci pes read “add an appropriate amount,” which forces you to rely on your instinct and experi ence.
When l lived in Beijing, I learned how to make dumplings from scratch. Making the dough by hand was my favourite part. Every time, I followed my instinct to mix flour with water and felt the texture to see if the dough was ready to rest. Later on, I learned how to make colorful dough by adding natural juices, such as spinach or jalapeno juice for green, carrot juice for yellow, beet juice for red, and blueberry juice for purple. After the dough rested, I used a roll ing pin to make round dumpling skins and wrapped the filling inside.
After I moved abroad, I would make dump lings with friends, colleagues, and students dur
ing holidays. The Italians were surprised, say ing, “These are very similar to our colourful pastas!” Cooking not only connects me with my culture which cures my homesickness, but also helps me quickly adapt to a new environment and build connections with people from differ ent cultures.
As time went by, my cooking shifted to a fusion of healthy and simplified style. I exper imented by adding different types of flour, such as whole wheat flour to make a relatively healthy dough. I also explored different op tions to make healthy fillings, such as ground turkey breast with vegetables. These ingredi ents could also be turned into pasta and meat balls when I felt like it. Sometimes, I added soy sauce and diced green onion to a steak for flair.
While being creative and open in cooking, I also use cooking as a way to wind down and indulge in solitude. After a busy day, cooking can keep my mind, eyes, ears, nose, and hands occupied for the moment. I can take whatever is available from the fridge and make a nutri tious and simple supper. As long as my appe tite is satisfied, my body feels rejuvenated too.
My first informal cookbook project was a the sis that I wrote on a lexicon study of ethnic food items. Perhaps, someday, I will start a real cook book project to document my recipes, through which the old meets the new and the East meets the West. To me, I am what I cook.
Yes indeed, it’s that time of year again, but fret not! Ultra Vires is once again here to provide you with supplemental ques tions that you can try on your own to get your feet wet before tackling your specific professor’s past questions. Don’t worry if you aren’t happy with your answers on your first try; you’ll get better over time, we promise!
Lora Laskin owns a library in the town of Falconer, the province of Flavelle. This library is exclusively for law students, who must present their fobs upon entry. Lora has been happily running this private li brary for over 50 years and happily wel comes the occasional stranger. However, recently there has been an upsurge of these unregistered people coming into the library, to the point where its regular visi tors have complained.
Just last week, as Lora was leaving the library to run an errand, she was jostled
by one such invader, Imas Nale. Imas rudely expressed that Lora should watch where she was going and gave her a light push as a warning. Then Imas proceeded to enter the library and settle herself down. Lora noted that Imas did not have a fob.
When Lora returned, the library was in an uproar. Apparently, someone had been causing a huge commotion: a flurry of or ganic chemistry textbooks, physics prob lem sets, and philosophy essays were being thrown around, and someone was sighing heavily over how hard their schoolwork was. To Lora’s chagrin, Imas was at the center of all the ruckus, sighing over the spread papers with a few more friends she had brought in with her, all without fobs.
Lora asked nicely for Imas to please take her work elsewhere, as she was dis tracting the hardworking students at the library from their studies. Again, Imas ve hemently refused. Lora politely escorted Imas and her friends out one by one, but
to no avail; as each left, two more came in to take their place. Finally, a law student enlisted the help of building security, who were able to bar the entrance to prevent re-entry, posting signs and using the PA system to ensure strict enforcement.
Assume the laws of Flavelle are congru ent with those of Ontario. Please advise Lora on what tort actions she may have against Imas Nale.
Helon Muskox is a world-renowned busi ness owner who had many successful ven tures in technology and scientific start-ups. In fact, Helon is so successful that she is one of Flavelle’s richest people, albeit with a somewhat nasty temper, with an estimat ed net worth of $2 million. Helon has been married to Tælor, another successful CEO, since 2002. The couple began their divorce proceedings in June 2021 and concluded them in February 2022. Helon paid an equalization payment of $1 million.
In March 2022, Helon acquired a large social media platform, Chipper, valued at $400,000. After Helon fired half its em ployees in March, Chipper’s net value dropped by half to $200,000 by May. Business experts had previously forecast ed that this value would only continue to decrease under Helon’s leadership. How ever, Helon abdicated and brought in a new CEO in August to try and turn the trajectory around. Under the new leader ship, Chipper has surpassed its previous peak value and is now valued at $800,000, and only continues to grow.
Tælor has come to you, a budding fam ily law attorney, wondering if it is possible to share in Helon’s recent dramatic earn ings. They did not have a domestic con tract, and you can assume all of their other assets are negligible.
Please advise Tælor on how the courts might approach this analysis on the postvaluation date increase in the net family property.
Bestow a lordship upon
Out of the ordinary
Part of flavour that the US lacks
French satirist of yore
Metal precursor
Reproductive category
Not once, poetically
Instagram alternative to a TikTok video
Month of the Hebrew calendar
As well
In the slightest
Actress Glenn
Campaign for elected office
Fireplace product
Org. with and-ones
Commercial prefix to cell
Bygone British boy band, to fans
leader
playwright
Brings together
partner
Cream-filled cookie
Tear apart
Travel document
Non-Kosher meat
Actress de Armas
