Ultra Vires Vol 16 Issue 2: 2014 October

IN THIS ISSUE 28 In-Firm Tips to Get You In Firms For Good

Students Debate the New Semesterized System

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Interview with Supreme Court Justice Abella

So You Think You Can Finish Construction on a Law Building Reality TV Recap

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Grand Moot Photos PAGE 10

EDITORIAL/NEWS

2 | OCTOBER 29, 2014

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Editor’s Letter PALOMA VAN GROLL (3L) & DAVID GRUBER (3L) NARY A MONTH AGO A BATTALION of eager students had presented on campus.

They were idealistic about what law school would be, persuaded by the proposition that society's problems could be remedied if only they could get published, land the job, and do the sort of well-meaning work they were born to do.

Come October the armies have been scattered, and it's each man, woman, and emotional child for him- and herself. Forget about contributing to the common struggle for justice at home and abroad. December exams are around the corner and they actually count this time.

As you chug along this perilous journey from myth to reality, we'll try to shine a light.

To start, we've done our darndest to keep you updated on the cloak-and-dagger dean selection process. At the risk of boasting, take note that last month in these pages 3L Ella Henry predicted the outcome of this top-secret affair.

"How did she know?" is the wrong question.

Who was it going to be, some lofty dead-poet-

quoting idealist who rises each day devoted to bringing justice to the masses? Don't make us laugh. Around here the smart money is always on the institutional candidate. You know, the one whose commitment to law is attenuated by a belief in market economies; the one whose dad you might have heard of.

Meanwhile our town is engaged in its own faux-meritocratic leadership exercise. In this issue, we report from inside McCarthys, where John Tory recounted to UTLaw students harrowing tales of trying to survive in the job market despite oppressive anti-nepotism rules (spoiler alert: he comes out just fine).

Our law school has been in a perpetual state of transition for a while now. Transition spaces, transition deans. New grading systems, first-year curriculums, and admissions policies. Perhaps with the appointment of Professor Edward Iacobucci, some coherent future for the school is on the horizon. Hopefully, his vision for the Faculty of Law will be clearer than the announcement of

his appointment (which was tucked away in an attachment to the body of a nondescript email, subject line: "Announcement from Cheryl Regehr, Vice-President and Provost"). But if it's not, we'll be here to break it down for you.

If this issue has a theme, let it be solidarity in the face of uncertainty. If disaster or inconvenience strikes and you need to get out of an exam, first you'll want to check out our report on accommodation policies. If you’re one of those 2Ls who is now a Person Who Has Survived OCIs, we can tell you just want to say, do, and carry with you in order to make it through in-firms.

OCIs are such a large part of our collective conscience here at U of T, that even if you didn’t actually march down the lonely halls of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre to take your place behind that soulless blue curtain, you are acutely aware of the fact that others did. We here at UV are guilty of perpetuating the supersaturation of OCI talk - just take a look at this issue’s cover, or tune in next month when we tell you how you did, in our an-

nual survey of the fall recruitment process.

In the spirit of thanksgiving (yes it has already passed, but it's a monthly paper, cut us some slack), we are thankful to 3L Robin Bates for overcoming her reluctance and sharing her views on getting public sector work, which is still a neglected area around here. We can all agree that our school needs to do a better job of supporting how to get employed outside that formal fall recruitment process.

If you're wanting for inspiration—and really, who isn't nowadays?—turn to our conversations with two leading women in Canadian law, including Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Abella. "You can’t experience everything," Abella tells UV's Tali Green, "but if you read good books, you can see what the world feels like to other people." Not bad.

Finally, a huge thanks to 2L Alex Wong for her excellent cover art. To all who will be dressing up and going firm-to-firm looking for thrills in November, we wish you few tricks, and many treats.

Faculty Affairs, Part 1 Applications Rebound KENT KURAN (2L) ACCORDING TO THIS YEAR’S UNDERgraduate Admissions Report, after seeing applications fall 20% over three years, applications to U of T Law rose for the first time since peaking in the 2009/10 application year, which had followed multi-decade growth. The 11% rebound, to “precisely” 2,000 applicants, followed a move to a more “holistic” admissions process, and increased outreach by former admissions director, Neel Joshi. Ontario law schools as a whole saw applications decline by about 10% last year.

Meanwhile, the Faculty’s yield rate dropped 15% due to a jump in offers made, while the admission rate rose by 6%. Ben Alarie, Associate Dean of First Year and Chair of the Admissions Committee, explained that this was partly attributable to a rise in deferrals and a broader pool of Canadian applicants from outside Ontario. “The first step is to get them to apply,” he said at the October 8 Faculty Council meeting (the first of the school year). “Of course, the second step is to get them to come and land them.”

The incoming Class of 2018, for which students are currently applying, will be the first to have a curriculum fully approved across Canada, starting from first-year. Previously, each of the provincial law societies had their own rules for approving law degrees. As a result of this change, U of T is seeking to become more of a national law school, a newer concept in Canada than the US. On whether cost pressures are a consideration for admittees, given the Faculty’s status as the most expensive law school in the country by a wide margin, Alarie did not believe it was a major factor. Instead, he speculated that the ongoing construction project, new first-year curriculum, and class beginning in August may have been factors. U of T Law is also competing with the rise of massive merit scholarships south of the border that make some top US schools less costly, if one has the grades and test scores.

The school reported that some matriculants have turned down scholarships of up to $150,000—available for top students—at lead-

ing US law schools.

Alarie also continued a series of information disclosures about the incoming class, claiming that the “the class profile is improving very significantly,” backed by historical data from the past decade. Alarie credited Arnold Weinrib, who chaired the admissions committee for 44 years before stepping down at the close of the 2011-2012 academic year, for “improving the trajectory of academic performance” at the law school.

“We are about twice as selective compared to a decade ago,” said Alarie at the meeting. When asked how Toronto compared with top US schools, Alarie explained that “because of the size of U of T’s class [of 200 students] with a population one-tenth of the US, it is like comparing us to a US school that is top-ranked with 2000 students.” For perspective, Harvard, Yale, and Stanford had a total of about 940 students for the Class of 2017.

This year also saw “no one admitted with less than a 4-year honors bachelor’s degree.” While

in the recent past, zero to one candidates were admitted without a degree, this year saw the category completely removed from the report.

Of note from the report were dramatic drops in engineering and math matriculants, from about fifteen total before the new admissions system was introduced (for the Class of 2016), to one each this year. “Arnold [Weinrib] probably admitted [more] than the data would support,” explained Alarie, who introduced a new system heavily based on data analytics when he assumed the committee’s chairship.

For the first time, the report also featured a racial breakdown of the class according to Statistics Canada definitions. (Note that students could choose more than one category.) For the entering Class of 2017, 3% self-identified as Aboriginal, 1% as Black, 1% as Latino, 5% as West Asian, 8% as South Asian, 15% as East Asian, and 64% as White. One percent chose “other,” and 3% chose not to report. The survey received a roughly 90% response rate.

Ultra Vires is an editorially independent publication. We are open to contributions which reflect diverse points of view, and our contents do not necessarily reflect the views of the Faculty of Law, the Students’ Law Society, or the editorial board.

Editors-in-Chief Editor-in-Chief, Emeritus News Editor Features Editors Opinion Editors Diversions Editor 1L Editors Web Editor Layout Editor

David Gruber & Paloma van Groll Emily Debono Brett Hughes Alex Carmona & Tali Green Marita Zouravlioff & David Pardy Alanna Tevel & Lisana Nithiananthan Michael Robichaud, Nathaniel Rattansey & Rona Ocean Ghanbari Aron Nimani Alyssa Dow

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NEWS

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OCTOBER 29, 2014 | 3

Faculty Affairs, Part 2 Tuition update and discussion BRETT HUGHES (2L) & MICHAEL ROBICHAUD (1L) AT THE OCTOBER 22 FACULTY COUNCIL meeting, Interim Dean Jutta Brunnée said she will recommend to the University administration that tuition fees be increased by 5% next year, the maximum legally allowable amount. This amounts to a $1,500 increase, making for total first-year tuition and other fees of at least $33,000.

Brunnée said it is not in her mandate, as Interim Dean, to deviate from the tuition framework set out by former Dean Moran, which calls for 5% increases until at least 2017. Because the Faculty continues to increase spending across the board, in areas such as salary and program support, with near zero growth in public funding, it has required that students directly shoulder an increasing share of costs.

While the annual tuition update has generally been a perfunctory affair, Brunnée followed through on a motion passed last year that “Faculty Council will discuss the proposed tuition rate changes on an annual basis in advance of the Dean’s recommendation about the following year’s tuition rate changes.” Although Faculty Council is described as the “governing body of the law school,” it plays no formal role in tuition decisions. The motion ensures that Faculty Council members—professors and Students’ Law Society (SLS) representatives—have an opportunity to engage in dialogue on the issue.

Interim Dean Brunnée facilitated a frank and open discussion. She emphasized the limited nature of her mandate, but pointed to the decision to stop giving first-year students more financial

aid than upper-years as an example of the shortterm changes that were possible. Perhaps with knowledge of the next day’s announcement, Brunnée said she was “confident” the new dean would “continue the discussion.”

Padraigin Murphy—Vice President, Student Affairs and Governance—opened the SLS presentation by focusing on the growing gap between tuition and financial aid. In the three-year period ending 2013-14, tuition increased 16.5%.

Over the same time period, according to the April 2014 “Financial Aid Report to Faculty Council,” the total pool of financial aid funds increased by only 5.5%. As a result, the percentage of deemed unmet financial need covered by bursaries has been falling.

Students with unmet financial need are expected to rely instead on credit obtained from private financial institutions. Although the Faculty will pay interest on some portion of private loans, it does nothing to ensure that students can access sufficient private credit in the first instance. Students may face challenges due to a lack of established credit, a lack of qualified cosigners, and credit ratings that don’t allow for a sufficiently large line of credit. The Faculty has turned away students in this situation.

Murphy illustrated the numbers with a personal story. Her credit rating suffered due to difficulties with undergraduate student debt. After deferring acceptance to U of T Law by one year, she increased her credit rating from “Poor” to “Good.” The Faculty’s preferred lender, Scotiabank, declined her Scotia Professional Student

Plan application three times—prior to deferring, as well as before first-year and second-year. Asked afterwards how she paid for first-year, Murphy said her parents, with their house as collateral, helped her obtain just enough to cover first-year costs with a credit union line of credit. Less than a month before the payment deadline, with that credit exhausted, Murphy was unsure how she would afford second-year.

Incoming dean, Professor Edward Iacobucci, said later in the session that it is “not acceptable” to turn away prospective students with credit issues, and that doing so is “not consistent” with the Faculty’s mission. More generally, Iacobucci said there are two separate issues: the “size of the pot” and “allocation of the pot.” The administration needs to look into both increasing the total funds, as well as evaluating the “trade-offs” in the distribution of available funds. For example, one might ask whether the 90/10 split between up-front financial aid and back-end debt relief makes sense.

SLS President Natalie Lum-Tai delivered the second half of the student presentation. She focused on the links between rising debt levels and students’ mental health. As a possible short-term goal, Lum-Tai advocated for moving up the Financial Aid assessment, or allowing upper-years to also receive preliminary assessments. This would facilitate better financial planning for students, and alleviate the stress of not knowing how much financial aid one will receive until the school year has started.

Lum-Tai also discussed the effect of rising tuition on students’ career choices. Structural pres-

sures from tuition debt, coupled with the Faculty’s underfunded back-end debt relief program, mean that students are not well positioned to pursue public interest work, she said. Lum-Tai stated that some employers report being less likely to consider U of T Law candidates, as the salaries they offer cannot service the debt load.

During open discussion, Professor Martha Shaffer suggested that it might be helpful to have a future Faculty Council meeting focus on the financial aid system, with a view to exploring and addressing some of these issues.

Future dean Iacobucci will have quite the mountain to climb if he hopes to make up for lost time, with so many years of the compounding gap seemingly locked in. Professor Ben Alarie highlighted this issue when he acknowledged, in response to a question, that the financial aid budget would often need to increase at a greater rate than tuition if the Faculty were to maintain accessibility levels.

The reason is two-fold. First, any changes to the socioeconomic composition of the class will affect aggregate unmet financial need. For example, admitting more low-income students in a given year requires a proportionally greater increase in the financial aid pot. Second, even if the class profile is identical year-over-year, students’ ability to pay will often not increase at the same rate as tuition. This may be due to stagnant parental income and increases in living expenses, for example. This would also call for a proportionally greater increase in the financial aid pot.

Accommodation Policy a Step in the Right Direction DANIEL CARENS-NEDELSKY (2L) IN RESPONSE TO GROWING STUDENT discontent with the Faculty of Law’s approach to accommodation, and a critical report produced by two recent graduates, the administration has introduced a written accommodation policy for the first time, which contains revisions to the previously unwritten policy.

Marcus McCann, co-author of the report with Krista Nerland, said it was encouraging to see this response from the administration. He believes that, whatever one’s opinions are on its substance, having the policy written down and easily accessible is a necessary first step to having an informed discussion about it. Moreover, he noted that the mere existence of written policies might reduce stress around accommodation. A common theme in the report was students’ anxiety over not knowing what was required of them by the process.

While there is lot to unpack about the policy, four key points are worth noting.

1. ACCOMMODATIONS ARE EXTRAORDINARY For the first time, there is a clear rationale behind the Faculty’s accommodation policy, “to provide reasonable accommodations to students who face serious exigent circumstances

that are beyond the student’s ability to anticipate or control.”

The policy document continues, “In the interest of fairness and equity to all students, accommodations are considered to be an extraordinary measure.” This is a dramatic statement.

It suggests students should presume at least moderate antagonism towards any accommodation request.

2. WRITTEN DOCUMENTATION ALWAYS REQUIRED With a narrow exception for deferred exams due to religious holidays, accommodation requests require written documentation. Furthermore, if you request a deferral for medical reasons, the relevant physician must fill out the specific form from the accommodations webpage; a general note will not suffice.

The policy also requires that the “medical documentation must establish that the student was examined and diagnosed at the time of illness, not after the fact.” This suggests, for example, that a general note from a psychiatrist stating that a student requires accommodation for depression is insufficient. It looks likely that a student will need a note connecting depression with the need for accommodation each and every time.

3. APPEALS There is now a clear appeals process. This may benefit students who feel they have been unfairly treated at the first instance. Students appeal directly to the “Appeal Committee of the Faculty of Law,” whose mandate is to “ensure the policies, regulations and standards of the Faculty and the University have been applied fairly and reasonably in the circumstances of the appeal.”

Of course, having recourse to an appeals committee will not necessarily improve students' access to accommodation. This is because, at the end of the day, it is still applying the "extraordinary circumstances" policy.

4. CONTINUED IMPORTANCE OF ACCESSIBILITY SERVICES Considering the Faculty’s focus only on “extraordinary” circumstances, the fourth general principle in the policy is important: “[t]his policy does not displace any accommodations assessed and deemed necessary by Accessibility Services at the University of Toronto.” Accommodations required by Accessibility Services trump—or at least supplement—the Faculty of Law’s policies.

With this in mind, it is worth paying atten-

tion to the advice provided by students in McCann and Nerland’s report: “[g]o to Accessibility Services or CAPS [Counselling and Psychological Services] right away; don't wait for Faculty process to fail.”

REACTIONS The Students’ Law Society’s (SLS) Vice President, Student Affairs and Governance, Padraigin Murphy—who was also last year’s Equity Officer—shared her views on the new policies.

Like McCann, she expressed tempered optimism, and was quick to note that the policies clearly respond to student concerns regarding the prior lack of transparency.

Murphy envisions the SLS’s current role as one of observation. This entails getting a sense of student responses to the new policies and, most importantly, carefully observing how the policies are actually implemented.

It is clear both McCann and Murphy saw potential for improvement. Murphy noted that the administration’s concerns over fairness seem to stem from the Faculty’s competitive grading system. She noted that “the school's stance is very understandable,” adding “but I do think it would Continued on page 4

NEWS/FEATURES

4 | OCTOBER 29, 2014

Professor Edward Iacobucci Appointed Dean

ACCOMMODATION POLICY A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION Continued from page 3 serve us all to think critically about it—we might even ask, when looking through a pedagogical or academic lens, whether it is best for students and the community to come at it that way.”

McCann was more critical of the policies themselves. He noted that the administration’s idea of fairness ran against that which he encountered when interviewing students. His understanding of students’ feelings is the belief that “a generous accommodations policy doesn’t demean other student’s hard work.” Adopting this approach may lead to many other changes suggested in the report, he said.

BRETT HUGHES (2L) ON OCTOBER 23, STUDENTS received a seemingly innocuous email from the Office of the Dean with the text “Please see the attached announcement from Cheryl Regehr, Vice-President and Provost.” With that, the sixmonth international search for the Faculty of Law’s tenth dean came to a close. Professor Edward Iacobucci will commence his renewable five-year term on January 1, 2015.

Iacobucci is a prominent law and economics scholar. His research interests include corporate law and competition law. He has a longstanding affiliation with U of T Law, completing his LLB at the Faculty in 1996 (as Gold Medalist), and returning as a professor in 1998. His father, former Supreme Court justice Frank Iacobucci, served as Dean from 1979 to 1983.

Although there is no formal campaigning for the position, particularly in light of the in camera selection process, Iacobucci and his supporters successfully positioned him as the frontrunner in the eyes of many Faculty members and University administrators as early as mid-summer.

Regehr’s announcement lauded his “lengthy history of service to the University and the

community.” She referred to his membership in the University’s Governing Council, being a Fellow-in-Residence at the CD Howe Institute (an economic think tank), and serving as past President of the Canadian Law and Economics Association. He has also served on the boards of directors for two large insurance companies and a self-regulatory organisation for the investment industry.

Three weeks prior to the announcement, the Students’ Law Society (SLS) held a town-hall meeting about the dean search. Interested students and four members of the search committee attended. Committee members present at the meeting indicated that the job posting was still open at that time and that feedback on “everything,” including candidate nominations or proposing questions to ask in the interview process, would still be valuable.

The indication that candidate nominations and interview questions were still welcome in the final three weeks of a six month process suggests several possibilities, including that the committee was willing to change its decision if the right alternative candidate was put forward, or that its decision-making accelerated significantly in the

ANALYSIS

subsequent weeks.

The defining features of former dean Moran’s tenure are likely to be her successful $50 million fundraising drive for the new building, and decisions to increase tuition by more than seventy percent throughout her time in office—from $17,280 in 2006-07, to $30,230 in 2014-15.

There will be significant interest in what Iacobucci says in the coming months as he articulates his vision for the Faculty, and what he hopes to achieve during his tenure.

At present, the leading suggestion for the new name of the Dean's monthly snack morning comes from Jordan Stone (2L): "Iacobucci's Fiduciary Snack Duty.”

Although Ultra Vires has been conducting preliminary research in anticipation of Iacobucci’s appointment, the unexpected timing means that more in-depth analysis will have to wait until the November issue.

In-Firm Interviews: What to Bring ULTRA VIRES EMAILED ALL THE students from the CDO’s 2014 Second Year Summer Student Employment Directory and asked for the most important things to bring with you on your in-firm week journey. Here are the chattels people found helped them soar to greatness (i.e. land jobs, bay-bee!).

4

Snacks: Cliff or granola bars, trail mix, juice (easy sugar and won’t get stuck in your teeth!) There will likely be food at the firms you visit, but it's helpful to have snacks with you while you're going from one interview to the next.

1 2 3

Pen/paper/notebook.

8 9 10

Phone.

Some way to charge your phone.

An iPad if you have it. If you have a spare half hour you can bang out a ton of thankyou emails (more so than on a phone) .

11 12 13 14 15

Advil.

Extra copies of transcripts/CV.

Kleenex.

Map of all the firms you’re going to.

Tide-to-go pen.

5 6

Floss/toothbrush.

Mouthwash/mints/gum…some say mint > gum, because you don't need to worry about spitting it out somewhere before an interview.

7

Lip balm (talking on end about how great you are gets dry…hah..hah..hah..?).

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Lint roller.

Umbrella.

A useful frame for thinking about the issue may be the concepts of formal and substantive equality. In many ways, the current policies express the idea of formal equality. Fairness means treating everyone the same as much as possible. McCann, on the other hand, prefers a policy informed by substantive equality, the idea that often fairness is achieved by treating people differently in accordance with their needs. Any accommodation policy will necessarily contain elements of both, but one’s perspective on the new policies will likely be influenced by the relative importance one assigns to each viewpoint.

While there is room for debate about the content of the policies, it is clear that having them written down is an important step. It will help students navigate the process, give critics something tangible to critique, and allow the SLS to more directly monitor whether policies are being applied fairly and consistently.

FOR THE LADIEZZZ 1. Extra tights/pantyhose 2. Bobby pins 3. A lipstick that is actually a tinted lip balm because your lips get so weirdly dry and also they are easier to apply if you are a baby such as myself.

4. I brought a really good caudalie face spray that probably made zero difference but spraying myself with it in the bad bathrooms in the PATH was probably the highlight of my in-firm experience.

5. Pair of flats 6. Band-Aids 7. Nail polish for touch ups 8. Makeup for touch ups 9. A nice looking bag to hold all of the above. Also a strong assistant who can carry around the nice looking bag filled with all these important things.

NEWS

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OCTOBER 29, 2014 | 5

28 Ways to #Win at In-Firm Week ULTRA VIRES EMAILED ALL THE students from the CDO’s 2014 Second Year Summer Student Employment Directory and asked them for the most important things to keep in mind during in-firm week. Here’s what people said. Keep in mind that interviewing is going to be different for everybody, so feel free to internalize or completely disregard all of the following heart-felt advice.

BOUTIQUE FIRMS The Importance of Being Interested 1. Express lots of interest. Make sure you know why you want to work there. They don’t make many offers, so they want to make sure you will accept it, if they do make an offer.

GENERALLY…

2. Obviously being enthusiastic about the particular firm is always important, but it is particularly important in the boutique context.

When a firm is only hiring 3-5 students, they need to know you won't turn down an offer.

1. Be yourself 2. Call a friend who has gone through the process already to check in and ask all of your inane questions (have them on stand by) 3. Don’t get emotional during the process— maintain a cool head

3. Boutique firms typically only hire one or two summer students a year and therefore will be hesitant to extend an offer to a student who they are not sure will accept it. If you really like the firm but are not 100% certain it is the place for you, let the firm know early on. If they really love you, they will work to convince you that they are the firm for you.

SETTING UP THE SCHEDULE 4. Don’t bite off more than you can chew.

Know your time constraints and know how many firms you can meet with per day. You don't want to be scrambling around because you'll just end up not interviewing to the best of your ability.

5. Don’t overextend yourself with in-firms— think carefully about what you can handle.

4. Make it clear that you are genuinely interested in the area of law that the firm practices. This is especially important if you have past experience in a different area of law.

No firm wants to feel that they are your back-up plan.

6. If you feel confident, don't be afraid of being strategic and turning down second (or third) interviews with your safety firm during interview week. It is way better to be awesome interviewing at three firms than okay interviewing at six.

5. Contrary to what the CDO says, firms are going to break all the rules (especially boutiques!) and that is Okay. Don't let anything throw you.

THE BASICS 7. Wear comfortable shoes.

6. Try to talk to a summer student or articling student at that firm - especially if you're interviewing at firms that aren't full service. For instance, my firm only did one interview (no dinners / no call backs)

8. Figure out your route ahead of time—including elevator bays!

9. Know your way from one interview to the next. If you're unfamiliar with where the firms are (i.e., most of you), Google Maps them or walk by the buildings before (this includes mapping out bathroom / food breaks) and print it out.

DO THE WORK

10. Don’t make or bring your own business cards.

ABO (“ALWAYS BE ‘ON’”) 11. Treat everyone around you with respect.

12. Be friendly to everyone you meet, including non-lawyers. Articling students, assistants, paralegals, and receptionists are all part of the firm and you're trying to create a positive impression with everyone.

13. Try to be as relaxed as possible and engage in conversations with the people you meet at the firm, whether or not you're being formally interviewed by them.

14. Have a short 30-45 second explanation for everything on your resume, including your interests. You never know who you're going to run into during the interview process and if you can't explain something on your resume, or at least have a conversation about the topic, it…

STRATEGY 15. Don’t ever give up on everyone other than your #1 choice because you feel secure—aim for 2 offers.

16. Do make an effort to find out who is on the Student Committee and meet those people.

17. Just because some of your interviewers (who may be on the Student Committee) like you, this does not necessarily mean an offer is coming. The entire Student Committee has to agree to make you an offer. So, keep your options open.

18. Communicate interest in the firm wherever possible.

19. Do attend cocktail parties even if you can only go for 30 minutes before dinner.

20. I heard a lot of horror stories about how firms will tell you “you are a shoo-in” and then not call, and as a result we should all keep our options wide-open. Personally, this line of thinking made things a million times more stressful—the firm I ended up at told me they were sold on the Monday, and I was pretty into them then and definitely sold as of Tuesday but I continued agonizing and leading other places on. In retrospect, it was really silly but I guess I’m not sure I could/would have done it any other way ultimately.

21. Definitely ask to come back to meet more lawyers. Think about specific people or types of

7. If you don't receive a second interview, it's not the end of the road. If you are really interested in the firm, you should call the firm to ask for a second interview. By doing so, you will be show the firm that you take initiative, have confidence, and are genuinely interested in the firm and the area of law they practice. The worst that can happen is that the firm will say no and you will be in the exact same position as when you called. There's really no downside.

8. Make sure your personality comes through in the interview. As a student at a boutique firm, you will likely get a chance to meet and work with almost all of the firm's lawyers.

The firm will therefore want to be sure before extending an offer that you are a good fit for the firm and that you will work well with your future colleagues. It's also important for you to feel as if the firm is a good fit for you as you should genuinely enjoy work.

Continued on page 16

FEATURES

6 | OCTOBER 29, 2014

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Justice Abella on Privacy, Decision-writing, and the Role of Law Schools TALI GREEN (2L) & BRETT HUGHES (2L) PHOTO BY NADIA GAO JUSTICE ROSALIE ABELLA KINDLY agreed to sit down with Ultra Vires before this year’s Grand Moot and answer a few of our questions. Two days before her tenth anniversary on the Supreme Court, we discussed everything from her love of scotch tape to why law students should read more novels.

BH: The Grand Moot problem is about privacy and technology. I was wondering if you can tell us how techsavvy the Supreme Court is. Are you on Facebook? Ello?

I think you are talking to probably the least tech-savvy person on the Supreme Court. The Court is very up-to-date on technology. They have most of their filings [online]. They try to accommodate the public, so they have been keeping up with new technology.

I, on the other hand, still write everything by hand, although I am on intravenous to my Blackberry—it’s my only real technological attachment.

Other than email, as grateful as I am to the Internet and Google, I just find that I think more clearly when I have a pen in my hand, and I do it word by word, sentence by sentence, and draft by draft.

The Court, I think, gets an A for its technological advancement. I personally have a barely passing grade, if at all.

BH: Do your clerks keep you up to date on what’s happening on social media?

The Court is not on Facebook. I have no idea what they do on social media…I’ll tell you how it works. It’s interesting, because I was very alive to the fact that this problem [privacy] is probably the next technological frontier. Over the last ten years that I have been on the court, I have seen how we are tracking technological advances.

The Court is always behind, and technology moving so quickly—I don’t mean “behind” in the sense that they are antediluvian in their approaches, but it is a passive institution.

We don’t initiate proceedings, so we have to wait for cases to come to us. Often, by the time the cases come to us, the world has moved on to a different kind of technology. We are doing it step by step, but with a very strong recognition that the world of privacy has changed because of the ease of intrusion that is possible now.

It’s breathtaking to think of a decision by Peter Corey in 1992, in a case called Wise, which was dealing with a GPS tracking device. Here we are, 23 years later, and we have moved through intrusions into computers, cell phones, metadata. We are just getting [cases] issue by issue, and trying to make sure that what we are doing makes sense, and protecting rights, while at the same time being alert to the realities of the technology. That takes, for all of us on the court, a great deal of research. We learn technology by technology, but we do learn, as with any case—you become an expert in every particular case. Then you build on what you’ve done in all the prior cases.

It’s a frontier, privacy. It was a sleepy area before Hunter v Southam, which was the provenance, I think, of most of our modern privacy law. If you look back on it, it was brilliant in the way it set out the parameters and the foundations that remain to this day.

We’ve just been building and building, and looking at aspects of…what does a reasonable expectation of privacy mean when there is so little privacy available? What is the role of the court, the role of the law, in allowing enough space for individual dignity and autonomy, but at the same time acknowledging public interests that may be countervailing?

TG: As a Supreme Court justice, a single one of your sentences can have a long-lasting impact on many Canadians. Can you discuss the process you go through to write your judgements and what it takes to be comfortable to have it published and out there?

I do many, many, many drafts of each of my judgements. I probably don’t even show it to a law clerk for three or four [drafts], although I get their help from the beginning. It is rare for me to show it to my colleagues unless I’ve done about ten drafts. I keep polishing it, knowing that, as someone who taught at McGill for five years, every sentence will be pored over. I want to make sure that it’s clear enough that it can be applied by trial and court of appeal judges, and that it makes sense in the context of the judgement.

That’s why I find having scissors and scotch tape, and page after page that I can make corrections on, [is so helpful]. Until I feel really good about it, it doesn’t get my colleagues’ eyes on it.

Once it does, it has never been the case, in my ten years on the court, that I have received comments that have not improved it. There is that wonderful expression, “fish don’t know that water’s wet”— sometimes you’re so immersed in it you can’t see anymore what it looks like. Because it is eight fresh sets of eyes, they always point out an inconsistency here, or that I may want to think about leaving this issue open for the next case, or did I realise that this may look like it’s contradicting a precedent?

That collegial input is done with enormous civility on our court, I must say. I don’t see civility as getting along—I see civility as being able to disagree graciously, and constructively. Even though I think [a draft decision is] okay, it gets polished further by the process of deliberation with colleagues. By the time you see it, and have it to pore over, it’s had a whole lot of attention.

Now, how do I feel about that lasting? Although our words are pored over, I think anybody who thinks they’re writing for the ages may be missing what their job is. We are writing partly for the future, but we have no right to expect that it will remain relevant in the future.

We are writing for the litigants and the law at a moment in time, bearing in mind the historical context, but being unable to predict the future.

The only time I remember being very consciously concerned about writing something that I hoped would last was the Royal Commission,

thirty years ago, on Equality and Employment. I had no expectation that it would be implemented, and was very surprised when it was. [I had] every hope that it would be continue to be a discussion document for years to come on issues of equality and discrimination. Thirty years later, all of that polishing paid off. It is still a discussion paper, and it is law in some places. The definition of equality that I spent a month on, compared to two months writing the other 280 pages, has become part of the law of Canada.

I never [write] thinking it’s going to be longterm. I’m always happy when it is something that takes root, but I’m not surprised when it isn’t.

TG: And do you ever have regrets?

None.

There’s no decision I wish I hadn’t made. There’s no career decision…and they were all very idiosyncratic, from family court, to the labour board, to the royal commission, to the law reform commission, to teaching. There was no rhyme or reason to it, and there was no end objective, which is why I felt free to do whatever opportunities came along.

I wasn’t measuring every opportunity against the possibility of [it being] good for my one day going to the Supreme Court, or bad for [it], because I knew that would never happen to somebody like me, so I had a wonderful, eclectic career doing things that were interesting.

BH: We’re searching for a new Dean. You’ve said that, with access to justice, we need to stop “tinkering around the edges” and ask: “if we were designing a system today, what would it look like?” What role should law schools play in this? What kind of dean do we need to help in that regard?

U of T has been really very lucky in the deans that it’s had, [including] the Dean that I had when I was here in 1967 [Ronald St John Macdonald]. So all I would say is that if you keep getting the quality of people you’ve had so far, you’ll be going in the right direction.

Generically, what do I think law schools

should be doing for law students? I think keeping their minds open to what the world looks like to the people they are helping, rather than looking at the world from the top down. It’s really about listening and paying attention. We tend, as lawyers, to clothe ourselves with expertise…well, we have expertise, but it doesn’t mean that we have all the answers.

I would like to see a legal education that focuses not just on the rules you need to know to give advice to people, but to understand that justice is the application of law to life. You need, as a lawyer, to have a fuller understanding of what life means for a whole lot of people, and that our privileged—and it tends to be privileged if you’re going to law school—life isn’t necessarily the life that you are serving as a lawyer.

It’s about justice. We’re the people who go to school to wave the banner of justice, and I would like to see a legal education that encourages people to think about the law as a justice tool. I don’t begrudge anybody the ability to earn a good living from law—I think that’s wonderful—but I think the bigger picture, the contributions that lawyers can make to the wider community in whatever way they want, is really important because of what you learn in law school about how to solve problems.

If you have on top of that a pretty good grounding in literature, culture, the arts…I think that would improve what you do. Because you can’t experience everything, but if you read good books, you can see what the world feels like to other people.

I also think there should be more emphasis on jurisprudence, and what I mean by that is more of an understanding, before you learn what the rules are, of why there are rules, what the system is supposed to be for, and what judges are supposed to be in a wider system when you have a constitutional democracy. If you have that before you learn what contracts and torts and criminal law are, you have a better understanding of why it matters.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

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OCTOBER 29, 2014 | 7

Lisa Borsook on Women, Work, and Why Firms Hire Students TALI GREEN (2L) WHEN YOU TALK TO LISA BORSOOK, you might be forgiven for feeling a bit…slow.

Her career timeline almost defies arithmetic—she was admitted to U of T Law at 19, done with law school and working by 21, and a WeirFoulds partner by 26. Perhaps the least surprising thing, then, is that Borsook was a wife and a mother of two when she became one of the first female managing partners of a major Bay Street law firm. Our conversation started with a frank discussion of women’s roles in the legal profession, and then took a turn for the more unisex topic of why firms really hire students.

from now and organizing your life around that. In the long game, you might have kids who are demanding, a partner who can no longer support you, or a loved one who is ill and needs your support.” So she suggests that a young lawyer with a young family should ask him or herself: “how do I want my life to look 10 years from now regardless of what happens to me and how do I do the best that I can to ensure that there are no catastrophic consequences from which I cannot recover?”

HELPING WOMEN THRIVE IN PRIVATE PRACTICE

We’ve been focusing on women’s career choices. But what do those choices look like from an employer’s perspective? Deep down, don’t firms just prefer to hire people who are less likely to take maternity leaves and/or rush home at 5pm? Borsook promises that firms do not hire women just to save face.

“Not having women in private practice is a crazy thing to do,” she says, and “it is bad business.” As more and more women are choosing to become in-house counsel and assume other roles, the future decision makers are going to be women. “I believe that they are going to want to work with other women,” she says, “other women lawyers.”

Speaking of employees who put firms in the red, though, it looks like students top the list.

“There are lots of ways in which, arguably, you could improve profitability—by not hiring women, by not hiring students, by not higher young associates,” Borsook imparts. “My clients today don’t want me to pay to train law students. They don’t want to pay me to train young associates.” Instead, she says, her clients might prefer that she just hire someone else’s fourth year lawyer “because they won’t feel that they are paying for their training.”

Genuinely shocked by the revelation that law student labour could be a sub-optimal expenditure, I wonder (out loud) why law students are hired at all. “I have had the privilege of working in a law firm,” Borsook explains, “that is prepared to sacrifice aspects of its profitability for what it considers to be a package of responsibilities to the larger community.” Those include responsibilities to the Law Society of Upper Canada to train students, and a responsibility to the larger community to perform work in ways that are not perfectly profitable.

But apparently they’re not just doing us a favour, either. “I would say that hiring students and associates is a matter of short term bottom line pain for great long term gain,” Borsook says. “When we have the opportunity to train young lawyers from the start, I like to think we end up with—this is a horrible way to put it—a better product.” Borsook finds that such “homemade” lawyers are more likely to understand the firm’s culture, respect its values, and be tested for “intelligence, thoughtfulness, creativity, endurance, and discipline.” A tall order from someone who definitely knows what it takes.

When she’s not managing law firms or cooking her family’s daily sit-down dinner, Borsook strives to find a way to help other women in private practice, because, as she says, “any firm that focuses only on the number of hours a lawyer sits in his or her seat is going to work to the detriment of women.”

Instead of the typical “year of call” process to partnership, her firm evaluates its lawyers based on a process called benchmarking. It establishes three career stages which, once accomplished, are supposed to make all of its lawyers eligible for partnership. “Even if it takes women 10 years to get to partnership, that’s fine. You don’t have to think that because you hit year 7, or whatever your firm’s pace is, and you didn’t make partner, that you’re out of the loop and you’re never going to make it.”

Besides untying partnership from year-ofcall, Borsook encourages associates to focus on adding to a firm’s bottom line—and not just their own timesheets. “There is probably a list of 20 different ways that you can contribute to the profitability of a firm—only one of which is billing a lot of hours. You can also do it by ‘making rain’ - by working on existing client relationships and developing them further,” she proposes.

WHY WOMEN SHOULD STAY AT WORK Borsook’s goal may be to reverse the trend of women leaving private practice to make more time for their families, but how relevant is career advice from someone who made partner at an age when most of today’s students are just graduating law school? What’s a recent law grad to do when her career and family ambitions seem to demand immediate attention at the same exact time? Borsook is sympathetic, and she supports modifying one’s career path depending on life’s demands. But she thinks that entirely stepping off that path for the sake of family is a total mistake: “Defining your career path and accepting that it’s going to take this long or that long before you do this or that—these are choices that I think that women should be making. The part I don’t get is to just resile from it all together. That’s a choice I have trouble with.”

While we can hear Sandbergian undertones, Borsook’s lean-in angle is designed to prevent toppling over. But still—why the zealous encouragement of spending motherhood at the office? “I have always played the long game,” Borsook explains. “The short game is thinking about where you want to be a year

WHY FIRMS REALLY HIRE WOMEN… AND STUDENTS

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I Work in the Public Sector (And So Can You!) ROBIN BATES (3L) THE LAST THING I EVER THOUGHT I would do at U of T was write for UV. I told a friend I had been asked to write this article and she responded (direct quote) “whoa…hahahaha.” I include this only to emphasize how passionately I feel about public sector work—I’m willing to do the totally unexpected and actually give back to my fellow law students.

FINDING MY WAY TO THE PUBLIC SECTOR Like so many of us, I came to law school thinking that I wanted to work in the public sector.

During my first year, I volunteered at a legal clinic and for a PBSC project committed to creating and promoting public interest opportunities for law students. During my 1L summer, I worked at the legal clinic where I had volunteered. Everything was on track; I was certain of my future in the public sector.

CIVIL LITIGATION My interview with Crown Law Office - Civil was substantive and consisted of a series of standard questions. The substantive questions covered issues relating to civil procedure and ethics. There were also behavioural questions requiring candidates to outline how they would approach various problems such as conflicting demands, organization, time management and ethical dilemmas. One particular question that is asked every year is "what is the role of Crown counsel?" The substantive and ethical questions can be prepared in advance by knowing something about civil procedure, LSUC's code of ethics and researching the duties of Crown counsel as opposed to a private lawyer.

The interviewers are looking for people who are capable of working independently but also aren't afraid to ask for help when necessary.

Remember, legal work is often team work.

There were also a series of questions asking about experience in litigation and general interest in civil litigation as opposed to criminal litigation. The interviewers want to know why you are interested in civil litigation particularly and what sort of experience you have. Legal clinic work and other practical experience in advocacy are highly valued.

The CLOC interview definitely requires substantive preparation but the questions are fair and not designed to trick anyone.

CRIMINAL Criminal law substantive government interviews require a lot of preparation – they can be pretty intense! I reviewed my criminal law notes from first year, my criminal procedure notes and evidence summaries from upper year students, as well as the sample questions provided by the CDO and a few recent SCC and ONCA cases.

The best advice I can give is to take a second and think about the question before you answer it. Most of the interviewers will allow you to skip the question and come back to it later if you can’t remember the answer right away.

The interviewers like to challenge you on your answers, even when you are right, so stick to your answers and be firm. If you do not know the answer, say so and then tell them how you would figure out the answer.

In government interviews, everyone feels that they got something wrong so don’t let that feeling get you down. And remember—unlike people doing private firm interviews, you get to go home and relax after the interview is done because there are no social events or call backs to stress you out even more! (Alana Pasut, 3L)

I bet you can guess what happened next. One night during my 1L summer, I downloaded the list of 2L summer employers who would be hiring through the November process—page after page of full-service firms, and no government Ministries/public sector employers that excited me. The public sector options were almost exclusively litigation-focused, and that was not what I wanted.

Swept along by a keen fear of unemployment, I applied everywhere that would let me do solicitor work. I did a lot of OCIs. I did a lot of in-firms. Endless interviews followed by endless dinners. To be honest, it was all a blur by that point. The only moment I can remember with clarity is a thought I had when I was walking Wednesday morning from one 3rd (or was it 4th…) interview to the next—“what the hell am I doing here?“ Needless to say I didn’t get an offer Wednesday evening.

After a bit of cold calling and a lucky break, I landed a 2L summer position in the private sector. At that point, I didn’t even care where it was because I was so happy to be employed.

I tried to put my original dream of public sector to bed.

I started my 2L summer job. It was fine—really. One day, out of curiosity more than anything, I checked the CDO articling guide. Wow. All of the public sector organizations and government Ministries that I had been so excited about in 1L were hiring. There were dozens of places I wanted to apply. The rest is history—I turned down my firm’s articling offer, applied broadly to public sector employers and ended up with my dream position. It happened for me and it can happen for you.

LEGAL CLINICS (LEGAL AID ONTARIO) If you're interviewing at LAO, make sure you're familiar with its mandate, including its governing statute. It's a scored panel interview, primarily behavioural, but there are some semi-substantive questions. (There is not, however, a fact pattern as you may encounter in some MAG interviews). LAO only does the one interview; you won't have to go to all kinds of awkward crappy events or jump through stupid social hoops that are designed to monopolize your time.

LINE MINISTRIES AND “OTHER” PUBLIC SECTOR EMPLOYERS A “line Ministry” is a provincial Ministry that implements government programs and policies in a particular area. Examples include the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing (alas, there is no Ministry of Magic in Canada.) “Other” public sector employers include places like the City of Toronto.

Different line ministries and “other” public sector employers have different interview techniques, although important similarities exist.

You will primarily be asked behavioural questions: either how you would respond to a particular hypothetical situation or an example of a time when you exhibited a certain quality.

While you should know the general jurisdiction of the employer and what they do, it is unnecessary to memorize a long list of statutes that the employer administers. You will likely be asked about current issues facing the Ministry.

Like other public sector employers, it is acceptable to skip a question and return to it later. This is less useful, however, since most questions won’t really have a “right” or “wrong” answer. (Robin Bates, 3L)

If you decided not to consider public sector work based on the options available during the 2L recruit, consider giving public sector work a second thought. At least in my opinion, the most exciting public sector employers wait until the articling process to hire students. If you do take a private sector 2L summer job, remember that you don’t have to accept an articling offer. Be proactive about your future; don’t feel confined by past choices.

THE NITTY-GRITTY OF PUBLIC SECTOR WORK Now that I’ve hopefully piqued your interest in public sector opportunities, I want to focus on some of the things that may be holding you back. Many students are scared of a public sector career, at least initially, because they think they won’t be paid well, the work won’t be challenging or that it will be hard to get a long-term position. There is partial truth in these concerns.

Pay—Public sector employers have widely varying pay scales for summer and articling students. The good news is that much of this information is available online. The short answer is that you will be paid less than if you were working on Bay Street. However, in almost all cases you will be paid a comfortable salary that allows you to service your law school debt. For instance, articling students for the Province of Ontario or Federal government are paid approximately $1,200/week.

Calibre of work—At almost any public sector employer, both the people you work with and the work you do will be top-notch. If you are interested in criminal work, this is self-evident.

For other areas, it is only necessary to remember that the Federal and Provincial governments (and the City of Toronto) have incredibly complex litigation, transactional and policy work needs. Most public sector employers have relatively small numbers of summer and articling students. This, combined with the lack of formal “billable hours” gives students the opportunity to work more closely with senior lawyers on interesting, complex work.

Long-term career prospects—The future is inherently uncertain. Unfortunately, it is especially uncertain for public sector lawyers.

Getting hired into a permanent position by most public sector employers is an ordeal. Politics and budget play an outsize role in comparison to your actual job performance. Most likely, you’ll have to suffer through several short-term positions before you are offered a permanent position. The same, however, is true of the private sector. No firms guarantee hireback, and even for firms with high hireback percentages, many first year associates quietly leave within their first year. It’s also necessary to remember that many public sector legal positions have a direct private sector counterpart—if you summer and/or article in the public sector, you are a competitive candidate for equivalent private sector work. Compared to your peers in big firms, you likely gained more of the practical skills required by the types of employers who typically hire young lawyers.

THE MECHANICS OF GETTING THE JOB Now that I’ve convinced you to give public sector work a second glance and addressed some of your fears, here’s a practical guide to landing your dream public sector position.

Different public sector employers have incredibly different interview styles and procedures. For example, take these three interview experiences I had in the public sector: • Employer #1: 1st interview—30 minutes, primarily behavioural questions and a simple question about what the office does. 2nd interview—cocktail reception for 2 hours, one-onone discussion with head of office. 3rd interview—lunch with senior legal counsel and head of office.

• Employer #2: 1st interview—10 minute prepared presentation, (“why hire me?”), 20 minutes behavioural questions and a question about the challenges facing the office. No additional interviews.

• Employer #3: 1st interview—40 minutes behavioural questions (no substantive questions).

2nd interview—15 minute tour of the office.

As you can see, the interviews are typically shorter than private sector interviews. 2nd and 3rd interviews are less common, but do exist.

While the public sector does not have a uniform interviewing approach, a few general pieces of advice apply across the board: • Many employers will send you detailed instructions about the interview process and tell you how to prepare. Read these emails carefully! Respond to the email and ask for clarification if necessary.

• Reach out to upper year students to get more information about the interview process at the particular place you will be interviewing. The CDO can provide you the name of a student who interviewed with a particular employer.

• The CDO has a really useful guide filled with sample interview questions for each employer. In my experience, this guide is spot on. In short, be prepared to answer: • Why do you want to work here?

• W hat are three challenges facing the employer?

• Please explain an SCC decision of your choice.

• While public sector interviews are intended to be a non-biased assessment of your skills and knowledge, be sure to show your passion for public sector work in general, and that employer in particular.

• It is impossible to be too prepared for a public sector interview. When in doubt, prepare some more.

With the help of other great 3Ls, I have compiled detailed preparation suggestions for the largest public sector employers:

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OCTOBER 29, 2014 | 9

2014 Grand Moot Focuses on Privacy Rights, State Surveillance BRETT HUGHES (2L); PHOTOS BY NADIA GUO (3L) AS IS TRADITION, THIS YEAR’S GRAND Moot—“Tracking Data, Privacy and the Charter”—was a ripped from the headlines case.

The problem featured the shadowy leader of a decentralised criminal organisation, tracking data on thousands of mostly innocent “Flavellians,” and a leak to a news organisation about the surveillance. Previous Grand Moot problems have drawn inspiration from Breaking Bad and the G20 arrests.

Pursuant to Criminal Code amendments in the Protecting Flavellians from Online Crime Act, Flavelle’s national police obtained tracking data on 20,000 Flavellians who passed through an airport. The police hoped to use the data to catch the leader of a gun-smuggling ring.

Lauren Harper (3L) and Daniel Urquhart (3L) represented the appellant, the Flavelle Privacy Advocacy Centre (FPAC), and argued that this constituted an unreasonable search under section eight of the Charter. They focused on the number of persons targeted and the intimate nature of the information that can be revealed through location data. Examples included religious affiliation (from visits to a place of worship) and personal relationships (from repeated visits to certain houses or apartments).

Samuel Greene (2L) and Kathleen ElhattonLake (3L) represented the respondent, Her Maj-

esty the Queen, and argued that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in tracking data, or in the alternative that the search was reasonable. They argued that the tracking data is anonymous and is not identifiable without a warrant unless the owner of a phone publicly shares the phone number. They also focused on the importance of balancing privacy rights with the “legitimate needs of law enforcement.”

The panel of special guest judges was comprised of three alumnae: Justice Rosalie Abella of the Supreme Court, Justice Gloria Epstein of the Ontario Court of Appeal, and Justice Bonnie Croll of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.

Attendees learned that tracking data from Justice Epstein’s phone may be of limited utility as it is often misplaced, and has even been lost at a Blue Jays game. Justice Epstein asked Lauren Harper about the possibility of the phone’s tracking data not necessarily matching its owner’s location.

Harper informed Justice Epstein that “normal people” keep their phone on them at all times.

Co-Chief Justices Jennifer Bates (4L) and Christophe Shammas (3L) organised the event, which included developing the problem in collaboration with professors Lisa Austin, Hamish Stewart, and Simon Stern.

Shammas pointed to two main inspirations: “We based it mostly on Bill C-13 and the recent

Turn the page for more Grand Moot photos!

CSEC airport Wi-Fi case.” Bill C-13 is also known as the Protecting Canadian Canadians from Online Crime Act, and known for Vic Toews’ “with us or with the child pornographers” comments (referring to an earlier iteration of the Bill). Its constitutionality has been put in doubt following the Supreme Court’s decision in R v Spencer.

The second part refers to class-action litigation launched by the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) challenging the Communications Security Establishment Canada’s (CSEC) interception of private communica-

tion by Canadians and large-scale metadata collection on Canadians. The case was bolstered by revelations from Edward Snowden that CSEC tracked the wireless devices of Canadians who accessed Wi-Fi at a major Canadian airport for days after leaving the airport. (CSEC is supposed to conduct foreign surveillance, not domestic.)

Shammas said he was "glad that the Law School had the opportunity to see the hard work and dedication that the mooters put into the Grand Moot.

They were able to bring a difficult set of facts to life through their very able submissions."

Be who you are.

Law is what we do, but it doesn’t define us. We’re looking for individuals who are passionate about everything in life, including being a lawyer.

If this sounds like you, please check us out at www.torys.com to learn more about us.

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Embrace Toronto

Drinking with Dinosaurs at the ROM’s ‘Friday Night Live’ SAMUEL LEVY (1L) THE ROM (ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM) may be minutes away from campus, but in my four years at Victoria College it never struck me as a place to visit after the school day. Would my younger self believe that the ROM might become the place to party on a Friday night?

On October 10th, the ROM launched the fourth season of its popular ‘Friday Night Live’—or #FNL—party series. For eight Fridays in a row, in the Spring and the Fall, the ROM opens its doors and galleries to the public from 7PM-midnight. A crowd of students and young professionals fills the historic space, and is treated to a classy night of food, music, bars and great company. I went on October 17th and, alongside students in sweatpants, young Bay Street lawyers and disoriented Parisian tourists (yes, these were the people next to our group in line), I was excited to see what this was all about.

Using our ROM Bucks, purchased ahead of time to avoid the long line, we enjoyed $6 drinks from the many bars scattered throughout the museum. With our remaining funds we sampled creations from local food companies: a pulled pork roti from the Me.n.u food truck booth and Yukon Gold Potato fries from JK Frites. We enjoyed our spoils both on the busy dancefloor, and later in one of the quieter, candle-lit seating areas. And did I mention that this all happened next to dinosaurs? #FNL goes beyond the typical club experience by leveraging the content of one of North America’s largest museums. The ROM’s many exhibits and galleries are on full display, blending seamlessly with the swanky scene.

Each night has a theme, related to the ROM’s other programming; last week was ‘Africa Alive,’ inspired by the ROM’s ‘Of Africa’ programming initiative. The night’s features included DJs spinning a mix of House and Yoruba music, a catwalk featuring Bakuba cloth—made from the raffia palm tree—a live drumming circle and dinosaur fossils dating back an unfathomable 190 million years. We also made sure to check out the mainstays, such as the Biodiversity Gallery, dinosaur fossils and (of course) the Bat Cave.

There was something for everyone.

Connie MacDonald, the ROM’s Assistant VP of Programs and Events, and director of #FNL, remarks that #FNL has allowed the ROM to reconnect with a younger demo-

graphic (19-34), a group that is traditionally disengaged from the museum community: “Previously we did things for families, school groups and seniors, but not for young adults. [#FNL] is designed to speak to a group of people that we haven’t focused on in the past, allowing them to connect to the museum in a way that’s meaningful to them.”

She notes that with the modernization of the ROM building (vis-à-vis the ‘ROM Crystal’ extension) and the rapid development of the BloorYorkville area, now is the perfect time to reintroduce the ROM to younger Torontonians.

MacDonald observes that #FNL is part of a larger trend of museums and galleries around

the world reaching out to students and young professionals. The list includes the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, as well as the Australian Museum in Sydney, from where current ROM Director Janet Carding hails. In Toronto, another recent initiative is ‘First Thursdays’ at the Art Gallery of Ontario, which combines its world-class installations with live performances for a truly unique outing. All of these, MacDonald notes, illustrate a push from museums and large-scale institutional venues to become “meaningful and relevant” to young people again.

Whether you plan to burn a couple of hours

before heading downtown, or spend the whole night, #FNL doesn’t disappoint. Looking at incredible collections and artifacts—drink in hand—in this eclectic, after-hours setting, you can’t help but be excited to be back at the ROM; you’ll probably wonder what took you so long. #FNL runs until November 28. To find out more and buy tickets go to http://www.rom. on.ca/en/activities-programs/rom-fridaynight-live. The ROM is also free for students on Tuesdays.

Report from a Harrowing OCI ALEX CARMONA (2L JUST BEFORE STEPPING INTO THE booth for my first on-campus interview, I stopped to compose myself—straighten the tie, swipe the hair, try to get my heart to stop thundering in my chest, the usual. Then, for a splitsecond, I was overcome with an almost unsuppressible case of the giggles when the curtained-off booths reminded me of an old Wizard of Oz quote: PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN. This was probably the last gasp of my stress-addled brain before entering the gauntlet. The imposing convention centre and maze-like booth town had done little to calm my nerves at first glance. "I am not prepared

enough," I thought to myself. “Why didn’t the CDO prepare us more?” Thankfully the giggles passed and I proceeded to have a lovely 17-minute interview, mostly about things that had nothing to do with my resume.

Since I was lucky enough to have my first three interviews back-to-back-to-back, I left that interview straight into another, and found myself a little less nervous—a little less paranoid about whether my nametag was crooked or if my belt was off-centre. Repeat, ad nauseum, until I reached a point where I was so relaxed I almost walked into my last interview without checking what number booth I was in.

Since the start of 1L, the OCI process has

accrued a very strange status. It is, for many, the gateway to the first real legal position of their career, and therefore extremely important. But that is tempered on a near-constant basis with reassurances from upperclassmen and the CDO that OCIs really aren’t that bad.

In fact, they are sometimes peddled as downright enjoyable. Being a paranoid 2L, I nodded and filed that under the “says you” column. I can assume with confidence that the same goes for many of my classmates.

These statements were, of course, proven to be entirely accurate. Yet, for some strange reason, I don’t begrudge the paranoia of the days, hours, and yes, seconds, before interviews be-

gan. There is a kind of catharsis, I think, that is good for the soul once 5:00 finally hits on that second day. Not in the sense that you’ve conquered a monumental task—the results aren’t in, and there’s plenty more to worry about before Offer Day. The value comes from realizing from experience that, sometimes, the world truly isn’t as scary a place as it seems.

Job interviews can be pleasant. Murphy’s Law doesn’t always apply. Everything really will be alright, not just in the end, but in the beginning and middle as well.

Then again, I’ve only gone through the beginning. Let’s talk after in-firms.

OPINIONS

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Point | Counterpoint

New System vs. Old System AKA Semestergate HARRISON CRUIKSHANK (2L) & ARON NIMANI (2L)

Harrison: Nothing says, “we care, but not quite enough to do anything while changes can be made”, like an article about implementing semesters at the law school after they’ve already been put in place. Granted, not knowing exactly what it was going to look like made it hard to utter anything other than, “well, at least it won’t be worse than what we have now… right?” WRONG! …maybe.

I sat down with my learned, esteemed, and all around good-guy (AAGG) colleague Aron Nimani to discuss the new system as compared to the old. He has the first word on the subject.

Aron: Harrison, in his graciousness, is letting me have the first word here because he is a cool and nice guy – the standard product of last year’s system. You change the system, and you change the level of Harrison in the class. Bad news. But I’ll get to that. First of all, let’s talk about…

1. PEDAGOGY Aron: First and foremost, we are here to learn, so how the semester system affects education should be our top concern. A piecemeal approach to our education really just means a piecemeal education.

Criminal informs Constitutional, Tort informs Contract, Contract informs Property, which in turn informs Constitutional, Torts, and Criminal, which is connected to the hip bone, and so on.

Sure you can take only Crim and Contract at the same time and convince your profs to give you an HH, but what will you have learned? Well, Crim and Contract law. I guess. But not how private and public law really work as wholes, so how will you remember anything? Let’s face it, if law doesn’t pervade your every waking moment of every day, you won’t learn. And that’s not going to happen if you aren’t immersed in it.

UNMARKED PRACTICE EXAMS! Law school is tough. Law school exams are different.

An unmarked practice exam just doesn’t take the place of a screw-the-pooch-without-consequence provisional December exam. There are people who flunked December fail-safes who are now judges. No, seriously. Judges!

What happens now? Well Ontario’s answer-

to-the-articling-crisis “LPP” is getting rolling just as we put all the pressure on you in December. Coincidence? You decide.

Harrison: Look, I have to concede the advantages of cross-pollination to Aron, but what the semester system lacks in imparting a holistic view of the law (and let’s be honest, we’ve got three years to develop that) it makes up for in skills-training. Legal Research and Writing? That’s a real course now!

With grades! Students are shown its importance via the threat of failure, or worse: low failure. In my year it was a thing you maybe-sometimes went to on Friday morning unless you were too hung-over.

Being an obnoxious keener, I never missed an 8:30 am lecture. My reward? A final assignment with no grade and a single line of feedback: “good luck on exams”. I didn’t figure out how to use the McGill Guide until April, because I assumed I had done it correctly in that class (oh how wrong I was). (Editor’s note: use www.intra-vires.com) In addition to actually being taught research and writing as the website promised me lo those many years ago, the 1Ls also have that sweet new intensive course! Sure, it cuts off two valuable weeks of summer, but those weeks are spent chillin’ with Dawood, Alarie, and TwoOne-Time Jeopardy Champion Anthony Niblett! I mean, how much are tickets!? Well, $30,000… but they come with a free year of law school and the skills necessary to actually know what to do in said school! Cherry deal.

2. JOB PROSPECTS Aron: Who are we kidding with that last part?

First and foremost, we’re actually here to find a way to pay off the debt that comes with being here. Where do I begin? How about everyone’s favourite! You know what’s missing in this new curriculum? Admin law. You know how many employers want you to understand Admin law?

Literally all of them. I love the 1L class, they’re great, but they’re no longer special compared to every other 1L class across Canada.

How about our provisional grades? 1Ls used to be able to tell employers how they did in December. I mean 5 courses on the go and check it

Report Back from the John Tory Event AMIR TORABI (2L) AS THE MAYORAL ELECTION HEATS up, lawyers from McCarthy Tétrault and a handful of students from the Faculty of Law gathered on the 53rd floor of the TD Bank Tower to join in discussion with then-mayoral candidate and now-New Mayor of Toronto, John Tory.

Tory began the afternoon lunch session with an anecdote about his own job search while he was in law school—fitting as OCI season was in full flight. His eyes were always set on a position at Torys LLP, a firm founded by his grandfather and where his father and uncle also worked. Tory

mentioned that, after graduating in 1978 from Osgoode Hall Law School, he was unsure if he would be allowed to article at the firm given rules potentially preventing partners from hiring family. For him, McCarthy Tétrault would have been the second best fit. Given this adoration with McCarthy Tétrault, Tory naturally seemed in his element while speaking passionately about his platform points. Tory also took questions from the audience and spent some time taking pictures and speaking to individuals.

Though many in the audience seemed to be

out! Now? They’ll be able to tell employers they can handle 3 things at a time, just like everrrryone else. If that’s not a demonstration of a solid work ethic, what is? Oh right, last year’s system.

Harrison: While I agree with Aron that not having Admin law means you’re more like the rest of Canadian 1Ls, you’re still different in one important respect: you’re at the University of Toronto! Everyone at the school is gonna get a job.

Whether it be big-firm, small-firm, government office, or the local Starbucks, you will get hired!

As much as we would like to obsess over them, little changes to the curriculum really aren’t going to affect job prospects because what’s still way more important than what courses you take is what you take away from your courses. Also, last I checked a semester-based system didn’t reduce the number of clinics and journals available to you, so just make the most of the experience.

Also, I don’t know about you, but I think 3 actual grades will be more useful than 5 provisional grades for getting hired for any 1L keeners.

Would you rather have 3 actual donuts or 5 provisional donuts? THOSE DONUTS MIGHT DISAPPEAR. DON’T TRUST THEM. 3. STRESS Aron: You know what builds solidarity? Challenges. Sure, five or six final exams in a month can be stressful, but it’s unique and we’re all in it together. Do you feel like you’re sharing something special with someone else also facing only two exams in a month? Yeah? No, probably not.

The school has been pretty tough on student stress levels over the years. You know, doggie days (well, one doggie day. We don’t want to overdo it), yoga, smoothies. Heavy hitting stuff.

Now, they would love for us to believe that the new curriculum will reduce stress, but who are we kidding? Everyone here knew it’d be hard work, and that the exam period would be rough.

You know how long those last? Eight months and one month, respectively. You know what’s going to last for years? The elephant in the room the administration won’t talk about. Sorry guys, few-

Tory supporters, the event wasn’t void of tough questions for Mr. Tory. While overlooking a packed Gardiner Expressway and traffic during the lunch hour on a Tuesday, Tory was questioned about his plan to ease congestion in this city. He spoke of the senseless decisions made to close main roads on weekends where all three major sports teams in this city are playing. Tory vowed to ensure that these decisions would be made wisely and with consideration under his administration.

Tory also took the time to promote his SmartTrack plan, which has been a heavy talking point in this election. In the preceding weeks Olivia Chow had hammered Tory about whether SmartTrack development in a portion of his plan would result in the demolition of homes and community centres. In previous debates, Tory failed to outright deny this assertion. At this event, he proclaimed that these accusations were false and that Olivia’s claim was ridiculous. What may have been a more persuasive answer would have been an explanation of how this portion of his transit plan would be built, if not through expropriation. Nevertheless, Tory has conceded that he will find a way to solve these problems that are a natural result of any large-scale construction project, rather than find excuses not to proceed.

Just when it seemed Mr. Tory would get away from this event scot-free, an avid cyclist in at-

OCTOBER 29, 2014 | 13 er classes at a time don’t solve the problem most of us are actually having.

Harrison: These 1Ls have two exams in December! TWO!!! Some of them are done on December 12th and have three weeks holiday!

THREE!!! I’m not saying the 1Ls I’ve met aren’t awesome, but I am saying I began indiscriminately hating all of them when I found this out.

No amount of yoga, smoothies, or puppies (though more puppies please one day of puppies is not enough puppies) gives you what you really need in 1L: time. Just a few more hours/week to spend on extracurriculars, job research/apps, meaningful human interaction, and puppies (more puppies please, also kitties) can do wonders for a body. Having approximately one course less per term and less than half the exams gives the 1Ls this time.

I agree that this doesn’t address the underlying issues that lead to our stress, but we’re lawyers! We don’t address underlying issues of anything! At least this does something.

You know what else builds solidarity? I DON’T BUT THE 1LS HAVE SO MUCH EXTRA TIME I’M SURE THEY’LL FIGURE IT OUT. 4. CLOSING REMARKS Aron: So we’ve talked about learning, we’ve talked about jobs, we’ve talked about stress. Let’s talk about Harrison. Ultimately you have to decide whether you want to trust the guy on the cover of the admissions booklet telling you the administration is wrong, or the guy abandoning this school and this city for New York telling you the administration is right.

I’m not saying Harrison’s opinion is a bad choice.

I’m just saying his brain is obviously scrambled.

Harrison: Aron’s right, my brain is indeed scrambled, and to the point that I speak almost entirely in Simpsons quotations. I place the blame squarely on not having a semester-based 1L! In fact, scientists have also proven that not having semesters in 1L makes one less attractive physically, and while the new 1Ls speak in a well-educated manner, upper years tend to use lowbrow expressions like "Oh Yeah?" and "C'mere a Minute!".

Plus, are you gonna listen to Aron? The only reason he’s even on the admissions booklet is because DSB isn’t at the law school this year.

5. DSB Aron:….I’ve got nothing. No point. Harrison?

Harrison: Word on the street is that DSB defected to Ivey in protest of the new semester system.

Frankly, we’re better for it. #NODSB

tendance questioned whether Tory had any focus on making Toronto more bicycle friendly given his heavy focus on SmartTrack. Tory spoke of his ride-along meeting with the executive director of Cycle Toronto, Jared Kolb.

Tory pledged to create a network of separated bike lanes in sensible locations and to increase the amount of bicycle parking facilities, which seemed to resonate with the cyclist.

What the event was void of was of any mentions of the Fords—both of the Doug or Rob variety. Tory seemed focused on his own platform and keen on remaining detached from the other candidates—likely a result of his lead in the polls.

This event provided a great opportunity to address Mr. Tory in a non-hostile environment. Tory was very happy to see law students from the Faculty of Law and took the time to speak with many of them, asking about their experience in law school thus far. Given the nature of the event, seen as a supporting event for Tory’s campaign, it is unreasonable to expect the audience to have asked the tough and challenging questions we demand of politicians in debates and in the media. However, Tory’s ability to resonate with a room full of lawyers and law students bodes well for his ability to sell this city in the future, should he be elected.

14 | OCTOBER 29, 2014

OPINIONS

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Forging a Space for Female Corporeal Autonomy in the Law NADIA GUO (3L) MALI POUTED SULTRILY IN GARTERS and thigh-highs as she took turns lounging on the various pieces of dusty furniture littering the room. We were in the fireplace lounge in Flavelle House, a space the Faculty of Law uses to serve wine to society’s elite, or something.

Only weeks prior I had shot portraits of esteemed members of the Canadian bench for Ultra Vires in this room. Justices Abella, Epstein, and Croll had posed on the same old upholstered armchairs—albeit in less promiscuous poses.

This time we were there on our own accord.

The chairs on which judicial robes had once nestled now carried Mali’s caramel-soft haunches. The trench she wore was pulled back on quick enough to dispel any potential suspicion from pesky faculty members who happened to interrupt.

You see, Mali needed photos for her new website. If you’re charging $300 an hour to help a john forget about his mediocre wife and kids, and his suicide-inducing 80-hour week—well, that toothpaste-stained mirror selfie simply wouldn’t do. I suggested to Mali that posing amidst the richness of the velvetcarpeted drawing room graced by Supreme Court judges would undoubtedly warm the lap of any potential client. “His wallet, too,” Mali winked.

Yet these photos weren’t just about reclaiming the full value of the unoffered perks of studying at a school that cost us more than $30,000 a year to attend (let me remind you this is also a school that flatly refused to offer a cent of financial assistance to letter of permission transfers like myself ). No, our photographs were decidedly both a visual and conceptual protest against the denial of female sexual autonomy in legal institutions. You see, as women of colour with strong sexual wills, we were tired of stuffy old white men calling the shots about how and when and for what purpose we could offer up our bodies for consumption. Unfortunately, stuffy old white men are all too prevalent in the legal realm and beyond. Peter MacKay, whose beady eyes look as if they in constant danger of being swallowed up by the rest of his face, is one example of this species. His love child, Bill C-36, which passed into law earlier this month, is exactly the puritanical, sexist drivel we wanted to smear our menstrual blood over before burning at the stake (we’d never burn our bras, though—that shit is expensive).

The kind of patronizing ideology that drives Bill C-36 is familiar to any young woman trying to forge a space for herself in the legal profession. On a macro level, the new laws are another (futile) attempt to control the selling and buying of sex. It’s the Conservative Party’s way of continuing its fear-mongering against sex work despite Bedford. On a closer examination, however, the laws ultimately stem from plain old traditionally sexist notions about how women should and shouldn’t exercise their corporeal autonomy.

This is a message I’ve been pummelled

with since beginning my legal career, both explicitly and implicitly. I’m on the brink of joining the criminal defence bar—the oldest of the old boy clubs. From day one, professional mentors and peers alike were overly preoccupied with telling me what I should and shouldn’t wear, what I should and shouldn’t be saying, what my voice should sound like when I am saying it. How could I forget that time my former employer—himself blessed with a grating, nasal whine— dragged me into his office to bleat into my face that I needed to stop “speaking like a child.” In the legal profession, people expect you to conform above all else, and this is all the more true for women. They certainly did not want my ‘sing-songy’ outspokenness tarnishing their perfectly bland firm reputations.

The profession obsesses with disavowing women their various bodily manifestations.

Consider the “scandal” surrounding Justice Lori Douglas—she who dared to explore her more adventurous sexual desires like any healthy, sexually-functioning human being would. Numerous commentators focused solely on the photographs, where Justice Douglas appears in bondage gear, as “evidence” of a lack of judicial integrity. Because you know, judges don’t have sex like normal people? Because someone who is overtly sexual cannot also possess intelligence and a sharp mind?

In the Bill C-36 narrative, sex work is dirty and its participants are always unwilling “victims.” Mali scoffs as she reads this. Politicians prostitute themselves every day to get votes.

Who’s really being degraded here? The language in Bill C-36 is focused on helping sex workers “exit” prostitution—a position Mali finds hilarious given how in a couple of hours, she makes what an articling student sweating on Bay St makes in a week. If a john wanted to pay her to kick his balls in Louboutins for three hours straight, why should the law prevent him? How about helping people exit the fast food industry? Or perhaps the wrath of unpaid summer internships (read: slavery) some law students are only too familiar with? If politicians like MacKay were really concerned with classism and increasing poverty in this country (lol), there is a plethora of ways to address those problems without criminalizing how sex workers make ends meet, or you know, pay for their overpriced law degrees.

Evidently, the female body needs to stake its own claim on space within the legal system, on its own terms. No one was going to make room for us, so we went and took it for ourselves. The Faculty of Law is where unfortunate lawmakers like Peter MacKay are bred to fruition. It’s where nuanced debates about our prostitution laws are encouraged. But all of this occurs without any tangible input by the real stake-

holders: sex workers themselves. By shooting Mali’s photos inside the Faculty of Law, we were forcibly injecting disparate narratives of the sex worker, and the female body more broadly, into spaces where it has been forbidden from existence. We refuse to be judged by where our hemlines fall, or don’t. We had as much right to be in that room as Justice Abella did, robed or not. We bore the label “slut” without shame.

A conservative institution like the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law may think that a sex worker like Mali doesn’t necessarily belong on their expensive furniture. But there was a time those female judges I photographed didn’t belong either. Justice Abella was the first Jewish woman on the Supreme Court—a rebel in her own right who overcame multiple obstacles to get where she is. It certainly isn’t convenient to be outspoken about your own difference, especially sexual difference. But let me leave you with this: “Be inconvenient. Be sand, not oil in the machinery of the world.”

Nadia Guo is a 3L student completing her final year of law school here on a letter of permission from Osgoode Hall. To check out her photography work, including the rest of the photographs in this series, visit: www.2ndearl.com.

OPINIONS

ultravires.ca

OCTOBER 29, 2014 | 15

Getting Away With Murder?

Not So Much.

AMBER NEUMANN (3L) VINCENT LI. ALLAN SHOERNBORN. Richard Kachkar. Luka Magnotta? The drill is almost routine by now. A shocking act of violence occurs. A trial is held. The court finds that the accused committed the act, but is not criminally responsible (NCR) because of mental illness. The person is detained in a forensic psychiatric facility for treatment and, as they are granted even minor liberties as part of their treatment, public discourse responds with impassioned arguments that the penalty is too short. For some, it feels like an NCR sentence allows the accused to get away with murder. The reaction is easy to understand, but it’s uninformed about the basic principles that underpin an NCR disposition. It’s also entirely unhelpful if our goal is to improve the outcomes for people with mental illness while also protecting public safety.

WHAT IS NCR? NCR is defined in s. 16 of the Criminal Code, and its administration is governed by s. XX.1 of the same legislation. It can be raised by either the defence or the prosecution, and the onus of establishing it is on the party who raises it. The finding is based on an existing ‘mental disorder’, as determined by expert evidence. It must be found that the symptoms of the illness were present at the time of the act.

These symptoms must be such that they rendered the accused either incapable of appreciating the nature and quality of the act, or of knowing the act was wrong. As the label sug-

gests, the person is understood to bear no legal responsibility for an act committed out of illness. As such, the function of an NCR disposition is not to punish the accused, but to ensure treatment and to protect public safety.

An NCR finding leads to what is essentially an indefinite sentence, subject to periodic review by the Ontario Review Board. The ORB is an independent tribunal. A lawyer, a psychiatrist, and a layperson sit at each hearing.

They use assessments provided by the accused’s psychiatrist to determine what level of supervision is appropriate for the coming year.

Case law has long established that the person’s treatment needs must be balanced with concerns for public safety (see Winko, SCC, 1999), but recent amendments to the Criminal Code have made concern for public safety the “paramount consideration”.

RIDICULOUS OUTCOMES NCR is available to any offence under the Code, and is not limited to the extreme types of cases we read about in the media. For every Li or Kachkar case, there are others who remain detained under the forensic system for years as a result of what are essentially minor offences.

I am aware of a case in which a woman with a history of substance addiction and mental health issues was found NCR on a charge of breaching probation. Without the NCR finding, she was looking at a maximum of two years in jail. But as a result of the NCR, she has

now been detained in the forensic system for more than six years and there’s no sign of release on the horizon. In another example, taken from Canada’s leading case on capacity to consent to treatment, the accused was charged with uttering death threats. This is an offence under s. 264.1 of the Code, and carries a maximum sentence of five years. The man was detained in the forensic system for fifteen years before being granted a conditional discharge.

(See Starson v. Swayze, SCC, 2003) A DISJOINTED SYSTEM I think it’s fair to say that such ridiculous outcomes are often rooted in a place of genuine human concern. They are a reflection of our disjointed mental health care system, and our inadequate, if often well-intentioned, attempts to make it work. It can be very hard to get people connected to the treatment and services they need in the best of circumstances, and it can be even harder when someone is poor, marginalized, and without a social and family structure to advocate on their behalf. It can be with the best of intentions that people working within the system try to use whatever legal tools they can to help keep someone in treatment. But it simply should not be the role of a psychiatrist, or any other health care provider, to decide whether or not a person is subject to criminal detention. The law provides civil psychiatric mechanisms to hospitalize someone against their will for the purpose of psychiatric

assessment and, where appropriate, treatment.

A doctor and a judge have different objectives, and no one’s best interest is served when they try to do each other’s jobs.

TIME FOR A RADICAL DEPARTURE? I am increasingly convinced that we need something radically different from the approach we have. It’s time to at least consider imposing the same sentencing guidelines on someone found NCR as apply to anyone else, and to focus the differentiation inherent in an NCR f inding on treatment rather than length of time. A hospital should not be a substitute prison and, if a person found NCR has completed the maximum amount of time for the offence as determined by the Criminal Code, they should be free to go. If there remains genuine concern as to their mental state, they should be assessed under the civil criteria and held or treated using the civil psychiatric mechanisms available under the Mental Health Act.

*This article is an expansion on ideas initially presented in a reflection paper submitted for a clinical legal education course at Downtown Legal Services.

The CBA Has a Lot to Answer For RIAZ SAYANI-MULJI (1L) SHAMEFUL. THAT IS HOW I WOULD describe the Canadian Bar Association’s (CBA) conduct over the past few weeks.

After its national board upheld its decision to intervene at the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) in Chevron v Yaiguaje, the CBA was met with letters of resignation, international criticism, and a protest organized by the U of T Law Union and Anti-Chevron Canada.

There were numerous issues with the intervention. That the CBA’s National Aboriginal Law and Environmental Law Sections were not consulted. That Blakes was retained to handle the intervention, even though it represents Chevron on other matters. That the CBA framed the intervention as necessary because “fundamental corporate law principles” were at stake, ignoring the access to justice issue at the core of the litigation.

A week after our demonstration, the CBA did a complete about-face. It decided to withdraw the intervention, on the basis that the factum drafted by Blakes did not meet the requirements of CBA’s Intervention Policy.

Whatever that means.

The case is more than 20 years old, spanning courts in the United States, Ecuador, and now Canada. From 1964-1990, Texaco (acquired by Chevron in 2001) drilled more than 350 wells in the Amazon, netting a cool $30 billion in profits from the extracted oil. In the process, they in-

tentionally dumped more than 18 billion gallons of “production water,” consisting of oil and other carcinogens, into the waterways used by the Indigenous peoples of Ecuador for drinking, fishing, and bathing.

The effects of this dumping—often called the “Chernobyl of the Amazon”—are difficult to describe in words. Children have died just by swimming in the contaminated water. Cancer rates are 30 times higher in affected areas relative to the rest of the country. Birth defects and miscarriages are common. Two Indigenous peoples of Ecuador, the Tetetes and Sansahuari, have been wiped out due to the environmental destruction.

For perspective, the dumping led to pollution levels 30 times higher than the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska. Whether you call it ecocide, genocide, or something else, what happened in Ecuador was injustice of the largest scale.

The Indigenous communities of Ecuador organized themselves. In 1993, they filed suit in the United States. The litigation was moved to Ecuador, and it appeared that the plaintiffs would win, despite extensive delays and a series of dirty tricks by Chevron (e.g. attempting to bribe a judge).

Chevron ultimately sold all of its assets in the country. In 2013 when the Supreme Court of Ecuador awarded the plaintiffs $9.5 billion in damages, Chevron avoided having to pay a

cent. However, after hiring 60 law firms and more than 2000 legal personnel, and spending $2 billion on legal fees to fight this claim—including, at one point, securing a global anti-enforcement injunction against the plaintiffs— Chevron’s time may finally have come.

Now, the plaintiffs are attempting to obtain the damages award through Chevron Canada’s assets and shares. Last year, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that the Ontario courts are an appropriate jurisdiction for recognition and enforcement of the foreign claim.

Justice MacPherson wrote: “Before the Ecuadorian judgment was released, Chevron, speaking through a spokesman, stated that Chevron intended to contest the judgment if Chevron lost. He said: ‘We’re going to fight this until hell freezes over. And then we’ll fight it out on the ice.’ Chevron’s wish is granted. After all these years, the Ecuadorian plaintiffs deserve to have the recognition and enforcement of the Ecuadorian judgment heard on the merits in an appropriate jurisdiction. At this juncture, Ontario is that jurisdiction.”

Which brings us back to the CBA. While the withdrawal of the intervention is a small victory, questions remain as to how this intervention came about in the first place. With so many procedural irregularities, it seemed the CBA was prepared to go to any length to get to the SCC and make arguments in favour of

Chevron. At the very least, this demonstrated the extent to which the powerful in Canadian law—Bay Street firms and their corporate clients—have sway in the legal profession’s largest advocacy organization.

Moving forward, members need to demand accountability. Perhaps it’s time to say goodbye to the CBA and look to alternative institutions that actually care about access to justice, like the Law Union of Ontario.

Most importantly, this debacle has helped shed light on one of the worst corporate crimes of our time. Legal professionals outraged by the CBA’s conduct must continue working in solidarity with the Indigenous communities decimated by Chevron. The SCC is hearing Chevron’s appeal on December 11. Let’s hope this brings the plaintiffs one step closer to justice, and to Chevron finally cleaning up its mess.

OPINIONS

16 | OCTOBER 29, 2014

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Politics Literally Makes You Stupid DAVID PARDY (3L) ARE DIFFERENCES IN POLITICAL opinion attributable to misunderstandings of fact? As in, if we all had the same, perfect information on every issue, and we could discuss it freely with each other, would we always come to the same decision?

Noooop! Actually, this “More Information Hypothesis” is completely backwards. Really, the more information partisans get, the more deeply they disagree. And the source of their disagreement? Mistaken reasoning.

Well thankfully we’re all smart enough that we can’t possibly make errors in reasoning, right?

Noooop! In fact, the smarter you are, the more likely you are to make errors in reasoning when confronted with information about partisan issues.

REAL WORLD EXAMPLE 1 Researchers have found a new skin rash cream. Sometimes creams make rashes better, sometimes they make rashes worse, and sometimes rashes just get better without treatment.

To test the new cream’s efficacy, the researchers separated patients into two groups: one that used the cream for two weeks and one that did not use anything.

RASH GOT BETTER

RASH GOT WORSE

Patients who used the new cream

455

152

Patients who did not use the new cream

208

46

ers got better whereas only 75% of users improved. Therefore, the new cream is more likely to make the rash worse. *** Okay, okay, you probably got that right. This is a typical logic problem. Conservatives and liberals perform equally well on that type of problem.

REAL WORLD EXAMPLE 2 (TRIGGER WARNING) Researchers are investigating the suicide rate of pregnant teens in states in which abortion is legal versus illegal. Sometimes not having the option to abort an unwanted baby can be very traumatic, sometimes depression follows abortion, and sometimes pregnant teens commit suicide for reasons unrelated to the availability of abortion.

Pregnant teens in states where abortion is legal Pregnant teens in states where abortion is illegal

SUICIDES

NONSUICIDES

17

6,772

31

17,086

Q: Are the pregnant teens in states with or without legal abortion more likely to commit suicide? ***

Q: Are the patients who use the cream more likely to get better or worse?

A: While it looks like more patients got better after using the cream, actually 82% of non-us-

Researcher and Yale Law School professor Dan Kahan ran hundreds of study participants through questions like the two above. He found that standard predictors for mathemati-

cal deduction were accurate in predicting the level of correctness for the non-politicized questions (ex. skin cream). But for politicized questions (ex. abortion legality and suicide), the standard predictors stopped working.

Instead, political leanings started being the predictors. Liberals were great at solving problems with data that proved liberal platform assertions, like gun-control legislation reduces crime, the availability of abortion decreases suicide rates, and carbon dioxide causes global warming. Conservatives exhibited the same pattern in reverse.

Interestingly, partisan participants (say that five times) with strong math skills were more likely than those with weak math skills to get the answer wrong when it contradicted their political ideology. Put differently, politics made smarter people dumber more than it made dumber people dumber. But, let’s not forget, it made nearly everyone dumber.

By the way, the answer to the abortion question is that 0.25% of pregnant teens committed suicide in states where abortion was legal, and only 0.18% committed suicide in states where it was illegal. These are the exact same proportions (scaled down by a factor of 100) as found in the skin cream question, and they prove that the availability of abortion increases suicide rates. Holy shit!

Also note that these numbers are totally fictitious. I lied when I said it was a real world example. Sue me.

I saw Dan Kahan speak this summer at the Royal Canadian Institute, which is an old, pretentious name for a room inside University College at the University of Toronto where scientists talk about things. Dan made a point there that went beyond the previous findings.

He found that asking people political questions is akin to asking who they are. For privacy buffs, political inclinations form part of the biographical core. When confronted with evidence that contradicts one’s political ideology (read: personality), one is personally insulted

and rejects the findings. The smarter one is, the more likely she is to notice these contradictions (read: personal attacks) and reject them.

So the smarter we are, the more reliably we reject views that contradict our political ideologies. This is bad news for people who support political opponents being constructive (i.e. people who are reasonable). Is there any hope? Yep! Partisans are more likely to accept the assertion of a fellow partisan, even if that belief is not part of the shared political ideology. When the assertion is seen to come from someone who shares in and respects one’s identity, one is more likely to accept it. So how do you get a conservative to believe that carbon dioxide causes global warming? Have Stephen Harper tell her. In fact, there are conservatives who live on the beach in Florida (which, if you don’t know, is a hotbed for stupidity) that rejected the liberal idea to reinforce their beach to prevent severe, globalwarming induced weather from destroying the beach. But when a conservative person proposed the idea a few months later, they accepted it and implemented the reinforcements.

“But David,” you ask, “what does it all mean?” Well folks, I hate your stupid political alignments. Even though you happen to agree with what one party says more often than not, I still think political loyalty is inherently immoral. That’s right, immoral. We should promote what we think is right based on facts, and we should place our emphasis on determining what those facts are and how much they matter to us. To do otherwise is to obscure the truth and science says that political ideologies do just that. The smarter you are, the more likely you are to fall victim to this blindness. To me, yes, that’s immoral. You shouldn’t vote for a party because it is that party. You should vote for it because you took care to establish that the party shares your opinions on issues that matter to you. And if I were to bet, that party will change over your lifetime.

lawyers you would like to talk to as some employers will ask you for 2nd/3rd interviews who you would like to meet (e.g. I asked to meet female corporate partners).

their business card (e.g. “business development”, “Rob Ford”) (makes writing thank you emails SO much easier at the end of the day).

Pre-writing a template thank you email will also save you tons of time later on.

28 WAYS TO #WIN AT IN-FIRM WEEK Continued from page 5

THE FIRST CHOICE BOMB Even though it contravenes the rules, firms still do it all the time. Firms will pressure you to say whether or not they are your first choice. Be prepared. Here’s what students had to say about navigating those tricky first choice waters.

1. If a firm asks you: are we your first choice? Respond: are you asking because you will be making me an offer? Cut the bullshit and get straight to the point.

2. Keep your options open—don’t tell all the firms that they are your number 1. However, you can say something like: “I can really see myself happy here. It’s a close call between you and another firm. I need some time to think… But I can definitely see myself being happy & thriving here.”

3. Don’t drop the “first choice” bomb unless you are absolutely sure you would accept that firm if they offered you a job, and only say it to one firm.

4. Don’t tell everyone they’re your number one, but do communicate interest. You really have to spell it out to them, I said “If I find myself in the very fortunate position of having some choices, I see myself working for you” and I heard that the Head of Recruiting was still nervous about whether or not I would accept .

5. Every firm (!) I interviewed at pressured me to reveal my “first choice”.

Spend time thinking about how you would respond to this question and be strategic about how/when you reveal this information.

6. Do not tell a bunch of firms that they are your top choice.

22. Do research beforehand of anyone you’d like to speak with/meet in particular.

ASKING QUESTIONS 23. Make sure you have a list of well thought out questions as some employers will leave a long time for you to direct the interview.

24. Have more questions prepared than you think you’ll need.

25. Do ask tough questions (though it’s okay to wait until Day 2). I told a firm I was concerned about their treatment of women having heard some anecdotes from people that I trust.

THANK-YOU EMAILS 26. Bring a ziploc bag to put all the business cards in and when you get a chance during the day, write down specific things you talked about with a particular lawyer on the back of

FINALLY… 27. Don’t take the process too seriously; your worth as a person is not dependent on whether people at law firm X like you. It is really hard not to take it personally if things don’t go well, but in the end it is just a job interview. There are always more opportunities for interviews (especially at the big firms).

28. Do treat yourself—I took Wednesday off and got a pedicure; it was necessary.

OPINIONS/DIVERSIONS

ultravires.ca

OCTOBER 29, 2014 | 17

Word on the Street 1. What cartoon character would make the best dean?

2. If you could make one thing illegal, what would it be?

ANDREW LYNES (2L)

ANDREW MACLACHLAN (1L)

GRACE SMITH (2L)

HAYLEY OSSIP (3L)

JEREMY DRUCKER (3L)

JOE MCGRADE (3L)

1. Sideshow Bob 2. Jerks

1. Rick from Rick and Morty 2. Complaining to waiter about food wait time at a restaurant

1. Kim Possible 2. I would make it illegal for my parents to joke with strangers while I'm out in public with them.

Sooooo embarrassing

1. The Genie from Aladdin

1. Principal Skinner 2. Principal Skinner

1. Professor Xavier 2. Playing the Australia strategy in Risk

SAHAR KAMALI (1L)

SPENCER ROBINSON (3L)

VICTOR MACDIARMID (2L)

JUSTINE DESMOND (1L)

HANNA KOFMAN (1L)

MICHAEL BRAR, 3L

1. The Brain from Arthur 2. Driving less than 120 km/h in the passing lane

1. Whichever Decepticon can transform into a law school building 2. Electronic Dance Music

1. Scrooge McDuck: so he could swim in pools of student money 2. Gabe Edelson's dance moves: those things are deadly

1. Ms Frizzle 2. 100% final exams

1. Mallory Archer 2. Salad

1. Archer 2. Small hand jokes

CDO Approved Costumes for Halloween LISANA NITHIANANTHAN (2L) BUSY LAW STUDENT: HAVE NO TIME to eat, sleep, or breathe, let alone come up with a costume to wear to the SLS Halloween Party at Old Vic? Have no fear, UV has got you covered. We spoke to the CDO and here’s their list of costumes that are suitable, scary, and yet very appropriate to wear to a Halloween Party.

1

The Reasonable Man: though he appears in the majority of the caselaw you read, detailed descriptions are nowhere to be found.

No one really knows how this elusive figure looks. This costume is really open to your creative interpretation, so go wild. Just don’t fail to notice any snails in ginger beer bottles!

2

A Salt and Battery: find yourself a large salt shaker and a large battery, you got yourself a costume.

3

The Phantom New Building: like the reasonable man, this building is also very elusive. But have no fear, portraying it in its current state should be very easy. There are quite a few ways to do this. For one, you can simply not go to the party, stay home and post updates about the progress being made to your construction, but never actually display said progress. Another way to do this costume is to use some cardboard boxes and your artsy skills to turn them into buildings. Tear down a part of the box, and voila! A building in construction. Simple, really. A third way to bring this costume to life is to dress in brown and maybe glue some grass and rubble onto your outfit— successfully creating the place where the building has been put up…

4

Mis Trial: for the beauty pageant queen in all of us. Fashion yourself a sash that says

Mis Trial 2014. To add glamour to your look: big hair, bigger crown, and a large bouquet.

5

The Zombie 1L (prior to September 2014): this is probably the easiest costume to prepare. Simply spend a few nights reading your casebooks. Don’t sleep. Drink lots of caffeine. Once the bags under your eyes have bags under them, your look will be complete.

6

A Supreme Court Justice: have an old vampire cape lying around? Use it as a robe, find yourself a gavel, maybe a wig (à la House of Lords).

7

The Uof T Law Grading Scale: a fun opportunity to gather 4 other friends for a group costume! Invest some time creating large capital letters (HH, H, P, LP, F). Stick a grade on your shirt (don’t worry this isn’t a de-

termination of your value as a person, promise!) One of you will be the HH, one will be the H…you get the picture.

8 9

Devil’s Advocate: some horns, red face paint, suit and tie, briefcase, pitchfork.

Our Tuition: easily the scariest thing on this list. Make yourself a huge cheque that you can fasten around your neck. Input the scary figure in huge print on the front and you’ll have all those who encounter your costume running away in horror.

10

Lady Justice: easy to create using a white or grey bed sheet and black sunglasses. Drape the sheet into a toga, carry a set of scales in one hand and a cane in the other.

DIVERSIONS

18 | OCTOBER 29, 2014

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1L…The Story So Far NATHANIEL RATTANSEY (1L) "IT’S FREAKING OCTOBER" IS THE first thought that comes to mind as I write this piece—and by the time many of you read this it will be November. Take a moment to let that sink in (for my not so sentimental peers you can fast forward this part). Super clichéd statement ahead disclaimer: but it seems like only yesterday where I was standing in line with my fellow ‘glawdiators’ registering for O-week activities.

This semester has been moving at a blistering pace and it’s shocking that we have already reached the halfway mark. What better a moment to reflect on my adventures so far?

“THINK LIKE A LAWYER” Let’s start at the beginning shall we? Some of my peers have already written wonderful articles on the O-week activities and I'll limit my discussion here to my classroom experiences. I have to admit when I first found out that law school was going to be starting two weeks earlier my initial reaction was something along the lines of: “I lose two weeks of August AND I’m paying 31k for fees? What kind of twisted place is this??!”

This was the first year that the administration instituted the two-week ‘Legal Methods Intensive’, aimed at training students to 'think like lawyers'. Did the course live up to its lofty goals? Let's just say I didn’t come out feeling like Harvey Specter. However I think the course was invaluable in introducing us to the various areas of law along with teaching us the basic skills in analyzing cases and writing briefs. Whether or not by design, the cases we read were interesting (is a mush-

room a vegetable??) and I definitely started seeing the world around me in a new light. It also felt strange writing an exam to end the course; but it did give us a teaser of what to expect in December.

Students may grumble at the mandatory nature of the course. For example, I recall conversations with some students about how the course seriously hampered their ability to maintain their full-time employment until the end of summer. For these people, those two weeks were precious because it meant losing a paycheck—and with a hefty debt load, these are no doubt valid concerns.

Others may have had to plan their vacations earlier in the summer or entirely forgo that all-inclusive trip to Mexico.

I truly think the overall benefit of the course has to be weighed against these other considerations. Yes, the two-week intensive cut our summer short, but it was (relatively) painless and gave us a solid foundation to tackle our first real courses in September.

“YOU GUYS ARE TAKING _ _ _ _ _ _ _ RIGHT??!” (INSERT TORT/ CONTRACTS/CONSTITUTIONAL/ PROPERTY/CRIMINAL HERE).

Usually the above question is accompanied by a sporadic show of hands followed by an awkward silence. We stare out our professors blankly, they in turn chuckle or shake their head in disapproval—and then we all dive right back into whatever it was that lead us astray from the yellow brick road. It is in these moments where we are reminded that

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up until this year, 1Ls of the past had to endure courses all year long. Obviously there's an argument to be made that the previous system is better insofar as it provides students with a more complete picture of the legal system. There is no doubt considerable overlap among the various areas of law—and learning six substantive courses throughout the year can provide students with a richer, deeper understanding of how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together.

Maybe it’s just me but….

Clearly as a 1L, I lack any prior reference point on this issue. The more pressing concern I had with the current semester system so far, lies in how we are being evaluated aside from our small groups. If one of the reasons moving to the semesterized system was designed to alleviate student stress as outlined by an article written for this newspaper (“To Semesterize or Not to Semesterize”, February/2014), I am not too sure if this goal is being realized since we must contend with the fact that the exams we write in December are for real. We currently do not have a formal benchmark to assess our understanding of the course material until the actual exam. One of the downsides of moving to the semester system seems to be that we do not have the luxury of writing an ungraded exam in December like the 1Ls of prior years. There in that scenario if the unthinkable happens—you know the scenario where we fail to reach our HH standards—at least we have another shot at perfecting our exam writing in April.

Furthermore, in discussions with my peers, it is curious as to why some courses have some form of midterm review session (in the style of a take-home exam/practice question or an in-class practice midterm) while other courses did not. Sure, we have an exam writing session set aside in Legal Research and Writing (LRW). But for me, this comes too late in the year. While we do get a whole a day set aside to tackle the finer aspects of exam writing and yes, we do receive the last year's “top responses”—this is only valuable insofar as we have had the time and the opportunities to develop our writing to meet the expectations of the faculty.

Barring the exam session in LRW, the only simulated test-like situation for many students will have been the exam written in August during the intensive. Would it not be beneficial if all of the large section courses had some method of evaluation like an in class midterm that is ungraded but feedback is given on our professor’s expectations? In prior years professors marked two exams per course (December and April) and the question lies as to why this can't be translated into the semester system.

In a content heavy semester, there is the countervailing argument that having midterms for our courses would in fact create an undergraduate-style environment. We all too well remember the dreaded month of October during those times—and moving to a full blown midterm system may negate any stressrelieving benefits premised by the new semesterized system. And hey, maybe the lack of these opportunities isn’t a concern at all among a large majority of 1Ls and maybe I’m the only mad man screaming foul (shush 1L, either go through the fire like everyone else or there's the door).

Moving forward, I think the challenge lies in finding an appropriate method of gauging student progress throughout the semester.

While it may not be feasible to have simulated in-class style midterms, I do think it would be valuable if professors–consistently across the large group sections–provide opportunities for students to test their mastery of the material. This can take on the form of practice questions after every substantive section or even a take-home midterm that can be reviewed in class. Here, at least we would get a sense of what our professors expect of us and it would allow us to practice writing a solid exam answer. At the end of the day it should be about putting students in the best position to succeed and I think these suggestions implemented uniformly across our large sections would be incredibly useful.

Overall, I have to say these last two months have been exciting and intellectually rewarding. Between classes and extracurriculars (pub nights count right?) I have thoroughly enjoyed my law experience so far. In the next coming months I hope to share some more observations of our 1L year—stay tuned!

DIVERSIONS

ultravires.ca

OCTOBER 29, 2014 | 19

What (Not) To News Bulletin Wear: OCI Edition UPDATE: CDO Encourages Nepotism 9 During OCIs!!!

1 10 LISANA NITHIANANTHAN (2L)

AS A LAW STUDENT, ONE OF YOUR primary aims should be knowing how to match your tie to your suit. And remember, there’s nothin’ like a bowtie. The bolder, the better.

Lots of patterns, lots of floral, and lots and lots of ruffles. Extra points if you can do a trio.

IN A SHOCKING TURN OF EVENTS, the Career Development Office at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law is encouraging students to resort to nepotism!

Historically, the On-Campus Interviews (OCIs) have been notorious for the effect they have on students. Leading up to the big day, students display a myriad of symptoms which include: • Aching jaws as a result of over-exerting their fake smiles • Spontaneous bouts of forced laughter • Heart palpitations at the mere thought of OCIs • Fainting and lightheadedness • A severe addiction to caffeine • Stomach discomfort and loss of appetite • Headaches and migraines while going through interview preparation

2 3 4 5

Pearls. So you can clutch them at any given indignant moment.

LISANA NITHIANANTHAN (2L) uniqueness and merit will matter the most during this stressful time. Now it seems the CDO has changed their tune it seems.

To ease the pain and reduce the overall discomfort of OCIs, the CDO is now recommending that students attending Uof T Law (commonly called the Harvard of the North) work their connections to their advantage.

A spokesperson for the CDO was quoted as saying, “what’s the point of knowing someone if you can’t use them to get you a job right?

Impartiality is overrated!”.

Further requests for comment were denied by the CDO. You heard it here first. Keep watching this space for more information.

Kick it back to the 80s: sharp shoulder pads in all your suits just exudes chutzpah.

Fishnet stockings. Because duh.

Statement Tees underneath your suit.

Leave it unbuttoned for everyone to read your shirt and notice how clever you are. Go on, brighten up our day with your cheekiness.

6 7 8

Crocs or Uggs so the interviewers will know how laid back you are.

Alternatively, light up shoes will do the trick too.

Onesies are standard attire for in-firms.

Orange onesies work even better. If it’s

a particularly cute orange two piece, that is acceptable too. Think Orange is the New Black.

Nudes, beiges, neutrals = NOPE. Nylons should be coloured. Think NEON. Stage Make-up to emphasize your expressions.

11 12 13

Hair? Two words: sock bun (you’re welcome).

Scarves must be of the infinity variety.

Accessories must be from your local grocery provider. We all know your other bag is Chanel. What everyone really wants to know is where you shop for apples.

14 15

Tights are acceptable as pants.

The epitome of professionalism.

Jewellery? The more the merrier.

If we can’t hear you coming from the sound of your jewellery clanking together, you’re wearing far too little.

16

Fedoras, but only if you can pull off that style. If not, stick to Tilly Hats.

Time and time again, the CDO has taken the diplomatic route, informing students that their

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thenortonrosefulbrightdifference.com

20 | OCTOBER 29, 2014

DIVERSIONS

TV Live Cast

Students Outside Reading Room Shocked by Twist Ending of Latest “SYTYCFCOALBBTD” Episode AMIR EFTEKHARPOUR (1L) TORONTO—U OF T STUDENTS EXPRESSED THEIR surprise last week after a jaw-dropping episode of So You Think You Can Finish Construction on a Law Building By the Deadline, the reality TV show that streams continuously on the TV outside the Reading Room.

The show challenges groups of contractors and construction workers to overcome a number of obstacles on their way to the ultimate goal of finishing construction on the new building.

“My favourite episode so far is the one where Greg had to get everyone coffee, and forgot that Jim wanted dark roast, creating all this drama with the Jim-Paul-Ashley alliance. That’s totally why they voted him off that week,” says Phil Williams, a 2L student who says he watches the show “whenever I’m trying to avoid eye contact with whoever has a booth set up outside the Reading Room.”

However, none of the challenges so far have created as much suspense as the one in last week’s shocking episode. “I wasn’t ready for that twist—how Dan, the site supervisor, was kicked off like that,” says Sue Imall, a 1L. The popular contestant lost the week’s big elimination challenge after he tripped over the red tape obstacle and failed to get the permits back to his team on time. “I was pretty much inconsolable when they took away his clipboard and hardhat during the elimination ceremony in the Chamber of Construct-ive Criticism” she said.

Dan’s elimination wasn’t a surprise to everyone. Dima, a controversial but cunning crane operator on the show, said she didn’t trust Dan from the beginning. Speaking in the Porta-Potty Con-

fessional, she said that she always wondered whether Dan was on the show for the right reasons, or just to promote his new album Jackhammer My Heart and boost his waning career. “As for me, I’m not here to make friends—I’m here to compete asbestos I can!™” continued Dima, using her popular catch phrase to the delight of students sort of glancing at the TV on their way to Ned’s or that hotdog stand outside the ROM. The contestants aren’t the only sources of drama and intrigue on the show. Many students say their favourite part is the judges.

“I cant believe they got Boston Rob from Survivor,” said Kristy Warren, a 3L. “Though I love that mean Aussie judge the most,” she continued. “I know,” said a nearby friend, kind of glancing towards the screen. “Niblett’s the best.”

Regardless of year or interest, all students express that the definitely unscripted drama of the show is what keeps them watching, either when they’re on their way to print an assignment or just peeking at the screen over their friend’s shoulders while standing around after class. “It’s just so important, so immediate, so present. The screens and the show help you stay involved in the construction process,” said Graham Spencer, a 2L. “I don’t think it’s a dumb thing at all that it’s just playing like that all the time.”

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Professor Celebrity Look-A-Like of the Month ANONYMOUS

vs.

PROFESSOR BERNARD DICKENS

CHARLES DANCE, A.K.A. TYWIN LANNISTER

(image from www.law.utoronto.ca)

(image from www.filmweb.pl)