Ultra Vires Vol 16 Issue 5: 2015 February

FEBRUARY 25, 2015 | ULTRAVIRES.CA

THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO FACULTY OF LAW

LAW FOLLIES 2015

The Jackman Hall sketch (pictured here) won UV’s “best sketch” of the night. See page 14 for all the awards.

Photo by: Lisana Nithiananthan

Did You Make a Poor Financial Investment by Going to U of T Law? DAANISH SAMADMOTEN (ALUMNUS, CLASS OF 2014) YES, YOU DID. AT LEAST IF YOU PLAN to work in “public interest” after graduation. According to a mathematical model I created with a fellow alumnus, if you work in public interest after going to U of T Law, you will make almost $100,000 less over 20 years than you would have if you started working immediately after undergrad in another field. The average return on your investment (going to U of T Law) is -3%. For the purpose of this article and the model, public interest is intended to include human rights lawyers, duty counsel, criminal defense lawyers whose clients primarily use legal aid certificates, etc. The starting salary for a public interest job was thus set at $60,000.

The above numbers don’t even reflect the pay “cut” one takes by choosing public interest over Bay Street. It's no wonder then that some students complain about feeling pressured to work in jobs outside of public interest – to work in public interest, you have to be willing to lose money on your investment and forego a large income.

The “pressure” not to work in public interest due to U of T Law's high tuition was a big part of the tuition debate while I was at school. The pressure is financial so I reframed the problem and

asked: does it make financial sense for you to go to U of T Law and then work in public interest?

The answer depends on a large number of factors so we created a mathematical model in hopes of answering it. The model incorporates lost income while going to U of T Law, tuition, debt repayments, interest on debt, average tax rates, summer income while in school, articling income, salaries, salary inflation, salary caps, inflation, and a discount rate.

Based on the model and the assumptions used, you would have been better off starting work after undergrad in another field instead of going to U of T Law and then working in public interest.

As stated above, on average, you are losing $97,818 over 20 years by going to U of T Law instead, using our discount rate of 5%. However, the return is dramatically different if you work on Bay Street. Using the model, going to U of T Law and then working on Bay Street yields an average $1,370,297 return over 20 years.i That is a 32% rate of return. If you work at the Ministry of Attorney General (MAG) after U of T Law, your investment yields an average $80,947 return over 20 years, which is a 10% rate of return.ii

To show how the model translates in real life, let me give you a brief example. According to the model, a student that started U of T Law this year who goes on to work in public interest after graduation will be making $54,625 post-tax ($72,930 pre-tax) as a fifth year lawyer. They will pay off $10,000 of their remaining $60,232 law school debt that year and will have accumulated $16,476 in interest on that debt thus far. Eight years after starting law school (five years after graduating), they have made $133,588 less than they would have at that point, if they had started working immediately after undergrad in another field.

All of these numbers don’t necessarily mean you shouldn't work in public interest, though. Financial return is only one part of a value calculation. There may be intangible benefits that you would not get elsewhere. Perhaps a feeling that you enjoy what you do. Or that you are making a difference and doing something worthwhile. Plus, compared to the relevant alternative (not going to law school and starting work), you are more educated and get other intangible benefits. The intangibles will vary from person to person but they certainly exist. And there's nothing foolish about

considering them alongside the financial return; education isn't a purely financial investment.

Some people may be willing to deal with the financial pressure of working in public interest after graduation because they value the intangible benefits more than the financial loss. However, increasing tuition will increase the financial loss and thus increase the pressure. Tuition debt is a particularly strong pressure because it is tangible and noticeable – it is sitting there in your bank account accumulating interest. More people are likely succumb to that pressure as tuition increases and choose to work outside of public interest, which will decrease the career diversity amongst U of T Law's graduating class.

I should note that the model is not perfect or even necessarily correct. It relies on a lot of assumptions that are open for debate, such as salary caps, salary inflation, salary promotions, and amount of debt repayment per year. I used my intuition for many of the assumptions and hard data for some.

A case can certainly be made that some of my intuitions were wrong and thus the assumptions should Continued on page 6

EDITORIAL/NEWS

2 | FEBRUARY 25, 2015

ultravires.ca

Spring is Nigh… Dear Sirs: You've right?

Taken All Our Money, Now Kindly Fuck Off PALOMA VAN GROLL (3L)

IT’S A THAT FUN TIME OF YEAR FOR Law, right after Follies and right before Ball, when we law students take a moment to enjoy ourselves in a less self-serious way.

Speaking of Follies, it was a genuine delight to see how talented some of our classmates are.

Whoa, that lad can sing? And that lass can dance? (or maybe those things enchant me because I can do neither). Now if only we could be a little more like David Shore, who somehow managed to parlay a U of T Law and Law Follies background into a highly lucrative career of making that TV show House.

Follies is a great reflection of the current state of mind of our student body. “As is Ultra Vires, our independent student newspaper,” I pitched the U of T law hopefuls at last week’s Welcome Day. Meeting doe-eyed prospective students made me feel like a jaded veteran, someone who knows the ropes so well she could tie a sailor’s knot in her sleep (no that’s not some subtle 50 shades reference you weirdos). There was something about their jumpy excitement, their jittery naïveté, their questions about “which extracurriculars I enjoyed the most.” I think I had forgotten how little I knew before beginning law school.

It all flashed before my eyes. 1L, when we were first taught to internalize legal thinking.

2L, where students are churned through the recruitment process or battle the social pressure to participate in it. Moots. Clinics. All the other fun and less fun stuff in between.

At the same time, being awash with that flood of pre-law-school enthusiasm was almost jarring, as a 3L student about to face the real world with a very real amount of debt.

But enough of that dreary debt talk. We’re finally on the right side of winter. Let’s stay positive, after all, we just had a cathartic laugh at all things law, and it’s time to hit the dance floor.

One last thing - next issue, March, is our last of the year. So for all you procrastinators out there, who’ve been thinking of the next great UV article, it’s your last chance to shine. Our March issue is usually teeming with insightful reflections on the year gone by, pragmatic advice from wizened 3Ls and 2Ls for years below, and of course, the odd poem about Bora’s head. We hope to maintain this tradition.

DAVID GRUBER (3L) THE DEBATE ABOUT TUITION AND debt has been had, and—from the perspective of the righteous—lost. Tuition for a three year degree is approaching the six figure mark, and shows no signs of slowing down. Meanwhile financial aid continues to shrink in favour of falsely termed “interest-free” loans, just as more students are depending on more of it. And all this is taking place during a historically bad time in the job market.

The movement to pillage students is the product of a bogus pseudo-intellectual theory that, despite having been duly disproved, continues to govern the institution. To review: in the bad old days of the 1990s a maniacal premier called Mike Harris deregulated professional school tuition.

Fees spiked and dean Ron Daniels wrote an impassioned op-ed where he argued huge increases were needed to prevent expensive American private universities from poaching our faculty. Apparently immune to the effects of either irony or shame, he then abruptly abandoned the law school for an expensive American private university.

Daniels' influence remains, carried on through

the formalized stupidity of the “law and economics” way of thinking. The new guard conceives of schools as profit-generating business and students as customers to be ripped off.

Fine. These Monty Burns types can't be reasoned with anyway. But the moment we conceded defeat, the powers that be began to find creative new ways to gouge us. The Law Society's response to the significant unemployment problem in this jurisdiction has been to slap on thousands (thousands!) of dollars of new fees on to all new applicants, jobless and jobbed alike. Without telling anyone, the regulator also decided to stop providing bar exam materials except in electronic format. They then proceeded to boast that the fee for said materials had not changed. The Law Society just finished taking an unusually hard-line stance on enforcement of its civility rules. In the shadow of the Joseph Groia case, our regulator is— through its own conduct—demonstrating the difference between civility and simple decency.

Continued on page 7

1L Exam Schedule Stress RONA GHANBARI (1L) & MICHAEL COCKBURN (1L) DESPITE AN OVERHAUL OF THE first-year curriculum which resulted in fewer exams to schedule than in previous years, the administration has created a schedule that leaves some first-years with only one day between exams.

Students are grouped into courses based on their small group, which remains a year-long course, so the exam schedule varies depending on a student’s particular course bundle.

Last semester, the Contracts/Torts group of first-years had an exam schedule that was very front-heavy, with exams on December 10 and 12,

while students in the Torts/Criminal group had exams on December 12 and 17. There was a perception amongst many students that this gave the Torts/Criminal students an advantage, having significantly more time to prepare for each exam.

Additionally, students in the Contracts/Torts group experienced more stress than other firstyears due to the compressed schedule.

This semester, the same group has a front-loaded and tight schedule, with the first exam on April 13 and the second on April 15. The first exam will take place only four days after the final day of class.

After concerns were raised by the affected students, the Students’ Law Society (SLS) asked the administration whether the compressed exam schedule had any adverse effects on students’ grades. Associate Dean Ben Alarie said there was no statistically significant correlation between having more study time (clear days before an exam) and getting better exam results. Despite this, the perception of inequality remains a stressor for students.

The SLS is working with the administration to reschedule large courses on Thursday, April 9 for

the first-years with the most cramped scheduling—the Criminal/Constitutional group—to give students extra time to study for exams.

Students from the other group have also raised concerns, given that the Torts large group exam is also on the first day of exams; there is a perception that canceling one group’s classes but not the other’s is unfair. The SLS and the administration have discussed the possible cancellation of all large classes on Thursday, April 9. However, all small group and LPPE classes scheduled for that Thursday would remain unaffected.

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 Howes

ERRORS If you find any errors in Ultra Vires, please email ultra.vires@utoronto.ca

ADVERTISING Advertising inquiries should be sent to ultra.vires@utoronto.ca.

SUBMISSIONS If you have an article submission or a tip for us, please contact us at ultra.vires@utoronto.ca.

Ultra Vires reserves the right to edit submissions for brevity and clarity.

NEWS

ultravires.ca

FEBRUARY 25, 2015 | 3

Flip Your Wig Campaign Raises Funds, Awareness for Access to Justice CLAUDIA PEDRERO (2L) AS LAW STUDENTS, WE WILL SOON step into a profession grappling with an access to justice crisis. Legal assistance is inaccessible to an increasing number of low and middle-income Canadians, mainly as a result of prohibitive financial barriers.

Many of us witness the problem through Pro Bono Students Canada (PBSC) placements and volunteering at legal clinics, but there is little discussion at the student level about what we should do as a profession to ensure people are not denied access to the justice system. Law students need to be a part of the conversation, particularly given the significant financial pressures faced by graduating students, which leave many feeling they are not in a position to meaningfully contribute.

The Flip Your Wig for Justice campaign works to improve access to justice through a profession-

wide approach, bringing together members of the legal profession to encourage dialogue on the causes, consequences, and possible solutions to the crisis. The basic idea is that lawyers are "flipping their wigs"—suddenly losing control or becoming very angry—in frustration over the state of access to justice in Canada. The campaign seeks to draw attention to the crisis by invoking the barrister’s wig, while subverting its pretentiousness by having supporters don zany wigs.

Flip Your Wig is also a pledge-based fundraising campaign, with funds going to six organizations which provide legal support to vulnerable Canadians: Advocates in Defence of the Wrongfully Convicted, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Pro Bono Students Canada, the Ontario Justice Education Network, Community Legal Education Ontario, and METRAC - Action on Violence.

Flip Your Wig is only in its second year, but

has garnered overwhelming support across the legal profession and is active at every law school in Ontario. Notable figures participating as "ambassadors" include: former Prime Ministers Paul Martin and Jean Chrétien; former Supreme Court justices Madame Justice Claire L'Heureux-Dubé and Justice Frank Iacobucci; every Ontario law school dean; and many major Ontario law firms, who have donated generously to the campaign.

Faculty ambassadors from U of T include, among others, Ben Alarie, Brenda Cossman, Jim Phillips, and Douglas Sanderson.

At U of T Law, the campaign hosted an "Access to Justice Simulation," where students were put in the shoes of middle and low-income clients attempting to access the legal system. It also hosted the "Display Your Toupée" photo booth, where students wigged out in support of the campaign.

The campaign asks supporters to wear a wacky wig on “Flip Your Wig for Justice Day” (Thursday, February 26), or sponsor someone who is making the commitment. The campaign will take a mass portrait of all supporters at the University of Toronto at 12:45pm in Vic 323. Everyone is invited.

Later that evening, Flip Your Wig for Justice is celebrating the close of the 2015 campaign by hosting a joint pub night with the SLS at Fionn MacCool's (Esplanade) for law students from Osgoode and U of T as well as practitioners. It will feature live music from the law cover band The Fail Safes.

Claudia is Flip Your Wig’s student ambassador at U of T Law. To learn more about the campaign, visit the Flip Your Wig Facebook page, Twitter feed, or website (www.flipyourwig forjustice.ca).

If you want to go far.

Some people have long known what they want out of a career. They look beyond their present and focus on their future: a future with international scope, global clients and limitless possibilities.

If you are that person, you’ve just found where your future lies.

Law around the world nortonrosefulbright.com

4 | FEBRUARY 25, 2015

NEWS

ultravires.ca

Putting an End to Violence Against Women

BY MARITA ZOURAVLIOFF (3L) ON AVERAGE, EVERY SIX DAYS IN CANADA A WOMAN is killed by her intimate partner.

On any given day, more than 3,300 women (along with 3,000 children) are forced to sleep in emergency shelters to escape domestic violence. Every night, about 200 women are turned away because the shelters are full.

This year’s Walk a Day fundraiser took place on February 6, with students and professors wearing heels and raising money to help end violence against women. The idea came about four years ago when one U of T law student challenged another to wear heels for a day.

This simple challenge between friends proved to be a very effective fundraiser.

Since its inception, Walk a Day has raised over $20,000 for the Barbra Schlifer Clinic and White Ribbon. This year’s total was over $5,000. The Schlifer Clinic offers legal representation and professional counselling each year to thousands of women who have experienced violence. White Ribbon is the world’s largest movement of men and boys working to end violence against women and girls, promote gender equity, advocate for healthy relationships, and a create new vision of masculinity.

Mary Lou Fassel, Legal Director at the Schlifer Clinic and adjunct professor at U of T Law, led a lunchtime talk about systemic obstacles to reporting and prosecuting sexual assault. She discussed the traditional myths surrounding victims of sexual assault and how they endure today. Victims who report abuse can face stigmatization and the reality of long and painful trials that force women to relive

their ordeal. Crown counsel can also be reluctant to pursue sexual assault charges because of the difficulty in prosecuting them, which compounds the trauma suffered by victims.

It is no surprise, then, that only about ten percent of all sexual assaults are reported to police. And only a handful of those result in convictions—each year, only about 1,500 sexual assault offenders are actually convicted.

Violence against women has far-reaching consequences for society. According to the Department of Justice, each year Canadians spend $7.4 billion to deal with the aftermath of spousal violence.

This figure includes, among other factors, emergency room visits, the costs of absenteeism at work, and funeral costs.

Children who are exposed to abusive situations are more likely to have psychological problems and end up in abusive relationships themselves. According to the RCMP, a child who witnesses spousal violence experiences a form of child abuse, since research shows that “witnessing family violence is as harmful as experiencing it directly” The terrible cycle that violence perpetuates is a tragic reality for many Canadians. Widespread condemnation of this behaviour is needed to stop it. Walk a Day seeks not only to raise money, but also to encourage people to take a proactive stance against gender-based violence and fight for its eradication.

Marita was co-organizer of Walk a Day 2015 and she volunteers at the Barbara Schlifer Commemorative Clinic.

¹ “Homicide in Canada, 2011,” Statistics Canada, p. 11. Available: http://www.statcan. gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2012001/article/11738-eng.pdf ² “Shelters for Abuse Women in Canada, 2010,” Juristat, Marta Burczycka and Adam Cotter, Statistics Canada, June 27, 2011. Based on shelter admission for a randomly selected day, April 15, 2010. Available: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2011001/ article/11495-eng.htm. ³ “Self-reported victimizations reported to police, 1999, 2004 and 2009,” Criminal victimization in Canada, 2009, Samuel Perreault and Shannon Brennan, Statistics Canada, 2010. ⁴ “Limits of a Criminal Justice Response: Trends in Police and Court Processing of Sexual Assault,” Holly Johnson, Sexual Assault in Canada: Law, Legal Practice and Women’s Activism, edited by Elizabeth Sheehy, University of Ottawa Press 2012, p. 631. All data from Statistics Canada.

An Estimation of the Economic Impact of Spousal Violence in Canada, 2009. Available: http://justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/cj-jp/fv-vf/rr12_7/index.html ⁵ “Children Witnessing Family Violence,” by Mia Dauvergne and Holly Johnson, Juristat,Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics - Statistics Canada. 21.6 (2001): p. 4. Available: http://publications.gc.ca/Collection-R/Statcan/85-002-XIE/0060185-002-XIE.pdf

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.

ultravires.ca

NEWS

FEBRUARY 25, 2015 | 5

China Law Conference Focuses on Political Protest, Women’s Legal Issues, and Investment Law TYLER COHEN (3L) ON THE MORNING OF THE FIRST Saturday in February, fifty-five students, practitioners, and other friends braved the cold and, braver still, forfeited the right to a sleepfilled weekend to gather in the Falconer Hall Solarium for the second annual China Law Conference. In both years, the conference has sold out despite adverse weather conditions.

Students from the law school and other U of T faculties have seized the opportunity to learn about Chinese law and Canada-China legal relations alongside leading scholars and practitioners in the field.

This year’s conference kicked off with a panel focused on the Hong Kong Basic Law. Professor Susan Henders of York University and Alvin Cheung of the United States-Asia Law Institute (US-ALI) at New York University presented on the cultural and political autonomy of Hong Kong through the late 20th century and the shifting boundaries of the “one country-two systems” framework under which that autonomy has resided since Hong Kong returned to China in 1997.

The Umbrella Revolution movement that began last summer drew global media attention to China’s domestic legal affairs in a way only large-scale protests can. Much of the commentary that followed neglected the long history of both political struggle and political apathy in Hong Kong. Professor Henders provided valuable context, situating the move-

ment within the city’s broader history. Mr. Cheung, drawing on international and domestic Chinese law, argued that the promise made to Hong Kong—that China would be one country, but with two political systems—was slowly but surely being broken.

Professor Jerome Cohen, unfortunately unable to travel, delivered his keynote lecture by video. Professor Cohen is Director of the USALI and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and has been at the forefront of Chinese legal studies for over fifty years. He urged students and China-watchers to be mindful of the nature of the task at hand: “Of course, we in the United States and Canada have many problems of our own … [and] the worst kind of comparative law is to compare our theory and China’s practice.”

Though recent commentary has focused on the growing repression under the young Xi Jinping regime, Professor Cohen remains optimistic and called for greater attention on the part of the legal community: I don’t despair. There has been enormous progress in China since I started. I think we have to ask ourselves—how do we ride out what I hope is a temporary period of considerable repression? … We want to keep the faith. There are many [reformers] who would feel terribly abandoned if we ignored them and said that what happens in China is not of interest to us, or too hopeless for us to

become seriously involved.

After lunch, the audience packed the Solarium once more to hear two final panels. First, Professor Margaret Boittin—who will join Osgoode Hall next year—and award-winning author Leta Hong Fincher explored legal issues uniquely affecting women in China.

Professor Boittin discussed the legal regime governing prostitution in the country and shared insights from her fieldwork on efforts to increase HIV-AIDS prevention among sex workers. Ms. Fincher’s presentation on the property regime, how it affects women’s rights in divorce, and the interplay between these and state efforts to have women marry younger clearly raised the most excitement of the day, followed by many questions and rants and rants-that-gradually-became-questions. Her 2014 book, Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China, has garnered international attention and been widely praised.

Finally, Professor Donald Clarke of George Washington University, Mark Kruger of the Bank of Canada, and Robert Wisner, Partner at McMillan LLP, capped off the day with a panel presentation on investment law.

Professor Clarke, who had originally prepared to speak on local government financing, called an audible and presented on China’s rather unexpected new Draft Foreign Investment Law. Robert Wisner’s discussion of the highly controversial Canada-China Foreign

Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA) complemented Professor Clarke’s discussion, giving the audience a broad understanding of the current investment framework that Canadian firms face. With Professor Clarke and Mr. Wisner shedding light on national investment law and international investment treaties, Mr. Kruger dug deeper into the economic conditions for investment in his presentation on the Chinese real estate market.

The China Law Conference brings together a rare mix of leading experts in the field, and provides a unique opportunity to learn about a broad range of issues in Chinese law and Canada-China relations. Considering the importance of the FIPA on the one hand and the Umbrella Revolution on the other, as well as Professor Cohen’s call for greater engagement in these issues, perhaps it should not be so unique.

Tyler Cohen is President of U of T Law’s China Law Group.

Faculty Affairs: Stakeholder Engagement, Scheduling Woes Dominate February Meeting KENT KURAN (2L) FACULTY COUNCIL’S FEBRUARY meeting was dominated by Dean Edward Iacobucci’s updates on his latest outreach efforts, as well as a debate over academic scheduling for next year.

Following his meetings with the Law Society of Upper Canada, Iacobucci has been consulting with the alumni association and a range of law firms, expressing his thanks for their contributions to the law school. During the first two months of his deanship, Iacobucci has continued his outreach efforts.

The Dean’s message includes “advocacy for the academic core of our education,” highlighting the school’s academic excellence as a differentiator in an exceedingly crowded market. “That message, I believe has been very well received.”

Iacobucci said that certain firms are “sheepish about the percentage of U of T Law stu-

dents they hire.” However, for him, “It would be surprising if they hired less.”

While a few firms hire an outsized number of U of T Law graduates, when normalized for class size differences, many firms hire fewer students from U of T than other schools. Moreover, the class profile differences between U of T and its closest competitors are actually larger than the differential between the top and bottom of the so-called Top 14 (T14) schools in the US, which themselves exhibit significant placement variations. For 2014, U of T Law's entering class was in league with Ivy League law schools and their peers (based on the LSAT interquartile range, generally the most robust statistic for comparing law schools).

As for the Faculty’s efforts to increase diversity on campus, law firms have been very responsive: “The emphasis on diversity at the law firms is quite striking. It is definitely some-

thing they think is the right thing,” stated Iacobucci. “This is increasingly a matter that their clients are invested in.”

Relatedly, Iacobucci restated his intention to prioritise financial aid in the next fundraising campaign. “In principle there is a recognition of why this is so important,” he said, referring to the school’s diversity initiatives.

The faculty is currently working on a report “looking at various issues such as diversity” added Yasmin Dawood, co-chair of the Diversity Committee.

The law school also announced it was moving forward with plans to expand its offerings of pro bono unpaid student placements. Nikki Gershbain, National Director of Pro Bono Students Canada (PBSC) told Faculty Council that “the long term goal is to provide rigorously supervised high-quality placements for every student in Canada.”

The meeting concluded with a move to deem multiple Fridays as Mondays and Wednesdays during next year’s fall term, generating considerable debate and some laughter from Council members. Next year, Labor Day lands on the latest day possible, September 7, explained Professor Ian Lee (Associate Dean, JD Program). Members cited concerns that rescheduled Friday classes would result in irregular attendance given the general lack of classes on the last day of the work week at the law school. Alternatives, such as moving the start of class ahead of the Labor Day long weekend, were also presented, but were viewed as overly disruptive to students' summer schedules.

FEATURES

6 | FEBRUARY 25, 2015

ultravires.ca

DID YOU MAKE A POOR FINANCIAL INVESTMENT

BY GOING TO U OF T LAW? Continued from page 1 be changed. The model is included in the online version of this article so feel free to download it and play around with the assumptions if you disagree with them—the returns will change automatically so don’t worry about your Excel aptitude.

Despite its inevitable imperfections, I think the model provides interesting results and a framework in which to answer the question at hand, though it does not provide a necessarily correct answer. Even if you change some of the most influential assumptions in the model, I do not believe that the returns change so significantly that the overall point is invalid. Going to U of T Law is a huge investment; you have to put in your time, effort, and money while foregoing money you could have been earning. It is certainly a bigger commitment than almost all the other financial investments in your life. If the investment yields a negative (or even a slightly positive) return by working in public interest and involves significant pressure from tuition debt, then some people will undoubtedly be pushed away from that path. If U of T Law doesn’t want to be a school with graduates that work almost exclusively outside of public interest, the administration must do something to address this problem caused largely by high tuition.

The model uses $100,000 as the starting salary of a Bay Street lawyer, which is typical of most Bay Street firms. ii The model uses $76,000 as the starting salary for a MAG lawyer, as told to me by first year counsel at MAG. i

1L Hiring 2015

Osgoode Empire Strikes Back?

DAVID PARDY (3L) THE 2015 1L RECRUIT CONCLUDED on February 19 with numbers up from last year.

Toronto's law firms hired 50 first year law students, as compared with 42 in 2014 and 44 and 2015.

Four firms hired less than last year: Blakes, BLG, Goodmans, and Oslers. Six firms hired more: Aird & Berlis, Bennett Jones, Bereskin & Parr, Cassels, Davies, and Torys. Dentons, Sherrard Kuzz, and Smart & Biggar kept hiring level.

U of T students took 24 spots again this year out of the total 50, performing worse on an percentage basis. The U of T JD/MBA hit rate fell from 76% last year (13 out of 17 applicants landed jobs) to 44% this year (11 out of 25 applicants). Nearly the whole 28-person JD/MBA Class of 2017 applied, which is uncharacteristic

FIRM

compared to previous years. Osgoode students, many of them JD/MBAs, ate up 15 spots this year compared to seven last year.

A few firms markedly changed this year.

Bennett Jones, the highest paying articling employer on Bay Street, joined the 1L reruit and snagged five U of T students. Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP did not hire any students this year even though it hired three U of T JD/ MBAs last year. Osler's decision to withdraw from the 1L recruit may be due to it's abnormally large 2L summer group of 25 students.

Davies restored its 2013 hiring levels at nine after only hiring four last year.

Congratulations to all. To those who did not receive an offer, remember that the 1L recruit is but one way to start a career at a firm, so chin up!

UT LAW 1L

UT LAW JD/MBA

OSGOODE (YORK)

QUEEN'S LAW

Aird & Berlis

1

1

2

1

Bennett Jones LLP

4

1

Bereskin & Parr Blake, Cassels & Graydon, LLP

WINDSOR LAW

McGILL LAW

CALGARY LAW

WESTERN LAW

2 3

Borden Ladner Gervais LLP

2

UBC LAW

DALHOUSIE LAW

1

3

1

1

Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP

1

2

1

Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP

2

3

4

Dentons LLP

1

1

Goodmans LLP

2

1

1 1

Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP Sherrard Kuzz LLP

2

Smart & Biggar/Fetherstonhaugh

1

Torys LLP

1*

1

TOTAL

13

11

*JD/MPP student

1

1

15

5

2

1

1

1

1

0

TOTAL

2014 TOTAL

5

4

5

0

3

1

9

11

1

2

4

3

9

4

3

3

4

5

0

0

3

3

1

1

3

2

50

42

FEATURES

ultravires.ca

FEBRUARY 25, 2015 | 7

DEAR SIRS: YOU'VE TAKEN ALL OUR MONEY, NOW KINDLY FUCK OFF Continued from page 2 Up to now it made a sort of sense. Professors have an interest in high tuition, in so far as it correlates to high salaries. The Law Society represents the interests of the bar (whose fees have barely budged), and emphatically not those of aspiring members.

The one unsolved mystery in all of this is what the hell is wrong with our groveling, obsequious classmates. Earlier this month the ambitious busybodies in student government asked fellow students with paying jobs (or as they used to be called, jobs) to donate money to support those students who

will be working for free over the summer.

As it happens, it's actually illegal in this province to pay workers less than the designated minimum wage. You might think that a group of lawyer and lawyers-to-be would consider this in their approach, but you'd be wrong.

Under the new regime there is but one solution to every possible problem. Salaries too low? Raise tuition. Articling alternative law practice program underfunded? Bill the students. Students' employment rights being violated? Ask their classmates to make up the difference.

I'm told at a time it was considered a point of great pride to have completed a law degree. As such, graduates would have their likenesses hung in the halls of the faculty to celebrate their achievement. But what we're enduring is not so much an achievement as a prolonged transaction.

One diploma for a hundred grand plus interest.

There's no more need to have your picture taken to celebrate the occasion than there would be to don a sash that reads “I Just Bought a Prius!”

To be honest, I wasn't about to endure the inconvenience of posing for a photo even when I

thought it was free. But apparently they want fifty bucks. What have they been doing with the money we already gave them? Paying instructors? Six of my seven teachers this year are unpaid adjuncts. Investing in infrastructure? We're working out of borrowed space and the library is in storage. It's enough already. When those whose salaries you've already mortgaged your future to support ask for one last dollar, err on the side of dignity and tell them to fuck off.

Join Blakes

Your adventure starts here.

MONTRÉAL OTTAWA *Associated Office

TORONTO

CALGARY

VANCOUVER

NEW YORK

LONDON

BAHRAIN

AL-KHOBAR* BEIJING SHANGHAI* Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP | joinblakes.com

8 | FEBRUARY 25, 2015

FEATURES

LAW FOLLIES 2015 PHOTO BY: LISANA NITHIANANTHAN

ultravires.ca

ultravires.ca

To view behind the scenes captures and our full collection of photographs from Law Follies 2015: Filth & Substance, visit our website at www.ultravires.ca.

FEATURES

FEBRUARY 25, 2015 | 9

10 | FEBRUARY 25, 2015

FEATURES

ultravires.ca

A meeting with Michael Macrae TALI GREEN (2L) MICHAEL MACRAE (2L) SITS NEAR the front of our Evidence class, in a motorized wheelchair. He spends his class time listening to the professor and asking questions. At first I could not understand what he said, but once I attuned my ear to his speech, I realized that his questions were inordinately insightful. I soon found myself eagerly awaiting his next question, curious to know what might have caught his attention this time.

After one of our classes, I approached Michael to introduce myself. My wrist was in a bright purple cast, and at the end of our short chat Michael said that he hoped my arm got better soon. I felt my heart drop slightly—this man, confined to a wheelchair and with extremely limited upper body movements—was wishing my wrist a speedy recovery.

I developed a strong curiosity about Michael from these limited interactions, and eventually I asked him if he would meet me for an interview. In this short excerpt from our fascinating conversation, Michael gave me a glimpse into how his physical and mental realities shape his experiences as a law student.

TG: Do you have siblings?

MM: Yes, I have a twin sister. By reason of whom I am confined to a wheelchair. Because, see, twin births are more difficult and we were born premature on account of being twins.

And she and I both have cerebral palsy.

Do you think there are things about you that people do not understand that you wish they would?

Of course. Often, people do not recognize that I do not understand much of human behaviour. If they do, they do not explain it. They do not explain enough of it all. So I am left perplexed, wondering where I went wrong.

By reading stuff online. There are a lot of resources out there to help people with difficulty understanding social interaction. People criticize the internet so much because of the horrible things that do happen on it, yet I find it to be a very useful resource.

What do you wish people understood better about Asperger’s?

I wish they would understand that people with Asperger’s are not inherently violent. And that we do have consciences and senses of humor.

And that we can tell a lie. That isn’t to say that I am a chronic liar. It’s just that that is one of the many misconceptions I have heard about it.

I wish that people would recognize that Aspergic people are more or less like normal people except that we have difficulties in controlling our interests in given topics and in understanding social cues. I’m not talking about committing crimes to support our interests—although that happens to people outside of autism and Asperger’s. I’m talking about loving the idea of spending hours doing nothing but reading about your topic of interest and loving every minute of that. I’m talking about memorizing stuff about your chosen subject and loving every minute of that.

Have you found that being in the law school has been complex socially?

It has been complex, more complex than in the past. For the first time in several years, I am trying to make friends with people whom I meet physically. That is rather difficult and I have had some setbacks. But, you know, it’s a challenge. Maybe I’ll do better, maybe I won’t.

But I’ll try. And if it don’t try then I won’t get any success or failures.

Why don’t you understand various parts of human behaviour?

You mentioned making friends with people you meet physically. Are you used to having many friends in a virtual way?

Oh, because I have Asperger’s. Or what is now called being part of the autistic spectrum.

If I were to say that, I would be considering myself lucky. As it is, I have few real friends.

How do you know that you do not understand people?

How are you trying to make friends in the law school?

Well, for instance, it is apparently the case that other people find it much easier to know when somebody is or is not interested in them, either as a person or in terms of what they are talking about. But for me it is much more difficult. Unless of course it is utterly blatant, such as walking away from me in the middle of speaking or playing together, as happened to me in kindergarten.

Often, people will not say outright, “I am not interested in you”, or “what you are saying bores me.” Instead, they will engage in some form of excuse making, such as “I need to use the washroom” or “I am busy with this or that.” So on account of this, they leave and I think they are telling the truth, not knowing that they are not interested in me. Over all this, I have developed a constant fear that I am not interesting to others.

Through things such as our conversation.

Through being polite to people. Through responding positively to those who are interested in my views and through talking to them if they are interested in me, or seem interested in me, and seeing where it goes thence.

How did you go from thinking people are telling the truth to realizing that they might be lying to you?

How do you wish people reacted to you differently?

On the contrary, it is not that I wish that people would react to me differently. I wish that I would react to people differently because I am the one with difficulty in social interaction.

They are all normal, I am not. If I could change myself to be more like them, then that would mean that I would be approaching normality more. I do not think in the terms of changing others, but of changing myself.

You mentioned that law school stresses you out. What about the law do you find stressful?

I find Canadian income tax law stressful. And I also find stressful the need to memorize many sophisticated points of law. That having been said, I find that once I do memorize them, I generally am able to understand them well enough.

Why do you find the need to memorize sophisticated points of law? Why not just write them down?

I do, but it’s easier to have things memorized than for you to have to consult a book for exam purposes and testing purposes, even for discussion purposes. To take an obvious example: you could, if you want, write down on a piece of paper 2+2= 4 and whenever you need to find out what 2+2 equals you can look up a piece of paper. But you don’t, you memorize 2+2 = 4.

And hopefully you understand it. In the same way I have to memorize and understand the more complex principles of law. Writing down legal tests is a crutch. The true mastery of the law comes from memorizing basic principles and applying them to situations. That is the basis for the common law.

How would you go about learning a new concept in one of your law classes?

I would review the case law first. Then I would read over the notes based on the professor’s lectures. And I would see if I could make sense of the case law and the professor’s comments comparing them as it were to a treatise written in verse and its prose commentary, with the case law being analogous to the verse and the professor’s lecture and clarifications of point being equivalent to the prose commentary. And then if those are not sufficient, which unfortunately is sometimes the case, I will see if I cannot find in some website that seems reputable some words that can make it clearer.

What difference do you hope to make with your law degree?

I would be interested if I could get involved in something related to freedom of expression and freedom of speech. Ever since high school, I have developed a horror at censorship of things that are not illegal. Obviously, there are things that are illegal, with good reason, such as the distribution of military or government secrets. But I am also aware that censorship and libel are real problems in the world.

How do you want to achieve that?

I am not sure. It would be good if I could get into a private firm, but I am not sure. Because I don’t really think I am good at job interviews.

What has been your experience with job interviews?

I have sent out eighteen job applications over the past two years, of which I have gotten three job interviews. Of these three job interviews, one of them was especially traumatic because the interviewer told me later that I was not very good at it, but then that person wouldn’t tell me why I wasn’t good at it. And of course I didn’t get the job.

When you went in for the interview, did the employer know that you have these conditions?

Well, that is the thing. I have been encouraged to be more disclosing of my physical and mental disabilities. Hitherto, I have mostly focused on confining my disclosure to asking that the interview be in wheelchair-accessible rooms only. But there are things that can be done to improve that. And with the aid of my counselor, I have devised a formula that I can attach to letters to properly explain and present my physical and other flaws.

Do you think that you have certain abilities that far surpass those of the average student?

I believe that I do have an ability in terms of focusing to a very great degree upon something that interests me and learning very much about it and doing well in it. And this has served me well in my studies, academic and non-academic.

You speak very well. Where did you learn to speak so articulately, so eloquently?

I’m not sure. I have never formally studied rhetoric. Although I am aware that Quintilian wrote much about it. I just, you know…I have these full thoughts in my mind. I think more or less in complete sentences and then I just write them or say them and there they are.

Do you see yourself working as a lawyer before a court or with clients?

I much prefer personally the idea of being a researcher. Yes, I would like to gain legal qualifications and serve as a lawyer. But on account, among other things, of my defect in hearing I think it would be much easier for me to be the person who researches case law, treatises, precedents, and articles and comes up with written arguments and let others present them and cross examine and what not.

Despite these challenges that you have described, you have achieved so much. How do you stay motivated to keep going?

I keep myself going by reminding myself that there are interesting things in life, pleasant things in life, and often these two things intersect. And often, even better, these things intersect in law that I study.

Would you say that these interests that you are passionate about and want to study take your mind off of problems you are facing?

Indeed, they do. The mind is a wonderful thing.

And although affected by the body, it is able to ignore the body’s weaknesses in many ways.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

ultravires.ca

FEATURES/OPINIONS

FEBRUARY 25, 2015 | 11

Recent Grads Dish on the Bar Exam TYLER COHEN (3L) EVERYONE KNOWS THAT SIMPLY graduating from law school doesn’t actually make you a lawyer. Your last exam of 3L isn’t even the last law exam you ever have to take.

There remain…the Bar Exams (or, more properly, the Ontario Licensing Examinations). But, if you’re anything like I was before researching this article, that’s 100% of your knowledge about the Bar. Everything else you know consists of vague rumours and anecdotes from your friend’s roommate’s brother or Suits. What’s on it? How long is it? How do you study for it? To combat this rampaging ignorance, I sat down with Ben Iscoe, Andi Jin and K, three UT law grads who passed the Bar last summer to get some cold, hard info about this nebulous test.

THE STRUCTURE: The bar exams are made up of two full-day, 7-hour multiple-choice exams, taken roughly two weeks apart. The LSUC does not provide any substantive teaching to prepare for the exams, but they do provide you with written materials.

The first exam (the barrister examination) tests on public law (constitutional and admin), criminal procedure, family law, civil litigation and ethical and professional responsibility.

The second exam (the solicitor examination) tests on real estate, business law (corporate, bankruptcy and tax), wills, trusts and estate administration and planning and ethical and professional responsibility.

What kind of preparation did you do? Did you take a prep course? If so, would you recommend it? If not, why not?

K: I don’t think a single person in my year took a Bar Exam Prep Course. You don’t need to take a Prep Course because a Prep Course implies that one can prep for the Bar Exam. You don’t study for the bar exam in the traditional way that one thinks of studying law. The exam is an open book multiple choice exam based on a giant binder of Bar Materials provided by LSUC. The questions are often about very minute, specific points of proce-

dural law. These are questions you can’t memorize the answer to unless you spend months memorizing the material. So you study for the bar by creating an index with a group of people that will help you find the answer in the LSUC Bar Materials as quickly as possible. You have about 90 seconds per question, which is usually enough amount of time to find the answer you need. After creating your index, most people my year read the Bar Materials once and highlighted them using a convoluted colour system. You won’t retain most of what you read and you don’t need to retain what you read to pass the Bar; but reading the material once at least make you think you’ve done something to prepare yourself. I didn’t start creating my index until around early-to-mid May. The total time spent studying for both exams was about six weeks.

Ben: I was in an index group of approximately 18 people. We all took a chunk of the material (between 70-110 pages each) and built on an index supplied by previous years (amending page numbers based on how material had changed from the previous year). My studying consisted of doing the above mentioned indexing and then reading and highlighting all material. I had different highlighters for different topics (pink = limitations or dates; blue = policy; purple = cases etc.). In retrospect I would only use two highlighters (one for general and one for dates/limitation periods); things like policy and cases I cannot ever being the subject of a question. I did not take a prep course. It’s probably worth noting that studying takes an exceptionally long time. There is somewhere between 1,500 to 2,000 pages worth of material and it is very dense. I went at a pace of about 10 pages per hour, which I believe is somewhat the norm.

Andi: I think good prep is to read through the materials once or twice with a few friends and have a rough understanding of: a) the general principles; and b) where everything is in your materials. For example, you don’t need to know the difference between a conditional discharge and a suspended sentence. But! You should know that there is a difference, and you should know

that the two are discussed in Chapter 15 or whatever, entitled “Sentencing or some shit similar”.

The jury is out on indexes. I was part of an indexing group but I didn’t end up using our index and preferred the table of contents that came with the materials. I didn’t take a prep course, and I don’t know anyone who has. Aren’t they basically scams? You probably shouldn’t take one, they’re expensive, and do you even know who even teaches prep courses? Osgoode grads and commies. That’s who.

What was it like writing the Bar? How difficult was it?

Were you worried about passing?

K: The amount of questions that must be answered correctly to pass the bar, and the percentage of test takers who pass the bar are not published by LSUC. It’s natural to think that you may be failing it while taking it because you literally have no idea what it takes to pass the exam.

But you won’t fail. You’ll pass. Everyone passes.

Ben: It was somewhat analogous to my LSAT experience in the sense that we were in a giant room (over 1,000 people); each of us with our own desk.

In addition to our prep material, I think we could only bring in a Ziplock bag worth of personal belongings, including food and the material we had to empty from our pockets. I remember at one point I left a couple credit cards in my back pocket and an administrator noticed it and asked me to remove in. Despite finding it a little weird that that they were for whatever reason looking at my Gluteus Maximus you gotta give’em credit; good eye. When you actually start writing there is a giant clock at the front of the room counting down from three and a half hours (three and a half hours in the morning and three and a half hours in the afternoon). Was I worried about passing? Yup! After the barrister exam, I was confident I would be rewriting in November.

Andi: It was like studying in the Birge reading room except much larger and there was a massive Hunger Games-style digital clock projected

Law Follies Review DAVID PARDY (3L) I’M NOT ONE TO EXAGGERATE, YET I feel confident saying this. Like Clement Greenberg's Art and Culture, this review will change the way we, as a society, interact with art. My subject is Law Follies, the law-themed sketch comedy show you never knew a coupla' rag tag students could throw together in the bitter winds of February and law school.

As the second greatest law school event, Law Follies cultivates the second highest expectations.

This year's show on February 12 at the Randolph Theatre had all the ingredients to meet them: a slew of scripts, talented and sexual performers, a couple'o'dolls for emcees, a diversity dreamboat (DSB) we all love to love, and a dimwitted but loyal lighting manager, Eryn Fanjoy. While Follies was excellent enough to entertain the highfalutin, denigratory royalty of U of T Law, on the whole it fell a bit flat. This is ironic given that the singers this year were not flat. But I digress.

The show kicked off with the typical video to put you in the mood. I'm not talking about the mood for being in the centre of an Eiffel Tower, which is apparently super embarrassing, but in-

stead for a night of off-colour humour. And that's what Follies should be – we ought to make Trey Parker's and Matt Stone's "Book of Mormon" look like a warm embrace of religious diversity.

Oh yeah, and we ought to celebrate our talented peers and stuff.

Initially, Follies' pleasant mix of sketches, songs, and videos had the crowd laughing, leering hungrily at the hard bodies on stage, and falling hush to the sweet serenade of clever lyrics. We all loved “Part of Your World”, “Teach Me How to Duggan”, D(SB)ecision, Pulp Fiction, "Get a P", “J Papa”, Holistic Admissions, Game of Deans, Dealing With Debt, and “Jackman Hall”. The riveting L'Heureux Dube rap, though a bit old horse, was a hit too. All great. And then Jian Gomeshi came in and trashed the place.

Even as an avid advocate of crass comedy, I think the Jian sketch tactlessly pierced the perimeter of permissible performance material. I don't know how Joe Guiyab stayed in character (which was bordering on masterful, I must say) after the audience’s drunken chortles dried up only a minute into his cringe worthy soliloquy. I cannot imagine how any

sexual assault victims in the audience felt. The sketch happened just two days after Walk-A-Day. It never should have escaped the chopping block.

Even if you think the sketch was all in good humour, I would argue that it lacked commitment. The last line, something like, "As long as we keep perpetuating rape culture, affluent and powerful men like me will go free," was strikingly discordant with everything previous. Its inclusion did not state the thesis of the sketch, it instead revealed that the writer felt remorse. Rightly so.

On a brighter note, I love Law Follies! It's nice for us students to come together and laugh about our mutual antagonism towards certain things. Like the new building. And debt. And the new building.

And debt. And admin law. And the new building.

Yeah, there were too many building and debt jokes. Those horses were dead and rotten by intermission. In future shows, can we indebt those who say “debt”? Payment will be chugging a beer on stage. If Queen’s Players taught me anything, stage drinking can only end well.

One thing that did end kind of well was including professors in the show. To my surprise, this

on the wall and also unlike the reading room people actually shutted the fuck up.

Did you find that you had an accurate conception of what the Bar entailed when you were in law school?

K: I knew very little about the bar exam while I was in law school. I didn’t know what topics were on it. I didn’t know what an “index” was. I think most of my peers were in a similar boat.

Ben: Nope. The prep session organized by the CDO office after 3L exams assisted, but any twenty minute sit down with a recent grad should suffice.

Andi: I didn’t know they were a thing until after graduation.

If there was one thing you wish you’d know about the bar exam before you took it/started prepping/while you were in law school/etc., what would it be?

K: The Bar has questions where they ask you to calculate child support. LSUC uses an old bank of questions that they just recycle through every year. But the Bar Materials are updated as the laws change. So when the Federal Child Support Guidelines were updated, the Bar Materials were updated but the actual questions on the Bar weren’t. So when you calculate child support, the correct answer you calculate will be a few dollars off from the correct answer on the bar exam.

Ben: It takes a terrific amount of time to get through material. The gist I got from most people is that the average pace hovered around 10 pages an hour. I also wished that I spend more time using the index provided by the law society. Despite my index group doing a very thorough job, I found the Law Society index much more succinct and helpful.

Andi: That it’ll be okay! Odds are, no matter how many people who have done this before tell you it’ll be okay, the majority of you are going to go Continued on page 12

has not entirely quashed jokes at their expenses.

And the professors were funny! And decent singers! Duggan is a better dancer than I am.

I will say, however, that some student-professor interactions were indecorous. While I don’t intend to put professors on a pedestal, I believe that student-professor fraternization can diminish their statuses. This year, students wrote several crude lines for professors, some too crude. I know that a professor refused to perform an especially edgy line. That’s fine. The sketches that professors wrote and starred in were naturally better anyways. We should encourage professors to write their own material. As they very frequently reminded us, professors are quite smart, so they are surely capable of it.

And with minimal student-professor interaction, these sketches would be more… decorous.

Cutting UK Porn Laws could have kept Follies from being as long as an extended Lord of the Rings movie. Holy moly was that weird. If anything, David Cameron should have criminalized this sketch. It used sexuality as a blunt tool that was more discomforting than comedic. And let’s be real, legal porn would not even be that hot.

All in all, I actually loved the show, sippy cup alcohol and all. It’s the law school’s second best event! 10/10 would Follies again. Kudos to the entire crew. The music was especially impressive this year. Not only were the lyrics hella dope, but we didn’t have to drown out the vocalists with loud music!

Bravo, bravo!

OPINIONS

12 | FEBRUARY 25, 2015

ultravires.ca

Word on “Stop it! Stop it! This the Street Has Gotten Too Silly!”

What did you do during Reading Week?

ASHLEY MAJOR (1L)

NITAI & CO (2L)

Caught up on the two weeks of readings I neglected for law follies. And watched Friends. So much Friends.

Boys, blues, and bourbon in Kentucky and Tennessee.

RONA GHANBARI (1L)

GIGI VAN LEEUWEN (2L)

Pretended to study while actually researching buying a hedgehog

Read about class actions, either pool side or on the beach in the DR

YALE HERTZMAN (3L)

ALEX ECKLER (2L)

Enjoying +20 rather the -20 in Naples, Florida!

Spent it in Miami. It got cold in Toronto, right?

HAYLEY OSSIP (3L) & LIZ KAGEDAN (3L) Kliz and Khaley stormed Miami.

RECENT GRADS DISH ON THE BAR EXAM Continued from page 11 stressballs bonkers over this exam anyway. But still, seriously, it’ll be okay. Think about all the exams you’ve written in your life. There are literally dozens of them. Bar ads are just another exam. Also keep in mind that this is a pass/fail exam. You don’t need to rock faces. Just like Faculty policy when it comes to the number of promotional photos featuring David St. Bernard, you should aim for a solid 60%.

Is there anything else you think would be interesting and relevant to put in the article, or that law students should be aware of?

HARRISON CRUIKSHANK (2L) VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND ACCESS TO justice are serious issues. Each implicates the efficacy of Canada’s legal framework and highlights troubling parts of our society.

Given the gravity of these issues, why are we at the Faculty of Law comfortable addressing them by playing dress-up?

More than half of women over the age of 16 have been physically or sexually assaulted. On average, a woman is killed by her sexual partner every week.¹ Without social support, many women are unable to escape the realities of an abusive relationship. Relatedly, these same women may not seek recourse through our legal system given a lack of money or time. The inaccessibility of our justice system affects scores of other Canadians, particularly those in financial need.² Walk-a-Day and Flip Your Wig are campaigns put on to help raise funds in support of ending violence against women and increasing access to justice, respectively. The students and faculty who organize and participate in these events are amazing, dedicated people with gigantic hearts. That said, I believe that to accept these silly campaigns as wholly positive initiatives is naïve.

These campaigns do a disservice to those individuals they purport to help by trivializing issues which are anything but.

I am a huge proponent of humour as a means of addressing serious issues, and will joke about everything and anything (in the appropriate circumstances, with the appropriate company). It may seem strange then that I am questioning these campaigns given my own light-hearted approach to most issues (the title for this op-ed is a Monty Python quote for jeepers’ sake). My problem is that these campaigns do not use mirth & merriment appropriately and end up subverting their own goals.

These campaigns alleviate the symptoms of serious issues through cold hard cash without addressing any underlying causes and in some ways perpetuating them. In this way, they are alike to raising funds for underprivileged youth by putting on a Minstrel Show.

Consider first Walk-a-Day, an incarnation of several events where men put on high-heeled shoes to raise money for the White Ribbon Campaign. Now, according to its website: White Ribbon positively engages men, young men and boys through relevant educational programming that challenges language and behaviours, as well as harmful ideas of manhood that lead to violence against women.³ I don’t understand walk-a-day-type events, because they do not support this goal other than financially. Walk-a-Day does not “positively engage men”. It certainly engages men; a lot of awesome fellas I know participated and raised some decent cash. But in what sense is this engagement positive? By symbolizing experiences with sexual violence through wearing high-heels, are we not trivializing the former while completely ignoring problems with the latter (a sexist institution that only women should wear high-heels, and must do so for more “conservative” functions)? I think Walk-a-Day is sacrificing the “positive” for the “engagement” in a way that we shouldn’t necessarily be okay with.

Similarly, encouraging fellas to put on high-heels for a day hardly “challenges language and behaviours, as well as harmful ideas of manhood that lead to violence against women.” If anything, campaigns like Walk-a-Day perpetuate these ideas by continuing the usual, “a man? In women’s clothing!? HOW DROLE!” The fact is a disproportionately large number of women who experience violence are trans-women. For this reason alone it is inappropriate to address violence against women while simultaneously perpetuating the notion that it is laughable for people born as men to dress in women’s clothing.

This continued marginalization of the trans-community is the most obvious problem with Walk-a-Day campaigns. I think partnering with Out in Law or the Feminist Law Society could help with the other similar problems. Why don’t we just have “white ribbon” day, where men all put on a white ribbon? I suppose this brings us back to sacrificing “positive” for “engagement”.

There are similar problems with Flip Your Wig for Justice, a standalone initiative started by and benefiting a number of excellent legal aid clinics. The member organizations of this campaign have enlisted the help of some brilliant students and faculty. Yet, rather than doing something more meaningful, they encourage people to wear silly wigs. According to their website: ‟‘Flip Your Wig’ for Justice is an awareness campaign and a pledge-based fundraising event in support of access to justice in Ontario. The campaign plays on the combination of the traditional judicial wig, and the turn of phrase “Flip Your Wig” – implying to be angry, or outraged. Funds raised will go to raising awareness for access to justice and to supporting the six Ontariobased non-profit organizations.⁴” By their own description of the phrase, Flip Your Wig clearly wants us to be “angry, or outraged” with the state of justice in Canada and recognize it as a serious issue. So why run a trivial and light-hearted campaign?

Maybe it’s just me, but I also get nervous when I notice a lack of attention to detail by a charitable organization. The expression “flip your wig” is not about being “angry, or outraged”, but is in fact a phrase from the 1950s about going insane. Any rage is merely incidental/causal to insanity, and is not necessary. So if we’re going to flip our wigs for justice, we should actually just be losing our minds entirely in response to the state of our legal system.

Criticizing the campaign’s name is a fairly weak complaint, but it is representative of my larger problem with Flip Your Wig. It’s a poorly thought out name (bonus points for being insensitive to mental illness—coming soon: Lunatics for Legal Aid) for a poorly thought out campaign.

Flip Your Wig’s website mentions “making a significant contribution to the conversation and solutions around access to justice”, yet I have seen nothing like this from them to date. Just wigs and posters sporting phrases like “be part of the fun”. As Ultra Vires itself pointed out, there are discussions taking place in Canada about how to improve access to justice. Why not use resources to participate in those rather than coordinating wig photo-shoots?

In these campaigns’ favours, they have raised far more money for their respective causes than you or I have by complaining about their less than ideal methods. So let’s be clear, I am not arguing for an end to these campaigns. I hope their coordinators, present and future, are alive to these criticisms, and do not simply brush them off as curmudgeonly and continue their status quo.

There is a time to be silly and a time to be serious. Law Follies is the place to point out sad truths through humour. If you’re going to genuinely address an issue, your campaign should do so in spirit as well as substance. Otherwise, you won’t cure any problems, just pay for the bandages.

K: 1) Don’t worry about the bar exam. It’s a joke. It’s a stain on our profession. It is a test of how quickly one can read a large amount of multiple choice questions and find an answer in a very large book and not at all a test of one’s aptitude in the legal profession. 2) Keep it easy on the highlighters when you read. 3) Just skip the tax chapters of the Bar Materials entirely. They are indecipherable and tax questions compose about 5 questions total on the Solicitors Exam. 4) Focus on the Professional Responsibility Section. It is the bulk of both exams.

do on these unknown questions to pass. My perception of the exam was that after you read every single question you would readily be able to consult your index, look up and then answer and then move onto the next question. Not so much. I could not find the answer to a significant number of questions. Far less than half of the questions was I able to readily look up the answer as described above.

Ben: The most unnerving thing is the unknown. It is not revealed (a) how many people pass; (b) what percentage of people pass; or (c) what absolute mark you need to obtain to pass. Furthermore, there is very little practice material available. So, in essence, you have little insight about what the questions are and how well you have to

¹ For more, see http://www.canadianwomen.org/facts-about-violence ² For more, see http://www.cba.org/CBA/Access/main/ ³ http://www.whiteribbon.ca/what-we-do/ ⁴ http://www.flipyourwigforjustice.ca/about/

Andi: Budget yourself a lot of time to get to the physical exam the morning of. The exams are held near the CNE, and unless you live nearby in Liberty Village like some sort of left-handed, kale-powered hippie, you’re going to need to subway and it’s a difficult trip. Unless you take a cab/Uber because you’re wealthy, in which case, hi, how are you and do you have a thing for civil servants of average height?

ultravires.ca

DIVERSIONS

FEBRUARY 25, 2015 | 13

World’s Most The Top 10 Things Powerful Wind You Absolutely Tunnel to be Need to do this Constructed St Paddy’s Day at ‘Baby Gale’ Moot 6 AMIR EFTEKARPOUR (1L)

AMIR EFTEKARPOUR (1L) RESEARCHERS AT U OF T’S FACULTY OF ENGINEERING ARE finalizing plans to construct what they hope will be the most powerful wind tunnel ever constructed. The wind tunnel is to be installed at Old Osgoode hall just in time for the Baby Gale moot between U of T and Osgoode 1Ls, a location that was specifically chosen after months of careful analysis.

“We need a strong, consistent source of pure wind and hot air to conduct our stress tests,” said project lead Dr. Sarah Taylor. “Our analysis has confirmed that a bunch of hopeful future litigators stumbling through oral submissions based on their shallow understanding of some upper year’s factum will provide the required supply of pure wind needed to properly test suspension bridges, skyscrapers, and major dams.” The project website indicates that the 1L moot was carefully chosen over sites like your small group, and the general area around your fucking friend Jake from Vancouver whenever he says pretty much anything about ‘the coast.’

Sources close to the project expressed significant optimism about the usefulness of the tunnel. “If a building can stand firm while being subjected to the volume of pure wind coming out of a 1L discussing what they sort of think the Oakes test is, it can withstand any force of nature or act of God,” an anonymous tester said.

ST. PADDY’S DAY IS AROUND THE CORNER, and Ultra Vires has the guide you need to make the most of your one opportunity to day-drink, wear green, and reveal your inner contempt for the Irish. Read on below to find out how to make the most of the day!

But…we get drunk on the street together every year, Matt.

1 2

7

Wear your favourite shamrock hat!

No better way to show off all that spirit!

Make green pancakes.

Like regular pancakes, but green! Your friends will love this new twist on an old classic. No better way to start the day!

3

Drink green beer!

Whoa! A solid twist on a St Paddy’s Day staple. Lagers or IPAs work best.

4

Go to your friend Matt’s house and get ready to party!

Fuck yeah! Sharing the day with your friends is the best part of St Paddy’s Day!!

Remind him that the bones healed decently enough and the judge agreed to probation.

Besides, chicks dig scars. And ankle trackers.

Maybe if you try crying a bit he’ll change his mind?

But should you let Matt’s newfound sobriety stand in the way of your fun? Who’s to say?

8

Ask if he has change for the TTC back to your house—you spent all your money on your shamrock hat.

But it lights up, see? It lights up, Matt.

9

Get home and realize you’re not in undergrad anymore.

Go Mustangs?

10

Start prepping for Canada Day! You and Matt are going to have so much fun.

5

Ask him what he means when he says he can’t get drunk on the street with you again this year.

WE’RE NOT JUST LOOKING FOR EXCEPTIONAL LAWYERS, WE’RE LOOKING FOR EXCEPTIONAL PEOPLE. Within our firm you’ll find lawyers who’ve closed billion-dollar deals, represented Prime Ministers and argued precedent-setting cases before the Supreme Court. You’ll also discover adventurers, marathoners and humanitarians. Every year, through our summer and articling programs, we seek out students who, like us, have both a passion for legal success and a desire to push themselves to their limit.

To read our lawyers’ profiles and see if BLG is right for you, visit blg.com/student

Calgary | Montréal | Ottawa | Toronto | Vancouver Lawyers | Patent & Trade-mark Agents | Borden Ladner Gervais LLP is an Ontario Limited Liability Partnership.

blg.com

DIVERSIONS

ultravires.ca

What Not To Wear, Law Ball Edition

Law Follies Awards 2015

14 | FEBRUARY 25, 2015

ALANNA TEVEL (3L) SO MUCH ATTENTION IS GIVEN TO what students should wear during OCIs and November in-firm week, but what about Law Ball? Of all the social events of the year, the Ball is surely the most highly anticipated. Expectations are high and each attendee’s outfit choice is subjected to the scrutiny of U of T law students—a high-class group of people who consider slouchy hats and Blundstones boots ‘style choices’. Who wouldn’t be intimidated by this band of fashionistas? Refer to the brief guide below to know what not to wear to this year’s affair and avoid embarrassing yourself.

First, the location of Law Ball might be deceiving. The event is being held at Atlantis. But, do not be fooled people! Despite your initial thoughts, this Atlantis is not the mythical, ancient Greek island referred to in Plato’s works.

Do not arrive to Law Ball donned in your finest Island gear. Bathing suits are not welcome! Neither are Greek God costumes (see: Alex Condon, Halloween party 2012).

Second, Law Ball is a night to show off your best duds, and perhaps even some skin. Do not pull any old outfit out of your closet, such as that boring sweater you throw on for the dreaded early Monday morning Torts class. Think more along the lines of Amal Alamuddin Clooney at the Golden Globes. Elegant, but sexy. And don’t even think about recycling that prom dress or putting on the tuxedo t-shirt you got at a mall that one time—you’re a sophisticated law student now! You have to look the part! And remember- it’s your night to shine.

Third, and most importantly, do not wear those super stiff dress shoes, or those 6-inch high heels. This, of all nights, is the time to dust off those comfier dancing shoes so you can hit the d-floor hard, all night long! The lack of dance-centric pub nights have resulted in pentup dance emotion that is dying to come out.

You won’t be able to contain yourself once you hear the sweet melodies of Ke$ha, so do your feet a favour.

UNACCEPTABLE LAW BALL ATTIRE

ACCEPTABLE LAW BALL ATTIRE

DAVID PARDY (3L) & ALANNA TEVEL (3L)

Sandy Cohen (image from upload.wikimedia.org) and Elle Woods (image from www.pinterest.com)

Alicia Florrick (image from www.emcblue.com) and Mike Ross (image from www.mtvindia.com)

Lawl Comics A FRIEND OF UV

Jonny Re-torts

Best Actor: Harrison Cruikshank Best Actress: Marita Zouravlioff Best Sketch: Game of Deans Best Song: Jackman Hall—Harrison Cruikshank Best Duet: Part of Your World—Rona Ocean Ghanbari & Sam Levy Best Rap: J Papa—Sam Kim & Jake Gehlen Best Video: Pulp Fiction Best Prof: Anthony Duggan Best Reference to the Legal System: “I could have pulled a random handful of Scrabble tiles out of a fucking bag and they’d form a better factum!.”—Hell’s Bench Worst Sketch: UK Porn Laws Worst (But Really Best) Fuck up: When the music stopped during Andrew and Joe’s rendition of “It’s Not Unusual” Most Highly Anticipated: Hayley Ossip’s L’HD Rap Most Tasteful Use of Nudity: Nitai’s Legs in Don Cherry Sketch Most Relatable for Law Students: Dealing with Debt Most Eggplanty Man Bulge: Pat Chapman Most Accurate Crack at the Administration: MacIntosh’s Rant About BCE Most Controversial Sketch: Jian Gomeshi Most Hard Body: Tyler Henderson Least Relevant to Law School: UK Porn Laws

DIVERSIONS

ultravires.ca

FEBRUARY 25, 2015 | 15

Professor Celebrity Look-A-Like of the Month vs.

Dear Dr. Valencourt Vicki Valencourt, gorgeous model/singer/dancer/sex expert, has been around the block and back. From late night infomercials to Vanna White’s stand in Episode 2: Season 3, (original air date November 9, 1985), this soap opera mainstay boasts an impressive resume. She’s here to answer every burning question U of T Law’s got with her trademark candour and infinite wisdom.

Dear Dr. V, I am a self proclaimed virtuoso at writing legal soft core porn fiction. I've always wanted to have my sensual stories in UV but I'm afraid the U of T law school community can't handle my shit. Should I submit (pun intended) anyway? I've always wanted to be punished—I mean— published.

JOHNNY DEPP

(image from www.law.utoronto.ca)

(image from johnnydepppictures.blogspot.com)

Dear Dr. V., At the Halloween dance this year, the hot 1L was making out with his gf half-naked all over the dance floor. I feel like it will happen again at Law ball…what’s my best entrance move?

—Three’s Company

Dear 50 shades, Honey you’re right—the majority of U of T Law won’t be able to handle your lurid and graphic romance stories. The prude patrol is gonna be on you like a stripper on a lubed up pole! However, there is a small group out there in every law class that is just itchin to read exactly the sexy, racy scenarios you are talking about and they will be eternally grateful.

There just isn’t enough legal soft core porn fiction out there these days. The library had a decent section for a bit in the 80s—all the classics were there, like “Res ipsa lick my tit” and “Nemo dat ass”. But then there were protests and all that jazz and they took all them sexy books away! Protests, plus sticky book covers were requiring full time maintenance. Anyway, it was a sad day for me and the rest of the true fans out there. We had to disband our weekly reading group and eventually the orgies in the basement of Flavelle stopped too.

Lordy, how I miss them!

Anyway, what I’m saying is you should definitely start writing those sexy scenarios out.

Just use a pen name, like Justice Cumwell.

We’ll fire up the old reading group again and you can be our first guest author! My nipples are getting hard just thinking about all the sexy legal scenarios…

Dear Three’s, Ah yes, I do recall the dance floor making out you describe. I recalled it every night for a few weeks in a row after the Halloween dance, if we’re being candid (and, Darling, aren’t I always?). So you’d like to know the best entrance move to begin a threesome. Honestly Three’s, I could write a book on the topic. A blog post, at the very least. Now what you’re describing is a live situation—the couple is in heat, their tongues interlocked while the world around them has become a sweaty blur.

You need to insert yourself into the situation, and your best option is what I like to call the Schubert Snake. Step one is you hit the ground. That’s right, get right on your belly on the dancefloor. Now if you’re a male, you probably have a hard on already so this could get slightly uncomfortable, but no matter! You must soldier on. So you’re on the floor, now slither up to the pulsing pair until you’re right underneath them. Lay on your back and insert your head between their feet, look up, and start singing “Ave Maria.” Trust me, it works every time. Soon enough you’ll all three be rolling around on the floor for the world to see.

There’s nothing better at Law Ball than a trio of lovers entwined on the dancefloor, wiping up spilled drinks with their forever-ruined clothes. It’s really what Law Ball is all about.

God bless you and god speed. You’re a lover after my own heart.

Your fan, Dr. V

Love and best wishes, Dr. V

—50 Shades of Bay

PROFESSOR JIM PHILLIPS

© 2012–2015 Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP. All rights reserved.

416 869 5300

Cassels Brock 2014/2015 season

Ultra Vires student ad “Yellow - Coffee” 2015 quarter page portrait, b&w

Contact: Heather Murray hmurray@casselsbrock.com 416 869 5782 - fax 416 642 7137

Please PRINT a hard copy of the file and either FAX it or SCAN and EMAIL it back to me, thanks!

16 | FEBRUARY 25, 2015

DIVERSIONS

ultravires.ca

Who Hosted Better?

Marita and Paloma v. Tina and Amy And the Votes are in‌

89%

Left: Photo by Ashley Major. Right: image from abcnews.go.com

11%

*Note: these rankings were conducted by independent research think tank, Marita and Paloma’s affiliation with UV in no way affected the outcome of the results