During a town hall meeting on March 4, 2013, Dean Moran announced that there were two new clinical projects in the works for the near future. In a follow-up interview regarding new clinic developments, Assistant Dean Faherty was able to confirm that there are in fact three new clinical projects that are in the works for next year. She was careful to note that each of these programs will be subject to the scrutiny of the Short Term Curriculum Committee, which meets to approve these programs on Wednesday, March 21, and that nothing is definite yet. For this reason Faherty was reluctant to get into too much detail about the programs, given that the content of the clinical programs could be changed in order to meet the needs of faculty and students.
Faherty explained that due to ongoing demand from students for clinical placements the faculty continues to expand its clinical education offerings. Altogether the proposed three new programs would offer six new for-credit clinical positions available to students for next year, with each program having two spots each.
The first new proposed program will be offered through the Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto (“ALST”) clinic, which is located near Yonge and College. If approved, two lawyers at the clinic will be working directly with two students as a part of a 3-credit clinical education course. Assistant Dean Faherty is hopeful that the new program will be successful and lead to expansion in the future.
The second new proposed program is a full-time (12-credit) program offered by the Barbara Schlifer clinic. There would also be a new academic course focusing on domestic violence that would be available to all students, including those enrolled in the clinical program. According to Faherty, the clinic has been interested in having a full-time program, much like DLS offers, for years. She emphasized that the difference between being at the clinic two days a week and four days a week often means that students have more opportunities to get much more involved on large ongoing files.
Similarly, the third new proposed program, offered by the David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights, will potentially be offering a 6-credit program. This represents an expansion beyond the clinic’s current 4-credit offering.
Pending approval, students will be able to see these new clinical program offerings in the course listings this summer.
