Lisa reflects on her social justice work; reveals challenges of working in public interest.
In August, Lisa Cirillo left the role of Executive Director of Downtown Legal Services (DLS) to become the CEO of the Law Foundation of Ontario. Lisa sat down with Ultra Vires to talk about her time at DLS, and give advice for students looking to pursue public interest work.
Ultra Vires (UV): What initially drew you to social justice work?
Lisa Cirillo (LC): In undergrad, I went to U of T and I studied criminology. I took classes that asked us to look at the intersection of who was involved in criminal legal systems. Who gets stopped by the police? Who gets prosecuted vigorously? Who is sentenced to prison? It was very obvious that there were sharp connection points between lower-income, racialized, and Indigenous communities and the legal system. We were asked to question why that was. In law, we have this lofty expression “everyone is equal before the law,” but when you look at the impact of the law on certain communities, you can see that this is not the case.
For a while, I thought I wanted to do criminal law. In fact, I picked my law school based on the clinical program they offered. I went to Queen’s Faculty of Law and did their Correction Law Project (now called the Prison Law Clinic). I didn’t follow that path, but I’m really grateful to the clinic for showing me that while it wasn’t the right fit, I was on the right path.
I also volunteered at the legal clinic at Queen’s. I liked that you met the client where they were at, and you could offer them a more holistic response to the multiplicity of legal issues they were dealing with. I really liked the approach of the clinic.
UV: What was your favourite part of working at DLS?
LC: That is a really hard question. I don’t think I can say one. The best thing about the clinic is the community of people that make up the clinic. That, for me, was the hardest part to leave. This includes the staff, the students, and key community partners. The energy and support from the community is a fantastic part of the clinic. I think DLS is a community in which everyone works on creating and nurturing. There’s something about the clinic that people bring their best to, and the work that they do there.
UV: On the flip side, what was the most difficult part of your role as the Executive Director?
LC: The instability of the funding, which makes it hard to do strategic planning. There’s constant growth and retraction, and it’s really challenging to manage that process, particularly when you work with people who you admire and love. As director, you feel a tremendous sense of responsibility to all the people who work at the clinic. If I cannot solve our funding problems, we’ll be disappointing clients, students will lose learning opportunities, and staff members’ positions might no longer be viable. That was the biggest challenge in the Director role. Since funding is so tenuous, it was, quite frankly, exhausting.
When I started in the role of Executive Director in 2010, we had 2.8 staff lawyers (not all lawyers being full-time), and we now have 5. But whether we can stay at 5, I don’t know. We still have the Student Choice Initiative hanging over our head, and Legal Aid funding has been reduced significantly by the provincial government. Legal Aid also gets funding from the Law Foundation, which is dependent on the economy.
Despite all these challenges, we have maintained [the clinic]. It speaks to the professionalism of the team. Despite all that stress and anxiety, we have continued our academic program, and we have continued to offer service to clients, so this is a testimony to the strength of the clinic.
UV: Do you have any advice for students who want to establish a career in public interest?
LC: I would say, stay open to opportunities but also stay true to what work is meaningful to you. Learning opportunities can be challenging especially in times of economic strain, because public interest jobs are often the first ones to feel the impact of that. Ideally, you have the opportunity to move into a public interest job at the outset, but I want to acknowledge that it can be hard sometimes.
But even if you’re not in the ideal setting, I think the most important thing is that you’re in an environment where you’re challenged and have good supervision and mentorship from people you can learn from and whose work you admire. Stay true to yourself, stay true to what interests you, and look for a pathway back. If you don’t land your dream public interest job as an articling student or as a first or second-year lawyer, stay connected with that world. Join a board. Join an advocacy initiative. You will find your way back. And I really believe that there are enough opportunities to go around if your heart’s in it.
When you are lucky enough to find jobs that are intrinsically aligned with their values, you bring out your best selves. Law can be an all-consuming profession. If you’re spending this much time doing work, it is important that it is meaningful for you.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Alexa Cheung is part of DLS’s Refugee and Immigration Law division.
