A farewell to the law school’s backbone
In February, Assistant Dean Brittany Twiss announced the retirement of Jerome Poon-Ting, Senior Recruitment, Admissions & Diversity Officer at the U of T Faculty of Law.
June 2025 marks the end of Jerome’s long stint with the Faculty of Law, which started in 2014, and his journey in student recruitment and admissions. Jerome has undoubtedly had a successful career, especially at the Faculty of Law where he has made significant contributions to the admissions program and student services, broadly. Jerome’s recognition with the 2024 Jill Matus Excellence in Student Services Award is a testament to his demonstrated excellence in the area of student services.
Jerome is the first person with whom many of us were in contact during the admissions process. He may have been the one who called you to give you the good news of admission.
We (Abby and Manreet) are graduating, finishing up at the same time as Jerome will be retiring. During our multiple interactions with Jerome, he has mentioned how law school students’ admissions profiles are forever embedded into his memory. So we thought it would be fitting–full circle–to get to know Jerome.
Ultra Vires (UV): How did you find yourself as the head of admissions at UofT Law—what was your journey to the Faculty like?
Jerome Poon-Ting (JPT): My journey began back at Queens University, where I did my undergraduate degree in Computing & Information Science. After my undergrad, I was working for the Queens radio station as a program director.
I came across my first recruitment job accidentally. A friend of mine at Queens needed help with a job application for the position that I eventually got. I took a look at the job description, which was for recruitment of high schools to Queens, and I looked at it and I went “oh this is so me.” I had no idea that this kind of job existed because I was an international student. The premise of recruitment to university was a foreign concept to me because none of that stuff existed in the Caribbean back in those days. A week went by, I didn’t hear from my friend. I reached out and my friend told me that he wasn’t going to apply, so I decided to apply and I got the job.
It was a one year job contract. They liked me so much that they put me in a regular full-time position.
So I said fine, sure, why not—it’s one great adventure.
Half the time I did recruitment, and then the other half of the year, I did admissions. I already had to know the requirements for the programs for admissions reviews, so I just had to be able to talk about it, make it seem interesting.
Then, I began coordinating the international exchange programs. I ended up giving myself my own job title—I was Queens’ first international coordinator of exchanges and international studies. Before I started, the exchange program was not centralized, it was inefficient and untenable.
After two years of that, I said enough Kingston. Kingston is great as a young person and at the end of your life. It’s a little boring for anyone in the middle—I found myself, on the weekends, in Toronto or Montreal. So I started to look for jobs in those bigger cities.
The first job that came through was doing recruitment strictly from high school to undergrad at the University of Toronto Scarborough Campus. I did that for one year. I was then promoted to Assistant Registrar. I liked that job–it’s a part of what I do now, except that my scope is now limited to law school.
The number one thing you’re doing is providing opportunities for people to meet their future life goals, you’re facilitating that opportunity to make sure they are making an informed choice of where to go. There is also a fresh batch of people, so it’s never stagnant and boring because your clients change all the time. You feed off their eagerness and excitement.
I also liked the extensive travel that happened for the job, including international travel across Canada and the United States recruiting for U of T. I also travelled to the Caribbean, particularly Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and Barbados. I was perfect for this because I speak the language, I know the educational system, I know which schools are the good schools to get the good students that U of T wants. I know when to go in the school year because I know the school system as I studied in the school system.
And then I left that job. I did a little hiatus, for a year and a half, at The Michener Institute for Applied Health Sciences doing purely admissions.
Then a new opportunity came up at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information at Robarts, which was back on the recruitment side again.
UV: So all this time you never left the student-facing role?
JPT: No I didn’t.
This whole thing has always been education-focused or derived. And that is consistent with my family history. Both my parents are teachers. My dad was a teacher then an elementary school principal, and my mom was a first grade teacher. My family is full of educators. The educational realm is not a foreign concept to me.
UV: But you never wanted to be a teacher yourself?
JPT: I didn’t want to be a teacher necessarily, but once I saw the job description it clicked. So I’m not teaching in the strict sense but I’m still imparting information. I’m just not doing subject matter stuff. The same principles underlie my role. The basic premise of the journey from the start is the journey of making information comprehensible for people to make smart choices about their futures.
UV: How did the transition to law school admissions happen?
JPT: Everywhere I went, I was happy. Everything sort of came about through opportunities that I took. The premise all along has always been ‘when else am I going to get the chance to do this’ rather than a grandiose where do you see yourself in five years. Don’t you hate that question? I can tell you what state I’d like to be in, but not necessarily where I want to be.
I’m always doing things that I find that are enjoyable because I’m getting to help people.
The U of T Faculty of Information and Faculty of Law offer a combined program—a JD with a Masters of Information. One year, I was doing recruitment at a grad school fair in Ottawa. The then-recruitment officer at the Faculty of Law buddied up with me for a table at Ottawa. Through him, I met the person who was the then equivalent of Erica Varga [Admissions and Financial Aid Coordinator at the Faculty of Law]. In the spring, when we were coordinating a joint degree student, she told me that there was a job opening. I wasn’t necessarily looking, but I took a look at the job description and they were paying a bit better. So I applied and I got the job for the position I now hold: Senior Recruitment, Admissions & Diversity Officer.
I started in the summer of 2014.
In 2014, the law school recognized that they needed to address the diversity situation at the law school. There was a vested interest to chip away at what was historical and create a newer version of the composition of the class.
My first question when I started was: where I was with respect to the diversity piece?
I started from the first principles. We didn’t have any meaningful data or statistics. In order to determine outcomes, to find holes and gaps, I needed to benchmark. So that’s where the survey came from. The Faculty didn’t limit me. They let me be in charge of the whole thing.
UV: That brings us to the application process. You have supported the Faculty’s Black Student Application Process. Can you tell us more about your efforts, including any challenges, in developing and implementing this process?
JPT: I mean it’s no trade secret, given the history of Canada and the history of the legal profession, certain populations are underrepresented. The law school was cognizant of efforts to make improvements in representation from the Indigenous population. That was an easier thing to facilitate because there are already structures in place at the University, for example First Nations House.
We knew the next severely underrepresented group was the Black population.
It was tough for a faculty that didn’t have Black professors to make the law school appealing to the population. More than anything else, people want to see themselves reflected. So, I couldn’t do anything about the Faculty side of things because that’s a bigger beast—those are bigger issues that will take much longer to take on.
But for the student experience two things could happen at the same time.
One, is to make sure the student services staff are building in things so people feel more included. Giving people opportunities, for example working with SLS [Students’ Law Society] or founding a BLSA club that has funding. People should feel that they have some sort of agency in the programming.
On the other side is the admissions side–to express information about the law school that makes it comprehensible.
We haven’t shied away from taking bold steps. We cannot wait for anyone else to take the step to do something concrete in the legal education scheme to advance the underrepresented population. The BSAP process was my bold thing.
We followed the example of the U of T medical school, which had created BSAP as a pathway, an application stream, to give Black candidates the opportunity to contextualize their lived experiences. We learned 2 things from them. One, if you want more of a certain type of student, you must support them. You need to have supports in place so that the students you are bringing in feel supported. I had to build up a little capacity on how student services operated so that they reflected this. Two, the program had to have integrity. We didn’t want people to look at this as some sort of performative affirmative action program.
Then the question arises of how do you get in touch with undergrads? So we started the Black Future Lawyers initiative in collaboration with firms in November of 2018, which acted as a conduit to reach out to students. This was hand-in-hand with BSAP, which came a year after BFL in time for the 2020 admission year.
The BSAP application tried to get a sense of achievement for what you’ve had to overcome, contextually speaking. In conducting a holistic review, it is important to contextualize the information. The BSAP process involves review by Black staff and faculty members. Additionally, the BSAP applications are also reviewed by alumni—a unique feature of this application process. Alumni understand the unique pressures that graduates face and have the lived experience to guide a contextual review.
UV: What is a highlight of your time here?
JPT: My memorable experiences all relate to getting the students who were offered admissions late off the waitlist into the law school. The most memorable was an out-of-province student, who was admitted off the waitlist a week before the Monday before classes began. The student had never been to Ontario. They had to quit a job with less than a week of notice. And within four business days, they had to try and get as many things as possible. It was memorable because it meant that I had to take a big chunk of time, about three hours a day, to get this person up to speed. And we pulled it off. The person got themselves settled and graduated on time.
UV: That’s quite kind of you. We would think that your job ends once the student has gotten the offer and the rest is up to the student.
JPT: Well what’s memorable is the extra thing you had to do to make sure someone was able to the point that they can pursue their goals.
UV: Can you offer a comment on the future of law and the legal community that you have helped shape?
JPT: In general, it would be the impact of artificial intelligence (AI). Not merely on the profession, but on the admissions process. I saw it when I read profiles. While we place importance on the non-numerical aspects of the profile, what assurance do we have that AI is not playing a role? Do we do interviews? This would be more labour intensive and change the admissions process completely by introducing different biases.
My rudimentary solution was to use the LSAT writing samples because the writing is live proctored. The writing samples help contextualize the profiles, to assess whether there was a risk that AI was used. This prompted other law schools in Ontario to follow.
UV: What’s next for you?
JPT: A lot of relaxation and downtime. I’ll also be doing some elder care. My sister has been doing the heavy lifting in caring for my mom. I also have an Alaskan cruise booked in July!
Editor’s Note: This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
