Editorial

Clinical & Intensive Programs

Our 2012 prediction (albeit late): Osgoode will be the first law school to require the completion of a clinical intensive program prior to graduation.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a good thing.

The application for Osgoode’s intensive programs are open. We don’t want to sound overly dramatic, but applying and participating in one of these 12 programs may be the most formative thing you ever do here at Osgoode.

Last year Osgoode had 563 total applications, from 331 students for 181 total placements. This year there will be 191 total spots available.

Many-a-students have arrived at an OCI or articling interview to find out that they share a common experience with the person on the opposite end of the table. Clinical intensive alumni occupy positions as senior partners, judges and law professors.

Anita Herrmann, Director of the Office of Advancement, estimates that there are over 2,400 students who have walked through these inten sive programs. “Alumni universally find that the clinical education programs have a huge impact on their legal careers. I have Bay Street partners tell me that their experience changed their lives.”

“Apply. Sometimes students think they don’t have what it takes to participate, but every Osgoode student has the ability to participate in a program. Fear of rejection should not be an impediment to applying,” says Natia Tucci, Director of the Clinical Intensive Program.

You don’t have to love ‘poverty law’ to par ticipate in an intensive either – the Osgoode Business Clinic or the Advanced Business Law Workshops cater to folks who aren’t necessarily on the social justice train. These programs offer an in depth look at mergers and acquisitions, banking, equity and finance under the supervi sion of lawyers from Stikeman, Elliot LLP and Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP.

When we spoke with Stacey McFarlane, a caseworker in the Criminal Division of CLASP, she summed up her experience as such: “CLASP is a great program because you start out know ing nothing and you get a ton of experience – I’ve been in court 7 times. You get facts from cases and sit there thinking, “wow, this doesn’t look like law school text book.”

“On my second day at the clinic I was in the intake room and was face-to-face with people’s problems – real legal issues that you cannot help but be engaged with emotionally and profes sionally,” comments Dave Shellnutt. Shellnutt spent 8 months at Parkdale Community Legal Services in the west end of Toronto.

When each of us finally emerges from our three years at Osgoode, 100% exams won’t be how the world works. We will have to inter act with clients, colleagues and deadlines that cannot necessarily be summed up or studied in advance. Your on the spot problem-solving skills will be tested like a written exam can never properly simulate.

Whether you want to escape the desolate atmosphere of York University for 4 months, see if criminal law really is for you, take up a place ment with the Aboriginal Intensive program in the Northwest Territories or work trying to right the wrongs the justice system has committed through the Innocence Project, we encourage you to apply to one of Osgoode’s intensive programs.

Deadline is Thursday, January 26th at 4pm.