Over 50 years ago, students from the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law received summer project funding from a federal program then-named, Opportunities for Youth.
Six years on from her law school graduation, Faria Soutter (JD 2016) feels like she has never really left the Downtown Legal Services (DLS) family division.
The family lawyer, who practises with Toronto firm Beaton Burke Young LLP, is transported back to the Fasken Building at 655 Spadina Ave. every time she starts a family case in court on behalf of a client.
Law school… For students pursuing a legal education at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, these two words likely bring to mind images of excessive amounts of caffeine, and ever-proliferating emails from administration.
Theirs is a dream to live in Canada. Their reality today was made possible with the support of students and staff lawyers at Downtown Legal Services (DLS).
Luisa, sought humanitarian and compassionate grounds for her father, Armando, and Madinah, a applicant under the category of protected person.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes the importance of housing as a fundamental human right under international law. Cities in Europe have advocated for a housing first policy, providing long-term housing of homeless individuals, as a necessary first step in eradicating homelessness.
When Sukhmani Virdi (JD 2020) was a student in the Employment Law program at the Faculty of Law’s Downtown Legal Services (DLS), she learned a lot. But there was one lesson that really struck home.
A DLS client disclosed to Virdi that she was a survivor of sexual violence. She had filed charges and participated in the legal proceedings against the accused. When he was found not guilty, the woman told Virdi she had felt the legal system had not supported her. She felt extremely let down.
When Emily Hill was in high school in the western Toronto suburb of Etobicoke, she knew she had a growing passion for the law, especially criminal law.
Fifty years ago, a group of idealistic students organized to provide desperately needed legal services to impoverished Torontonians. Their courageous work laid the foundation for what has grown to become Downtown Legal Services (DLS), the Faculty of Law’s leading public interest clinic for low-income clients. That original spirit of improving access to justice carries on with the students who step into DLS today.
Changemakers. It’s what comes to mind when I think of the students who founded and persuaded the Faculty to formalize a public legal aid clinic. It’s what comes to mind when I think of the current DLS students who are passionately supporting their clients.
