Canadian Lawyer

January 2012

The most widely read magazine for Canadian lawyers

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CROSS EXAMINED Making change Emma Halpern's focus is on helping improve life for as many people as she can. BY DEAN JOBB Emma Halpern is the equity officer for the Nova Scotia Barristers' Society. ber of others, from troubled youths to poor people in need of legal advice to the homeless teen she would one day invite to become part of her family. Halpern, the equity officer for the Nova Scotia Barristers' Society and a tireless community volunteer, was travelling in Central America in early 2001 when she ran out of money. She caught a flight back to Montreal — where she had just completed an undergraduate degree in English and International Develop- ment Studies at McGill — but the storm diverted her plane to Newark, N.J. She had no job and no idea what she A wanted to do next. "This was a turning point in my life," the 33-year-old explains major snowstorm and an empty wal- let changed Emma Halpern's life — and the lives of an untold num- over lunch at a sun-filled Halifax bistro. On a whim she took a bus across the river into New York City, where her two older brothers lived. She landed a job as a community organizer in the tough neigh- bourhoods of Harlem, and remembers patrolling the streets, clipboard in hand, to interview teenagers she encountered and, hopefully, steer them away from a life of gangs and crime. Halpern had found her niche. And soon she found a new home in Nova Sco- tia, where she has been the driving force behind an innovative restorative justice model for school discipline as well as a new, province-wide program to deliver pro bono legal services. And that's on top of her day job at the NSBS, where she's making the legal profession more accom- modating to women and members of vis- ible minorities. It's little wonder that, last fall, Chat- 18 JAN UARY 2012 www. CANADIAN Lawyermag.com elaine magazine named her one of its Women of the Year for her volunteer work. "Emma has a true, true passion for social justice," says Tanya Bain, executive director of Tri-County Restorative Jus- tice in Yarmouth, N.S., where the schools initiative was launched in 2007. "She's one of those rare individuals who has the abil- ity to mix the theory and the practical . . . people can identify with her." Halpern's deep commitment to help- ing others — and young people in par- ticular — stems from her own struggles to adjust while growing up in Van- couver. "School wasn't having a lot of meaning for me," she says. "I was very much on the edge of becoming a high- risk youth myself." A program for young teens struggling at school got her back on track and showed her how "one adult, one teacher, one community worker" can make a difference in the life of a daN callis

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