Life skills and career tips for Canada's lawyers in training
Issue link: https://digital.canadianlawyermag.com/i/50901
inspiration, and got the go-ahead from then-dean Patrick Monahan's offi ce to undertake a three-step process to test their idea. Th e conference served as the fi rst phase. Th at was followed by the es- tablishment of satellite clinics, which demonstrated that law students could mediate disputes, as would be required should a full-blown clinic be created. Th e fi nal stage saw members of Th e ADR Project, all third-year students at the time, teaching mediation skills to their summering fi rst- and second-year law- school peers in boardrooms at downtown Toronto law fi rms, which sponsored the weekend-long events. Aſt er seeing all of this come together, Lakhani says Monahan got on board and fully backed the creation of an Osgoode mediation clinic. He pursued grants to help get the initiative off the ground, and the Law Foundation of Ontario eventu- ally agreed to help fund the project. By this time, members of Th e ADR Project were in the midst of their articles, so the grant money was used to fund a director to oversee the nine-credit, full-year clini- cal program. A panel chose Osgoode LLM grad Leanne Shafi r, who took the reins as program director in July 2009 aſt er spend- ing over a decade practising family law and mediation with the Ministry of At- torney General in British Columbia and Toronto fi rm Cooper Kleinman. "I really feel there was a force behind this that was pushing us; this project was just meant to be born," says Lakhani when asked what it was like to spearhead such a massive eff ort while undertaking the equally daunting task of completing her law school studies. "We didn't really think too much about it — we just did it. We were so busy with it. We were meet- ing twice a week. I think I was getting 30 to 40 e-mails a day for a solid few years. I think I spent more time on the project than I did on my LLB for the last half. It was just exhilarating to be part of some- thing that we all had a sense was going to turn into something bigger than we ever imagined." Shafi r began her time leading the initiative by creating an advisory com- mittee to inform the design of the media- tion centre. She also began to put her own mark on the program through develop- ment of the curriculum, which was based on existing Osgoode Hall mediation courses and those at other law faculties. Th e next step in the program's creation was the development of a confl ict-man- agement system, which students helped put together when classes commenced in September 2009. Th ey did that by liaising with Jane-Finch community organizations to discover the types of confl icts facing people in the area, how they were being managed, and ways the Osgoode program could help the groups create "a culture of confl ict fl uency," says Shafi r. She also wanted to fi nd a way for the Osgoode students to get some hands-on experience by going into the community to use the theories they learned in lectures. Th e hands-on aspect is now applied to several components of the program. Cur- rently, Osgoode mediation students take their newfound knowledge into four Jane- 20 SPRING 2 0 1 1 Untitled-3 1 C ANADIAN Lawy er 4STUDENTS 2/23/10 2:55:50 PM *