Canadian Lawyer - sample

N othing about practising environmental law in the non-profit sector is easy, and that includes finding a place to park your desk. Theresa McClenaghan, executive director and counsel of the Ontario-based Canadian Environmental Law Association, may have been active in the field for 25 years, but she has only recently arrived at a solution she is happy with for hous- ing her legal aid non-profit. After decades of moving between lofts and other marginal accommodation, CELA recently took up residence in an aging office tower on University Avenue in downtown Toronto. The space became financially feasible as a result of many larger, richer organizations decamping south to the shiny new towers overlooking Toronto harbour. CELA, along with seven other publicly funded specialty legal clinics, have formed a co-op and now have linked freshly designed offices over two spacious floors that allow them to save money by pooling resources, among other mutually supportive activities. Wryly, McClenaghan notes that the most recent move is a great relief for some of the older lawyers: "We have a 15-year lease, which means we probably won't have to move again in our careers." That struggle just to find proper office space reflects the huge challenges, on many fronts, facing lawyers who work in not-for-profit environmental law organizations. While Canada now has a clutch of such non-profits scattered across the country, they remain underfunded and understaffed. At the same time, they are massively overextended in terms of the demands on their time and resources, an issue that has intensified as the public, government and private sector focus more and more attention on the environment, from climate change to pipelines to the concerns of indigen- ous communities. Yet, while members of the public, media, government — and even the private bar — often look to these non-profits for guidance when the latest bad news about toxic chemicals or water quality or endangered species hits the headlines, the internal hurdles facing them often go unseen — and unappreciated. "That is the critical issue," says Meinhard Doelle, professor and associate dean, research, at the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University in Halifax and a founder of the 10-year-old non-profit East Theresa McClenaghan, executive director and counsel of the Ontario-based Canadian Environmental Law Association w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 7 27 Environmental Environmental defenders

• Cover