The Student Choice Initiative
A Gift From Your Premier
A
Obiter Fixes 1L Class Photo
O
Dear 1Ls, Here’s What No One Told Me
D
Dear 1Ls, You’ve all heard the main bulk of the warnings about law school. You’ve probably been hearing them for months. It’s going to be hard; it’s going to be a lot of work; you’re graded against your classmates so you’d better find out who your friends are; something about Socrates. You’ll have to sacrifice a lot of time and money. Sometimes it’ll feel like it’s not worth it, but somehow it...
What Third Years Need to Know about Taking the Bar Exams
W
Last November, I told you that there was nothing you needed to know about the bar exam until April 2018. Well, my friends, it is now April 2018, and it’s time to talk about the bar exam. One of the worst things about the bar exam is that the law society gives you very little information to work with. There is no published pass/fail rate, so even the smartest and most diligent students...
Final Thoughts at the End of Law School
F
Well, it’s been a trip. I won’t lie and say I’m sad it’s over, because three years of grinding through textbooks and essays and exams worth your entire grade is enough to drive someone mad, and I already had a head start before setting foot inside Gowlings Hall. My bank account certainly couldn’t take another year, and I’m basically sitting in a recliner with a goalie stick within reach, waiting...
Staying on the Same Page
S
Why Obiter is Here After All these Years Connor Campbell – Editor-in-Chief MODERATELY IMMATURE DELIGHT – that’s the essence of Obiter. I sat down the other day to chat with a good friend (who also edits the paper). We spoke about anything except school, and we happened on that apt description of Obiter’s ethos. It came up when I was trying to describe why, with everything else we do, we...
Racism Lives at Osgoode Too
R
Embracing the #RacismLivesHereToo campaign at Osgoode Hall Law School My excitement in coming to Osgoode was unparalleled: the first day of the legal career for the first lawyer-to be in the family. I couldn’t wait for all the intellectual discussions with like-minded people who were here to make the world a better place. To my shock, on my first day of school, I was asked by a few peers about...
Damn It, Not Again
D
Wow. Just wow. It was surreal to wake up to the news that Doug Ford is the new leader of Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Party. It shouldn’t have been surreal, considering how many hard-right populists have risen to political power in recent years, but here we are. One more doughy blue-blood shoved into a suit and bleating catchphrases that are somehow more compelling than they have any right...
Citizen Campbell
C
A Turning Point in the Legal System’s Relationship with Aboriginal Canadians
A
We’ve reached an awkward moment in relations between the legal system and First Nations people in Canada. In recent weeks, two criminal trials relating to crimes against young Aboriginal Canadians did not end in a guilty verdict, and unsurprisingly, there was more than a little backlash. Two young First Nations persons (one a child, one barely more than a child) died awful deaths, and both of...
Confessions of a Straight Cisgender White Man in a World He No Longer Runs
C
In case you’ve been hiding under a rock in the last few weeks, there was a significant racist incident at Osgoode at the beginning of February. Someone scratched out the eyes of posters depicting famous black Canadians. One of Obiter’s writers already covered the incident at length, so I’m going to say little more about that particular incident beyond merely stating my disdain for the act and...
And the Hammer Falls
A
In previous years, I compiled a yearly anthology of “horror stories about men without shame,” detailing sexual harassment stories that female associates had been willing to put in print. I will forgo publishing this year’s edition for one simple reason: it’s redundant. I honestly expected that 2017 was going to be the Year of the Swine, and in many ways, it truly was. One of their own had become...
Citizen Campbell: Examsoft
C
On Free Speech and the Future of Obiter
O
Because Cowardice has No Place in Law or Journalism I’ll get down to the brass tacks here. This issue of Obiter contains two articles that might be controversial. One article is about Jordan Peterson’s opinion on personal organization in the context of cleaning one’s room, and while none of the article’s content is controversial on its own, people have been criticized for referencing Peterson...
10 Months [an Unpaid Worker]: An Opinion About Unpaid Articling Positions
1
[Editor’s note: The author of this article informed me that they have recently landed a paid articling position, and has asked me to mention that holding out for paid positions is worth the effort. Congrats to him/her, whoever he/she is. Editor’s note: Online title has been edited, for a variety of reasons.] Articling: a necessary stepping-stone in the legal licensing process...
A Thirst for Life
A
INTRODUCTION On July 28th, 2010, the United Nations General Assembly recognized the universal human right to clean drinking water and sanitation, which called upon governments and international organizations to provide funding and technology transfer to developing countries in order to realize this right. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon proclaimed that “…all people have the right to safe...
Time for a Cartoon!
T
A Story We Haven’t Heard About Police Brutality
A
Police Brutality in Jamaica I suspect it is common for all of us to have heard about police brutality in the United States, especially against black males. The powerful Black Lives Matter movement has pushed most news outlets to report these crimes and this has a strong effect on society. When unwarranted police brutality is made public and discussed, it exposes offenders and forces...
You’re Not Alone 3
Y
So, it’s about time for someone to indulge the honoured Obiter Dicta tradition of an editor addressing mental health issues in law school. That’s right, we’re about more than social commentary, student clubs and activities, being functionally owned by Davies LLP, and articles on how to annihilate your liver. Occasionally, we touch on the difficulties students experience trying to balance our...
Time For A Cartoon!
T
Access to Justice v. Law Society of (Ontario): What’s in a name?
A
LSUC votes to change its name to the Law Society of Ontario in an attempt to promote public engagement. On November 2, 2017, a majority of 17,000 licenced lawyers voted to replace “Upper Canada” with “Ontario” in their governing body’s name. The law society officially becomes the Law Society of Ontario on January 1, 2018. The vote resulted from a decision made by the LSUC Benchers in September to...
Five of History’s Greatest Heroes
F
Who Were Really Less Than Heroic The world needs a hero, or at least, it craves one. The world is a brutal, unjust place, and we gravitate towards people who fight for a grand cause, never wavering in the face of unfathomable opposition or crushing despair. These people inspire us, and we view them as symbols of hope and courage in a world characterized by fear and loathing. If they seem...
Because All Our Clients Are Innocent
B
A Reflection of the 25th Annual Animal Law Conference One of the very first things law students learn in law school is that there is a huge issue of accessibility in the legal system for many groups. One group that most law schools fail to recognize is non-human animals. Even broader, legal systems across the world fail to give non-human animals the recognition and justice they deserve...
The Kurdistan Quagmire: Consequences of Kurdish Independence
T
The reality of a future Kexit (Kurdish separation from Iraq) seemed all but certain when, on September 25, residents of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq voted overwhelmingly in favour of independence from Iraq. More than 92% answered ‘yes’ to the question: Do you want the Kurdistan Region and the Kurdistani areas outside the region’s administration to become an...
The Court’s Recognitions of an Exceptional Individual
T
At Old City Hall, just a few days ago, RJ’s name filled up the afternoon docket. Over a period of 10 years RJ had accumulated thousands of dollars in fines for provincial offences. With the assistance of his representative from the Fair Change Legal Clinic, RJ was appealing to the court for a more compassionate sentence than had already been imposed. Although the fines came from different pieces...