SPENCER BAILEY
<Contributor>
When I was in first year, I lined up, along with probably a hundred of my classmates, on the 8th floor of the Ross building. We were all excitedly chatting, meeting all the other fresh new faces, and I think one of Osgoode’s well known Administrators came out of her office and asked us all to quiet down, because she was trying to work.We were all there vying for precious spots as CLASP Duty Counsel (now called “Intake Volunteers”). We were only two weeks into law school, and the word going around was that you have to do more, more, more! Get involved or get left behind! Join all the clubs!
I luckily secured myself a Thursday morning Duty Counsel position, which ended up being more like an hour-long weekly mentoring session with my upper-year shift supervisor. I remember those Thursday mornings more for his therapeutic advice than any particularly social justice-y experience. But it was very valuable because, when asked about what he thought of working there, he said that you get a lot of great experience from CLASP, and that can help connect you to jobs. So I decided to put my name in for an interview, and after completely bombing my Parkdale interview, I changed my strategy, completed a pretty good interview, and was eventually offered a position as an Administrative Law Division Leader.
I’ve only ever said positive things about CLASP. Yes, it can be difficult to balance your caseload with extra-curriculars and other courses. Yes, what is expected of the students year-to-year probably evolves constantly, along with the individual personalities at the clinic and the clinic’s overall mandate. But being placed in front of a living person with a history, a future, and some events that have brought them to your office, is really the most complex and fascinating fact pattern you will ever encounter in law school. And that does not change. As well, I did ultimately get the chance to have my social justice-y experience. When you see the look on someone’s face when they win an Ontario Disability Support Program appeal, which effectively doubles their meagre government income, it feels pretty good. Challenging clients? Sometimes. Grateful clients? Absolutely.
CLASP has an enormous alumni network, some of whom I have met already in personal and professional contexts, and many more of whom I am sure I will meet in the future. What has been consistent across all of my conversations with these people are tales of great cases they handled, personal breakthroughs, and overall fond memories. I was lucky enough to put together some video testimonials of other Division Leaders‘ experiences during my time at CLASP, and I would suggest going on CLASP’s YouTube channel to take a look. CLASP is your chance in law school to find your way around a courtroom; address a judge or Board member for the first time, or apply things you’ve learned in a textbook. Win your first case. Lose your first case. Get creative.
In the mania of first year, it was hard to tell what advice to take and what to ditch. I won’t say anything about creating your own summary, organizing study groups, or highlighter colour coding, but whoever was pushing the “get involved” mantra was bang-on. CLASP was one of the ways I did that. I’d say that, while it may seem challenging while you are doing it, in the long run, anything worth doing is really challenging, because if it was easy, everybody would be doing it, all the time.