The Environmental Justice and Sustainability Clinical (EJSC) Program is a two-term, 15-credit program for Osgoode Hall Law School JD students. In this program, students explore the theory and practice of public interest environmental law, working on files chosen for their likely lasting positive impact on environmental justice and sustainability. The EJS Clinical Program takes on a variety of work (litigation, law reform, legal education, legal drafting, etc.) for a variety of clients (individuals, communities, NGOs, municipalities, First Nations, social enterprises, etc.), on its own initiative or in cooperation with external organizations. Students are based at Osgoode for all three components of the program: a seminar (3 credits), clinical work (9 credits) and a research assignment (3 credits).
Applications
Check the Osgoode Clinical Education pages for info about the year's admission process.
Current Students and Clinic Partners
Check the current student page for info about this year's students.
Check the our partners page for info about our clinic partners.
Eligibility
The program is open to second- and third-year JD students who are selected during the preceding year via the general application process for clinical and intensive programs. The number of places depends partly on the nature and number of projects available, but is expected to be between 10 and 20 per year. Students may complete the program only once. In the event of oversubscription, preference is given to third-year students.
Students must have completed or be enrolled in at least one of Environmental Law, Land Use Planning Law, or Municipal Law by the Fall term of the year in which they enrol in the EJS Clinical Program.
The Program satisfies the Praxicum and Osgoode Public Interest Requirements. It is not eligible for the Upper Year Writing Requirement.
Program Description
The EJSC Program gives Osgoode students an opportunity to explore and use law’s potential to remedy past and present environmental injustices and to promote the transition to a more sustainable Canadian society and economy. In this full-year, 15-credit program, students work on files chosen for their likely lasting positive impact on environmental justice and sustainability. The Program’s dual focus on remedying environmental injustice and promoting sustainability makes it unique among environmental law clinical programs in Canada. “Environmental justice” mobilizes environmental, civil rights, anti-racist, anti-poverty, aboriginal rights and feminist agendas to challenge the unequal distribution of environmental burdens and benefits in society. “Sustainability” involves the simultaneous pursuit of ecological integrity, social equity and economic prosperity within the biophysical constraints of local and planetary ecosystems.
This dual mandate encompasses a broad range of subject-matter, including biodiversity, energy, water, food, climate change, pollution, resource extraction, land use planning, human rights, green technology, social enterprise, corporate social responsibility, toxic torts, and regulatory compliance. It also includes a variety of types of legal work, including litigation, law reform, legislative drafting, community legal education and outreach, and business law services that advance sustainable or social enterprise. Clients may include individuals, community groups, public interest non-governmental organizations, First Nations, municipalities, cooperatives, social enterprises and other organizations affected by environmental injustice or interested in advancing sustainability.
The EJS Clinical Program selects files for their potential to advance environmental justice or sustainability. The Program may work on files provided by external organizations or initiate its own files. The Program does not have a public storefront, but in exceptional cases may take a case directly from the public. Files are drawn from across Canada, with an emphasis on Ontario. Students’ clinical work is supervised by the lawyer(s) with professional responsibility for the file.
The program has three components: clinical work (9 credits, ungraded), seminar (3 credits, graded), and research assignment (3 credits, graded).
Clinical work (9 credits, credit/no credit)
Students receive their file assignments early in the Fall term, after an initial introduction. They engage in supervised clinical work throughout the remainder of the academic year. The nature and timing of the tasks to be completed are determined on an individual basis depending on the file. The clinical work finishes in March before the exam period.
Academic credit for the clinical work is awarded on a credit/no credit basis, with 4 credits allocated to the Fall term and 5 credits to the Winter term. The Fall term credits are awarded upon completion of the program (until then they appear as “in progress” on transcripts). Students receive formal evaluations of their clinical work from the academic director with input from their supervising lawyer(s).
Students are expected to devote on average 15-20 hours per week to clinical work. The instructors and the supervising lawyer(s) work with students to manage their workload.
Seminar & Research Component (6 credits, graded)
The seminar meets on selected weekly dates throughout the academic year. Attendance and participation are mandatory. In the seminar, students explore and develop perspectives from which to understand, critically assess, and think constructively about environmental justice, sustainability, and public interest lawyering. We also expect students to devote some hours in the week to their common clinic projects.
The first few meetings are devoted to orientation, skills training and an introduction to theory and practice of environmental justice, sustainability and public interest law. The last couple of meetings are devoted to collective reflection designed to integrate theory and practice. The intervening seminar meetings are devoted to special topics in environmental justice and sustainability, skills development and common research projects. Some seminars may feature guest speakers. Topics, readings and speakers are chosen to complement the current year’s common clinic projects.
Collective research efforts are focused on 3-4 “common projects”. These files have been proposed to us by outside organizations or academic partners, and we have selected them because they present cutting edge legal questions and defined tasks suitable for collective work in an area that we believe the clinic students can make a meaningful contribute that advances environmental justice or sustainability over the course of the two terms.
Students must choose one of these common projects to contribute to for their final research project. Students are encouraged to work together to understand the legal context for the problems identified, and should identify a distinct contribution they can make through their own research assignment.
Each student is required to complete a distinct legal research project as deliverable as part of the common clinic project. You may complete a research paper OR a research project depending on the context of the project and the appropriate outcomes. The final research paper or project is due on the general due date for Winter term seminar papers.
If you have questions please contact us.
