This is a joint project between University of Toronto Faculty of Law and Osgoode Hall Law School.
Name of Organization: Korean Legal Clinic
Website of Organization: koreanlegalclinic.ca
Organization's Mandate: The Korean Legal Clinic (“KLC”) was founded by Korean-Canadian lawyers in Toronto. The KLC aims to improve access to justice for Korean-Canadians by providing culturally and linguistically appropriate legal services, education, and resources with our partner organizations.
Project Name: Research Project
Project Type: Public Legal Education (presentations, workshops, podcasts, brochures, blogs, etc.) & Research (memoranda used for internal purposes only) & Client services (court forms, shadowing, mock hearings, intake, legal clinic, etc.)
Project Delivery: Hybrid. The students’ activities may include in-person interactions. When students are matched with the organization in September, students and the organization will discuss expectations regarding whether work will be completed virtually, in person, or both.
Description of Project: The Korean Legal Clinic (the “Clinic”) seeks to address the specific legal needs of members of Toronto’s growing Korean community. The Clinic strives to improve access to justice by tackling the cultural, linguistic, and economic barriers. The Clinic provides referral services, organizes public legal education (“PLE”) seminars, and undertakes special projects to address specific issues.
Role of Student Volunteers: Students volunteering with the Clinic will support the clinic’s day-to-day operations and participate by conducting legal research and preparing PLE materials. The students' work will not be more than 10% administrative. For the PLE project, students will help identify topics that is of interest to the low-income Korean community, communicate with guest lawyer speakers, conduct research on the topics that the guest speakers would like to cover, and synthesize research findings into a PowerPoint presentation. Final role allocation will depend on the PBSC volunteer’s
Korean proficiency and capacity of other KLC volunteers. Due to cultural nuances, it is imperative that the PBSC volunteer identify as Korean for tasks that require communicating with the Korean community.
For the PLE seminars, students will communicate with guest speakers, conduct research on the PLE topic(s), and synthesize research findings into a PowerPoint presentation. The PLEs will likely be virtual and, if interested, students can assist with session logistics. The students will not be speakers at the presentation. In the past, KLC ran a PLE series where each session had two components: (1) guest speaker(s) would deliver a PowerPoint presentation; and (2) attendees could attend a one-on-one consultation with a lawyer to receive summary advice. Future PLEs will likely have a similar structure. Previous topics we covered include family, immigration, employment, business, tax, and Small Claims Court.
Special projects have yet to be finalized, but below are a few potential initiatives:
- Pop-up legal clinic: Lawyers or paralegals give free consultations (either in person or virtually) for inquiries that fall within KLC’s mandate. Student volunteers will review sign-up forms where inquirers input their legal concern, facts, and questions. During the session, a student volunteer will help take notes and keep track of any necessary follow-ups.
- Legal Issue Spotting Research: Student volunteers will review primary and secondary sources from the Korean community in Ontario to identify trends in legal issues, as well as draft resources in response to any research findings.
The clinic expects the PBSC volunteer to be available to attend KLC events in person. In the past, we have accommodated a student's availability. We will do the same for this year's students.
Role of Supervising Lawyer(s): The lawyer supervisor will review students’ client intake notes and specify the legal issues to be researched. The lawyer supervisor will also review and approve the materials prepared by students for PLE presentations and before it is used by KLC.
Type of Law: Immigration & Refugee, Family, Wills & Estate, Employment
Main Project Deliverable: Creating produced content (e.g. research memos, brochures, podcasts, etc.). Completing inquirer intake and assistance (e.g. completing inquirer intake, providing
inquirer referrals, helping inquirers with their ID documents, etc)
Number of Student Placements: 1 student
Hours per week the student volunteer(s) will be expected to work: 3-5 hours/week
Regular shifts or a flexible schedule: Flexible since work can be completed remotely (except for PLEs and client intakes, should either be necessary).
Is there a workspace provided for the student at the Organization: Most work is to be done remotely. PLEs would take place at partner organizations and client intake would take place at the clinic site as well as virtually (TBD).
*Depends on whether students will be presenting at the seminars and whether students will be doing client intake after seminars (assuming seminars are in person)
Devices and technologies the students will be required to have: Computer, internet access, Zoom, telephone.
Is there an expectation for the student(s) to be bilingual: Fluency in Korean is strongly preferred, however students who do not speak Korean will be considered as well.
Law School Pre-Requisites: None.
Other Requirements or Expectations: For community-facing tasks, it is imperative to have a volunteer who is a member of the Korean community. We expect volunteers to have some familiarity with the Korean language and culture in order to provide culturally sensitive support.