Environmental Law and Policy Clinic
The University of Ottawa has partnered with Ecojustice (formerly known as Sierra Legal Defence Fund), Canada’s largest environmental law organization, to establish Canada’s first interdisciplinary Environmental Law and Policy Clinic.
The uOttawa-Ecojustice Clinic fills a major gap in Canada’s environmental capacity, by providing a long-needed public interest environmental law organization in the nation’s capital. It will be well-positioned to serve the environmental law and policy interests of both local and national clientele, including environmental, aboriginal and community groups.
The uOttawa-Ecojustice Clinic will draw on the University’s strengths in environmental law, and related fields such as economics, science and public health, and on Ecojustice’s strengths in law, policy and science. Conceived as an interdisciplinary educational model, the Clinic will help train the next generation of environmental law and policy leaders, while encouraging students and faculty to become more involved in community service work.
Students from law, together with ones from science and other disciplines, will get hands-on experience working on environmental issues, on behalf of community and non-profit clients, under the supervision of experienced lawyers and professors. The uOttawa-Ecojustice Clinic will be designed to give approximately ten to fifteen students per semester a lead role in delivering environmental law services, aimed at giving students a range of experience and varying degrees of responsibility, including:
- legal education and community outreach;
- summary legal advice;
- law reform advice and submissions;
- representation before administrative bodies; and,
- assisting lawyers in litigation
In addition to benefiting from the depth and experience of Ecojustice’s environmental lawyers, the Clinic will benefit from the University of Ottawa’s significant depth in the area of environmental law and policy. The University's Institute of the Environment specializes in interdisciplinary environmental research and public education. As well, the Law Faculty was recently selected as the home of the global Academy of Environmental Law, established by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the world’s largest environmental policy institution. Thus, the uOttawa-Ecojustice Clinic will be able to draw on the resources of the world’s largest network of environmental law and policy scholars and practitioners.
The Clinic director is Linda McCaffrey, one of Canada’s most experienced environmental lawyers. William Amos serves as staff counsel at the clinic. He can be reached at (613) 562 5800 ext. 3378 or wamos@ecojustice.ca. A Law Faculty advisory committee oversees the clinic, chaired by Professor Stewart Elgie, the original founder of Sierra Legal.
The clinic was established with generous support from the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation, and the Law Foundation of Ontario.
For more information about the Clinic, please contact Nancy Barton at (613) 562 5800 ext. 3382.