uOttawa-Ecojustice Environmental Law Clinic
The University of Ottawa has partnered with Ecojustice, Canada’s largest environmental law organization, to establish the uOttawa-Ecojustice Environmental law Clinic
The uOttawa-Ecojustice Environmental Law 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 is well-positioned to serve the environmental law and policy interests of both local and national clientele, including environmental, aboriginal and community groups in both official languages.
The uOttawa-Ecojustice Environmental Law 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 a problem-based 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 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 Environmental Law Clinic will be designed to give approximately fifteen students per semester a lead role in delivering environmental law services, providing 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. Finally, there is the new Centre for Environmental law and Global Sustainability which was recently approved by the University’s board of governors. Thus, the uOttawa-Ecojustice Environmental Law 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 Will Amos, a bilingual lawyer who is called to both the Quebec and Ontario bars. He can be reached at (613) 562-5800 ext. 3378 or wamos@ecojustice.ca. Professor Lynda Collins serves as staff counsel, while maintaining her position as an associate professor in the Faculty of Common Law.
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 infoclinic@uottawa.ca.