Community Lawyering: Visions of a Progressive Practice
“The first thing I lost in law school was the reason that I came.” Quoted in "Letter to a Law Student Interested in Social Justice" by William Quigley (2007).
Join us at noon on Monday, January 26 in Room G102 as we bring together lawyers, activists, filmmakers, social workers, and scholars for a conversation on how to sustain a social justice ethos in legal practice. This event will also feature a screening of the short public legal education film, “Migrants: Know Your Rights,” produced by the Immigration Legal Committee and funded by the Law Foundation of Ontario.
PANELISTS:
- Swathi Sekhar
- Adam Vasey
- Shelley Gilbert
DETAILS:
- Monday, January 26, Noon
- Room G102 (mini-moot)
- Lunch will be served.
- Law students must RSVP on Symplicity by Friday, January 23, 2015.
BIOS:
Swathi Sekhar is an immigration and refugee lawyer based out of Toronto, Ontario. She has been collaborating and working with migrants in various capacities since 2006, both in Canada and internationally. Outside of her practice in Toronto, Swathi engages in anti-prison work as well as theatre based workshops on various topics, including immigration law and migrant justice, housing rights and criminal law.
Adam Vasey received a B.A., LL.B., and M.S.W. from the University of Windsor, and an LL.M. from Osgoode Hall Law School at York University. He has been the director of Pathway to Potential, the local anti-poverty strategy, since 2009. In 2013 he was appointed to the provincial Minimum Wage Advisory Panel, and also received the “Distinguished Social Worker of the Year” award through the Ontario Association of Social Workers – Southwestern Branch. Adam was recently awarded the Law Foundation of Ontario’s Community Leader in Justice Fellowship, which he is completing at Windsor Law in the fall and winter semesters.
Shelley Gilbert has been a social worker at Legal Assistance of Windsor (LAW), a joint service of the Faculty of Law and Legal Aid Ontario, staffed by lawyers, social workers, law and social work students for over 20 years. Providing and mentoring an interdisciplinary approach to the delivery of services to low income people, Shelley has encouraged and taught both law and social work students to develop and sustain effective and innovative partnerships that respond to some of our community’s most pressing social issues. Shelley assists students to direct their passion and talents to assist some of the most marginalized and vulnerable individuals in the community, including men, women and children living without immigration status and survivors of human trafficking. She has been the chair of WEFIGHT, an anti-human trafficking initiative since 2006 and works with survivors of forced labour, sex trafficking and those trafficked through marriage. Shelley was recognized by the Ontario Association of Social Worker’s as an “Inspirational Leader” in 2014.
Please direct any queries to Fathima Cader at fcader@uwindsor.ca.
This event is brought to you by Windsor Law Career Services and generously supported by the Law Foundation of Ontario.
