The Benefits of Being Small
Christine Jackson is spending the summer at the Toronto offices of Miller Canfield, an international corporate firm. For Jackson, who has excelled at Windsor Law both inside and outside the classroom, there are distinct advantages to being a law student in a smaller city.
"In Windsor, you have the opportunity to go to court early on and get a feel for what the action is like without being overwhelmed," says Jackson, who volunteered with Community Legal Aid in her first year and participated in a student Clerkship at the Ontario Court of Justice. Having worked in Toronto after her second year, Jackson compared the two experiences stating that "if I were to do Community Legal Aid in a big city, I don't think that I would have received the hands on experience that I got in Windsor."
Another part of Windsor's charm, says Jackson, is the collegial and supportive atmosphere that flavors every interaction on campus.
"You go into our general office and the secretaries have positive attitudes and are always helpful," says Jackson. "Your professors have an open-door policy. They ask you how your weekend was. It's not just about school and not just about education. We're all interested in each other's lives."
Jackson got a first-person look at this comprehensive support system when she served as a teacher's assistant with the Academic Success Programme, Windsor's pioneering initiative to ease the transition to law school.
"Coming into law school can be pretty overwhelming, not only having to learn new material but also having to learn the tools necessary to learn the material" says Jackson, who majored in Law at Carleton University, but still had to learn how to write case briefs, compose memoranda and write law school exams.
As a teacher's assistant for Criminal Law professor Larry Wilson, Jackson ran bi-weekly tutorials in which she had to condense three hours of classroom lectures to their most salient points. She also met individually with students and ran small group mock exams.
Jackson saw students make "vast improvements" from mid-terms to finals thanks to a lot of hard work by the students, the Academic Success Programme and the professors.
"I am a very big supporter of faculty of Windsor Law," says Jackson. "I think they do a lot for us."
Jackson is thrilled to have received a coveted Judicial clerkship with the Superior Court of Justice in Hamilton, where she will be doing her articles next year. Windsor Law students and grads landed 11 Judicial clerkships for 2010-2011, a record number for the law school.