General Meeting to be Called; Amina Staying Put

Billable Targets would like to offer the following brief commentary on what is by now widely accepted knowledge:

1. The 30 signatures required by the DLS constitution to request a general meeting have been successfully obtained, thus obligating the executive to call a meeting within the next 10 days. This may be the first time this has ever happened. Not so conveniently, the meeting could end up taking place very close to the exam period.

Of interest is the fact that of the 31 signatures obtained, none of them were of any of the 6 DLS Executives. The list did include the vast majority of non exec shift leaders. Also of interest is that in response to the issues raised by the 3 credit students (hereinafter referred to as the ‘Intrepid Three’), the Exec had originally proposed holding a “Town Hall” meeting of the executive sometime in either November or December, in which anyone concerned could attend and provide feedback and input. While this may seem reasonable, the Intrepid Three were less than satisfied with this response, which prompted their call for signatures. And with good reason too. Unlike a General Meeting, any non-exec DLS student attending a Town Hall meeting would have no standing to propose or vote on any motions.

To compound this, it has been overheard that certain member[s] of the executive not among the elected in 2^nd year, have been walking around calling the Intrepid Three who initiated the request for a general meeting “traitors”, while accusing them of trying to overthrow the Executive Director. Now c’mon gal, that isn’t cool. You can’t be telling members of the DLS community that they are welcome to come talk to the executive anytime and then turn around and start bad mouthing them behind their backs.

We can attest to the fact that the Intrepid Three are calling a meeting only to include the broader DLS community in a discussion about the circumstances which led to the situation we have today and its strategic direction going forward. Traitors they aren’t. In fact they are quite the opposite; they’re passionate about their clinic, so passionate that they are willing to go to great lengths to hold a meeting to discuss its future and to hold their executive accountable. Perhaps the “traitor” is the one who launches personal attacks against them in an attempt the thwart their efforts. Godspeed to the Intrepid Three, your efforts are very much appreciated!

2. In a letter sent out to the DLS community, Judith confirmed that Amina has not resigned. Yet. Thank god.

Other highlights from Judith’s letter include:

• “It also might help you to know that the Executive has been involved in an almost continuous discussion about criminal law resources since last summer…”. Read –“Don’t worry Exec, J-Mack’s got your back!” This is great news though, seriously. It means that the Exec has worked to address these issues at some level.
• The sentence: Nobody has been “constructively dismissed” gets 10 points for use of a term of art…just cause we’re geeks that way.
• “Individual personnel matters are not within the jurisdiction of the Executive or any general meeting and are not subject to votes.” Translation: You can’t touch this, nice try though suckers.

Finally, we would like to comment on something that we have heard much about recently, and that is the notion of “fit” within the clinic. While we believe that Judith believes that the direction that she is taking the clinic is for the best, it has been suggested that the inability for the review lawyers and her to come to a resolution is an indication of possible personality conflicts and a fundamental disagreement over the character of the clinic. Should this be the case, we at Billable Targets think that we can learn from a similar situation at CLASP, in which review counsel Sil Salvaterra made the following comments in an open letter:

My employment is being terminated. And the post I occupy is now a public job offering. In the summer of 2005 I was asked to attend a meeting at CLASP with Glenn Stuart, the clinic director. Without any prior warning, I was told that my employment with CLASP and the University was being terminated because I did not “fit” in at the clinic. By that time I had been employed at the clinic, and a member of the Osgoode community, for close to nine years.

…

My response to these “reasons” for termination was to suggest that who, or what, “fits” into CLASP should be determined by its Board, active clinic members and the Dean, collectively. The character and mission of the clinic must be a cooperative and inclusive enterprise. Narrow perspectives should not determine who fits and who does not. One size does not, and should, not fit all. Plurality, diversity and inclusiveness are important clinic values to uphold. Conformity is not.

While the cause for dismissal was different in this situation, the DLS general meeting is an opportunity in which all members of the clinic community can come together to shape the character and mission of the clinic in addressing the recent issues.


Billable Targets

Dropping the Q-Bomb: Two Review Lawyers Resign from DLS

Yesterday two criminal review lawyers at Downtown Legal Services, Mary Misener and Richard Litkowski, submitted their resignations. While it is far too early to provide any solid reasons behind this drastic course of action, we here at Billable Targets are always game for a spot of the ol’ crass speculation and rumour mongering. So far, our only real lead on this story is an email that was sent out last night by several concerned credit students asking that a general meeting of DLS members be convened to discuss this and other clinic issues in a larger forum. While generally devoid of information and substance, the email seems to suggest a connection between the lawyers’ resignation and other problems currently plaguing the clinic, such as the extended moratorium placed on criminal and (certain) civil files. Rumour also has it that there have been some issues between Judith McCormack the executive director and Mary and Richard, although we cannot say more as to the pith and substance of these problems.

For those upper years who returned to DLS this year, there have been noticeable changes to the quality of life at the clinic. Partially due to the criminal file moratorium, there has been significantly less opportunity for first years to help out on files, leaving them to the slow death of phone answering. The lack of files has also affected upper year students have been doubling up to work on files together, taking on files from other shifts, or in the case of credit students just carrying less of a workload and getting screwed out of their clinical legal education. Whatever the source of these problems, it is clear that some feel that the elected DLS executive could be doing more to improve the situation. While finger pointing can make for some hilarious innuendo, it is not clear what the Exec does in the first place, yet alone how they can fix these problems. That being said, there is (yet another) unsubstantiated rumour that a secret meeting of DLS shift leaders will convene sometime in the next few days to do further finger pointing and (hopefully) rabble-rousing.

Let’s just hope that our fair school’s legal clinic can avoid the bloated controversy that Osgoode’s legal clinic, CLASP, faced last year when its Executive Director fired one of their review lawyers. If the DLS Executive and Administration can learn anything from CLASP, it is that law students tend to be fairly loyal to their review lawyers. Allowing rumours to persist in the face of drastic and abrupt personnel changes risks infighting and creating a divide between the DLS student body and the Powers That Be.

-Borstal Boy wishes all the best to Mary & Richard