About Us

Program Streams

• Core LAWS Program
• LAWS Newcomer Youth Program
• LAWS Aboriginal Youth Program

Each year, over 360 grade 10, 11, and 12 students participate in LAWS, and hundreds of U of T Faculty of Law students, professors, alumni and other members of the legal community volunteer their time to the program.

Due to limited resources, only those students enrolled in the LAWS Program at our LAWS partner schools (currently Central Technical School, Harbord Collegiate Institute and Monarch Park Collegiate) are eligible to participate in LAWS programming

Core LAWS Programming

LAWS' core program is a multi-faceted program that provides participating high school students with:

An academic curriculum that focuses on law. LAWS assists participating teachers to identify and explore legal issues with their students in the classroom. U of T law students, professors, alumni and other legal professionals guest-facilitate interactive workshops on legal issues.

A weekly after-school tutoring program. U of T law students volunteer to provide high school students with academic support and mentorship.  

Opportunities to interact with legal professionals. Participating high school students observe the law in action and spend time with positive role models through job shadowing experiences, mentoring programs, and paid summer placements with legal professionals.

Exposure to post-secondary education. Participating high school students frequently attend events at the U of T Faculty of Law, and visit other local college and university campuses.

Students benefit from unique learning opportunities that result from LAWS’ partnerships with the legal community, including the U of T Faculty of Law’s professors, students and alumni, as well as lawyers, judges, justices of the peace, paralegals, law enforcement officers, courts, law firms, legal aid clinics, and public interest organizations.

Highlights of the LAWS program include:

• Interactive, guest-facilitated classroom workshops in which students explore topics such as:
  • the youth criminal justice system
  • Islamic law
  • music downloading and intellectual property
  • racial profiling
  • forensic science
  • environmental science
  • civil liberties
  • citizenship
  • gang violence
  • women and the law
  • debating skills
  • international human rights
  • religion and the law
• Mock trials and debates in which students develop public speaking, critical thinking, literacy, and team-work skills.
• LAWS justice sector and career carousels featuring lawyers, judges, justices of the peace, police officers, forensic scientists, parole officers, and paralegals.
• Field trips to courthouses, Queen’s Park and police headquarters. Students experience university life by touring the U of T Faculty of Law and other university and college campuses.
• Job Shadowing Opportunities: Court Experience Program with judges, justices of the peace, Crown attorneys and Duty Counsel for a day at Ontario Court of Justice courthouses.
• Workplace mentoring with lawyers at our partner firms, Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP and Torys LLP.
• Summer Job Program with law firms, governmental legal departments and public interest organizations such as legal aid clinics.

LAWS Newcomer Youth Program

Launched in our partner schools in 2008, the LAWS Newcomer Youth Program is an engaging, fun and interactive way to work towards the goals of the ESL/ESD curriculum forth by the Ministry of Education.  Learning about the Canadian legal system allows newcomer students to fully understand and participate in the social, economic, political, and cultural life of their local communities and of Canada as a whole. Program activities encourage newcomer students to use critical-literacy and critical-thinking skills to interpret the world around them.

Law and justice education equips newcomer students with the tools they need to be able to use English effectively to advocate for themselves in all areas of their lives. While law and justice education in the ESL classroom is geared towards satisfying all four interrelated strands of learning including; Listening and Speaking, Reading and Writing, its core benefit lies in the Socio-Cultural Competence and Media Literacy component. Law and justice education provides a context for students to demonstrate and understand the rights and responsibilities of Canadian citizenship and of the contributions of diverse groups to Canadian society.

In addition, as it is presented by the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, this program stream allows newcomer youth to experience and become familiar with a university campus and learn about the process involved in Ontarian post-secondary education, satisfying the knowledge of Ontario education systems component.

The LAWS Newcomer Youth Program consists of five components:

• Legal Information Workshops
• Courthouse visits
• Faculty of Law visits
• Justice sector career carousels
• Mock trials
  

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Aboriginal Youth Program Stream

Statistically, Aboriginal youth face many serious challenges: they have high school dropout rates and are seriously underrepresented in post-secondary education and in justice sector careers.  The Faculty of Law is well-positioned to deliver programming that provides positive exposure to the law, legal system, legal profession, and legal education, and is responsive and relevant to the needs and interests of Aboriginal youth.

In 2008 LAWS developed a partnership with The University of Toronto’s First Nations House to deliver an outreach initiative aimed at Aboriginal youth.  Current program offerings include our annual Justice Conferences for Aboriginal Youth, which attract youth from across Ontario to experience the Faculty of Law, learn about contemporary legal issues affecting their communities, and meet and dialogue with Aboriginal justice sector representatives and law students.