For Samara Secter, a more just world and a truly inclusive future society are tied to giving voice to legal issues that are important to Canadian women.
Secter, a Juris Doctor (JD) student at York’s Ogoode Hall Law School, has a vision to resolve what she believes is a serious inequity in legislation that affects more than one half of the Canadian population. Her vision for York's "this is my time" advertising campaign is: “2028: My legal work results in equal representation for women in Parliament”.
“Osgoode's motto is ‘Through Law to Justice’ and our aim is to ensure Samara sees her legal education as a means to achieve a more inclusive and equal society,” says Osgoode Hall Law School Dean Lorne Sossin. “At Osgoode, this means not just studying legal ideas, but also experiencing law in action through Canada's leading clinics, intensive programs and internships.”
The law school, which has about 900 JD students, is the first law school in Canada to introduce an experiential education requirement into the JD curriculum and open an Office of Experiential Education. Its experiential education offerings are the most extensive in Canada and among the most innovative in the world. Programs such as the Innocence Project, which involves students in the investigation of suspected wrongful convictions; the Mediation Intensive Clinical Program; the Criminal Intensive Program; the Osgoode Business Clinic; the Intensive Program in Poverty Law at Parkdale Community Legal Services; and the Community & Legal Aid Services Program, provide students with interesting, relevant and powerful experience grounded in social justice.
“We seek to provide leaders like Samara with the knowledge, skills, professionalism and compassion it takes to make a difference,” says Sossin. “In 1892, the first woman called to the Bar in the Commonwealth was an Osgoode graduate, and we have been committed to overcoming barriers ever since. I have no doubt that Samara will carry on that proud tradition.”