Community Legal Clinic Interviews

[Chewy]

According to their website, the community legal aid clinic said that they’d be sending out interview invites from January 24 - February 9 for the 1L summer position.

Has anyone received an invite yet?

[SNAILS]

This is a bit off topic.

If you get interviewed and they ask you if you support BLM, don't tell them you do support BLM, but that you think maybe defunding the police could lead to negative outcomes such as poor response times to incidents of violence. Just tell them you support defund the police fully! Especially if its Parkdale...

Lol. Make fun of me if you want.

[CleanHands]

10 hours ago, SNAILS said:

This is a bit off topic.

If you get interviewed and they ask you if you support BLM, don't tell them you do support BLM, but that you think maybe defunding the police could lead to negative outcomes such as poor response times to incidents of violence. Just tell them you support defund the police fully! Especially if its Parkdale...

Lol. Make fun of me if you want.

What the fuck are you talking about?

I'm a legal aid staff lawyer and I didn't have to be subjected to an interrogation over whether I support intersectional feminism or whatever to get my job. Nor did I have to do anything like that for any relevant clinical opportunities or volunteering in law school.

Where are they supposedly filtering out people who aren't woke to the max?

Edited January 27 by CleanHands

[ZineZ]

11 hours ago, SNAILS said:

This is a bit off topic.

If you get interviewed and they ask you if you support BLM, don't tell them you do support BLM, but that you think maybe defunding the police could lead to negative outcomes such as poor response times to incidents of violence. Just tell them you support defund the police fully! Especially if its Parkdale...

Lol. Make fun of me if you want.

SNAILS, I'm trying to understand what this is supposed to even mean. I helped hire students for a student legal aid clinic and this isn't even remotely close to a question that gets asked. 

That's not the focus of interviews. And this certainly isn't a place to bring up random thoughts unrelated to a student question. 

 

@Chewymight also be worth checking the discord if you don't get an answer. You'll also notice that fb groups and dedicated discords get created for incoming classes (especially around this time of year). 

[Chewy]

1 hour ago, ZineZ said:

SNAILS, I'm trying to understand what this is supposed to even mean. I helped hire students for a student legal aid clinic and this isn't even remotely close to a question that gets asked. 

That's not the focus of interviews. And this certainly isn't a place to bring up random thoughts unrelated to a student question. 

 

@Chewymight also be worth checking the discord if you don't get an answer. You'll also notice that fb groups and dedicated discords get created for incoming classes (especially around this time of year). 

Wilful blindness. I am taking solace in the fact that I haven't heard of a confirmed invite by anyone yet on this site.

Regardless, I'll probably cave and check it out. Thanks, @ZineZ.

[LMP]

On 1/26/2024 at 4:42 PM, Chewy said:

According to their website, the community legal aid clinic said that they’d be sending out interview invites from January 24 - February 9 for the 1L summer position.

Has anyone received an invite yet?

CLASP will never rush to do things. Keep your eyes open this week. 

[SNAILS]

@CleanHands I thought you were a Crown. Did you switch to Legal Aid Staff lawyer?

The following did occur (heavily paraphrased):

Interviewer: Do you support defunding the police?

Me: To some extent, but you also need to consider the valuable work many honest police officers do in combatting crime. I would support only a minor cut to the police budget for mental health resources and housing for the community.

Interviewer: The proposal is to cut it by 50% and redirect it to mental health/housing.

Me: That seems excessive. You would have street response from mental health workers ill equipped and ill trained to deal with a situation that can on occasion get violent. I would not send an unarmed social worker alone to deal with an emergency 911 call. With the police defunded, people might have subsidized housing, but lower police response times and inability for police to respond at all might lead to problems presently experienced in many homeless shelters, for example, that many people in poverty prefer not to go to them due to risk of violence and drugs.

This was not an interrogation about intersectional feminism. Take from it what you will. It could be fairly said that I caused this in unexpected trajectory in the conversation with my non-typical response. The conversation would have gone differently if I gave an answer indicating the need for more mental health recourses, for example, without the commentary of how much funding I think should be divereted.

[CleanHands]

@SNAILS

This was at Parkdale?

Fair enough on your original comment and I guess I was harsh then (although I note there was no mention of BLM there :P). I can understand questions like that in interviews for positions for law reform advocacy (it looks like Parkdale was doing this?) but it shouldn't be something that's asked by clinics focused on serving clients directly.

Edited January 28 by CleanHands

[SNAILS]

Ya. It was Parkdale.

I may have overdramatized the exchange.

For those who don't know, Parkdale serves predominantly black clients in a a low income neighbourhood. They want people who are sensitive to racial issues.

The smart answer on my part would have been, "I am well aware of the lack of resources for the mentally ill, and would very much like that increased. Access to justice for people in poverty is a big problem.  Racialized people might be distrusting of police." (Flesh out that answer with some reference to specific and relevant things I have done in the past (for example, working with refugees), and I would have been golden. 🙂 )

[Nyoom]

Yep, received an invitation to interview this afternoon.