Legal info available on campus
Although Concordia doesn’t have its own law school, it benefits from the presence of students from McGill’s Faculty of Law who want to put their legal skills to work.
Legal Information Services, a division of Support Services located at the Loyola Campus, provides free legal information to Concordia students, staff, faculty and alumni. It is staffed by third and fourth-year students from McGill Law, who must provide four hours of clinical time each week as part of an optional year-long course.
“It’s not only more fun, it’s definitely more rewarding to explain the law to a real person than it is to write about it in an exam booklet,” said Matthew Bilmes, a Concordia 2002 business alumnus who went on to pursue a law degree at McGill.
Pierre Frégeau, Concordia’s Assistant Secretary-General and General Counsel and the clinic’s supervising attorney, said experience like this is what turns law students into lawyers: “There’s an enormous amount of confidence building in the first term. In the second, they really start to come into their own.
“Both their interview and diagnostic skills evolve significantly, as well as their organizational skills and ability to properly evaluate a problem in a relatively short period of time.”
For Bilmes, who is now in his third year of law, it’s not only an opportunity to use his legal education to help others, but to return to his alma mater.
“Although I could have gone elsewhere [to do clinical work], I chose to come to Concordia because I want to maintain my ties and continue to contribute to the community here,” he said.
Students interview clients, take detailed notes, and can answer basic questions. Queries are followed up two weeks later. In the meantime, the students conduct rigourous research and consult with Frégeau who provides guidance and direction.
The service is especially useful for hard-up students. “The average Concordia student can’t afford to spend hundreds of dollars on a lawyer to receive information that is already in the public domain,” Bilmes said.
The lion’s share — 50 to 60 per cent — of queries are related to one of four areas: family, criminal, or immigration law, or landlord-tenant issues. These include roommate disputes, or questions relating to divorce and spousal or child support. Problems with traffic tickets, copyright and immigration issues are also frequently heard.
“Some other clinical settings that these law students may choose, such as women’s shelters or specialized refugee services, tend to have problems that are limited by the clientele that they serve,” Frégeau said, “but at Concordia, they deal with a vast variety of problems due to the diversity of our student body and of access to the service.”
While the students are not qualified to dispense legal advice, they can show clients how similar situations have been resolved in the past. Should they require an attorney, Frégeau refers them to one that can help them. The free service ends there. When clients go to see a professional upon referral, they must pay the fees.