Pro Bono Students Canada national director Nikki Gershbain says the new tax court project should increase access to justice for middle-income litigants.

Six University of Toronto Faculty of Law students are getting hands-on experience in the Tax Court of Canada.

Supreme Court of Canada Justice Rosalie Abella. Photo: Heather Gardiner

The “germ” has caught on.

Osgoode students Vanessa Decker, Nick Van Duyvenbode, and Christine Dankowych recently doing mediation training at Oakdale Park Middle School in Toronto. Photo: Robert Todd

Here’s a proposition for you, law students: You know those few hours of spare time you have each week, between lectures, studying, writing papers, and all the other tasks that are slowly pushing you over the edge? Rather than spending it catching up on your favourite TV show, getting some exercise, or enjoying a drink with friends, how would you like to organize a campaign to create an exciting new academic program for your school — one that you won’t even get the chance to take part in? You’ll probably pass, but luckily for you there are people like Radhika Lakhani.

I always find it interesting to listen to the discussion around public policy issues. How the discussion is argued in terms of values — the good and the bad and how people are characterized as worthy and unworthy — all to prove a point. My husband’s family, an eccentric group of science types — imagine a British version of the TV show The Big Bang Theory — labels these discussions “arguments sans facts.”

The aphorism “Where you stand is where you sit” means that one’s philosophy and opinions are necessarily shaped by one’s job or profession, which fits well within the ongoing debate over the proper role of lawyers in the adversarial system.