She spearheads clinical programs and the Student Legal Assistance initiative
The University of Calgary’s Faculty of Law has appointed professor Haley Hrymak to the new role of experiential learning director as of July 1.
In the role, Hrymak supervises clinical and experiential learning initiatives like the Student Legal Assistance. She helps to develop programs and engage with the legal community in addition to assisting with clinical legal education and experiential learning teaching and research at the university.
She explained that the position allows her to concentrate on improving legal systems to aid those significantly impacted by these systems, drawing on her time as a research and community outreach lawyer for Rise Women’s Legal Centre.
“This role calls for big innovative thinking, which to me is an opportunity to
think about the students and the community more broadly, and the ways in which the university can expand its existing clinical and experiential learning,” Hrymak said in a statement.
She added that the role would facilitate collaboration across the current clinical programs.
“The role allows for a path forward to conduct academic research to better understand the impacts of the existing clinical opportunities, where there are opportunities to expand them, and where more in-depth research on clinical learning can take place,” Hrymak said.
While with Rise Women’s Legal Centre in Vancouver from 2018 to 2023, she provided legal services, did research, added to seminar-based instruction for law students, and got involved in systemic advocacy at the community-based legal clinic. She has also taught legal professionals and community organizations, applying an approach centered on experiential learning with a focus on combining legal theory and practice-based skills development.
Hrymak has served as a counsel with the National Judicial Institute, where she developed intimate partner violence-related materials. She was also previously a Federal Crown with the Public Prosecution Service of Canada in Winnipeg and Vancouver.
At present, Hrymak is pursuing her PhD at the University of British Columbia’s Peter A. Allard School of Law. Her current research investigates the intersection of family law systems and family violence, concentrating in particular on the practical operation of legal systems.
“My work has led me to want to better understand and explore how the law and the existing colonial legal systems affect access to justice. My research agenda examines how legal systems operate in practice for court users with particular attention to survivors of family violence and others who are navigating state legal processes,” she said.
