Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers (FACL): Community Outreach Program

Project Type: Public Legal Education (presentations, workshops, podcasts, brochures, blogs, etc.)

Fields of Law: This project is general and may touch upon various areas of law, depending on the needs of the partner organizations. 

Positions Available: 1

This is a joint project in which University of Toronto students may work with students from Lincoln Alexander Law School (TMU) and Osgoode Hall Law School (York University).

 

About the Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers (FACL):

FACL is a diverse coalition of Asian Canadian legal professionals who promote equity, justice, and opportunity for Asian Canadian legal professionals and the broader community. FACL fosters advocacy, community involvement, legal scholarship and professional development.

 

Project Details:

The Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers (FACL) has developed a community outreach program to identify and address knowledge gaps related to various legal fields for Asian community members. The aim of the program is to partner with community organizations to create and provide public legal education in the form of presentations, workshops, webinars, recorded videos, social media/blog posts and plain language resources. This project involves continuing to develop the materials for the presentations, including power-point presentations and creating accompanying pamphlets for community members to take away in various topics. Additionally, this project involves outreach activities to develop new projects with organizations in the GTA. This includes researching and reaching out to organizations that would benefit from access to public legal education tools such as wills and estate webinars, among others. Students will work with these organizations to learn to understand their needs and develop presentations and projects that will help address the needs of the community from a legal standpoint.

Students will also work with FACL on a pilot project geared toward Asian and migrant sex workers. This project will focus on access to justice issues as well as the specific vulnerabilities these women face. This project is in collaboration with the FACL Women’s Committee.

Students will also assist in developing strategies that will assist in the provision of the public legal education materials to community members, and brainstorm new innovative ways of reaching Asian communities. Students will also conduct community outreach by compiling a list of organizations in the GTA who need access to legal education to serve their targeted communities. Students will begin by reaching out to existing partner organizations to assess their needs, as well as conduct google searches of new potential organizations that could benefit from FACL’s resources. Students will explain what FACL is, the types of public legal education they offer (i.e. webinars, presentations, etc.) and add them to a list to be provided to the lawyer supervisor.

If time permits, in regard to the pilot project on Asian and migrant sex workers, students will be tasked with conducting research about the vulnerabilities these women face

 

Will the student(s) be expected to show up for regular shifts each week, or is the schedule flexible?

The schedule is flexible but depending on the task assigned, the students will be expected to consult with the lawyer supervisor/partner organization to establish a due date. The project tasks are completed remotely; however, a hybrid model may be implemented if FACL has the capacity to do so.

 

Requirements and Expectations:

Given the population served by FACL, there is a preference for students who speak Asian languages such as Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, or Cantonese.