Experiential Learning Opportunities

The Centre for Free Expression works to advance freedom of expression and the public’s right to know. Its work includes public education, advocacy, law reform, research, advisory services, policy analysis, court interventions, and collaboration with other organizations. The Centre’s work is grounded in the understanding that freedom of expression and access to information are essential to democracy, the advancement of knowledge, individual development, and social justice.

Project Summary: As part of a multi-year project, the Centre for Free Expression has developed a public database containing policies from Canadian universities across 13 categories relating to expressive freedom and its limits for students, faculty, and staff.

Students will research and analyze policies to support the preparation of a report examining expressive freedom rights, responsibilities, and limitations at universities across Canada.

Students may also have the opportunity to assist the Centre and its legal counsel with court interventions during their placement. This may include discussing the legal issues involved, conducting research and analysis, and participating in the development of legal arguments and factum materials for cases in which the Centre has been granted leave to intervene.

Human Rights Services (HRS) is part of TMU’s Office of the Vice-President, Equity and Community Inclusion. HRS works to support a study, work, and living environment within the university community that is free from discrimination and harassment and consistent with the Ontario Human Rights Code.

HRS provides human rights advice, training, and educational programming. It also administers confidential complaint-resolution processes under TMU’s Discrimination and Harassment Prevention Policy and Sexual Violence Policy.

Project Summary: Students will join HRS’s Case Management Team and support the management of individual complaints. The placement will involve human rights-related legal research, case-law analysis, and the development of educational and training resources.

Students will also contribute to a case-law catalogue supporting HRS’s implementation and continued improvement of its complaint-resolution process under the Discrimination and Harassment Prevention Policy and Sexual Violence Policy.

The DMZ at Toronto Metropolitan University is a technology incubator and startup ecosystem that supports entrepreneurship in Canada and internationally. Through its programs, the DMZ helps founders scale high-impact ventures by providing mentorship, investment opportunities, and startup support.

Project Summary: The DMZ Startup Legal Support Centre is seeking two conscientious and proactive law students to assist startups participating in the DMZ’s incubator programs with corporate compliance and ongoing minute book maintenance.

Students will work directly with startup founders to understand their businesses and governance needs. Under the supervision of the Head of Startup Legal Support, students will review corporate records, identify deficiencies, and assist with preparing and organizing key corporate documents.

The Legal Innovation Zone (LIZ) at Toronto Metropolitan University is a global hub that supports the next generation of innovators working to transform the future of law. Through entrepreneurial programming and the world’s first legal technology incubator, the LIZ brings together students, entrepreneurs, lawyers, technology experts, government representatives, and industry leaders to modernize legal services and the justice system.

Project Summary: The Legal Changemakers Lab is a six-week extracurricular bootcamp designed specifically for first-year law students. Using Human-Centered Design and Design Thinking, students will work in teams to identify challenges within legal systems and develop innovative, user-centred solutions. Proposed solutions may involve legal technology, process design, or access-to-justice initiatives.

Students will move through the full design-thinking process; from identifying user needs and defining a problem to developing, testing, and presenting an initial prototype.

Silcoff Shacter (external link)  is a boutique law firm focused on immigration and refugee law. Its work includes representing individual clients and conducting test-case litigation aimed at addressing systemic legal issues.

Project Summary: Students will conduct legal, policy, human rights, and country-conditions research. Assignments may support individual client applications or litigation involving systemic change. This placement offers students an opportunity to develop substantive knowledge of immigration and refugee law while contributing to active legal matters.

Froese Law (external link)  is an award-winning boutique firm that bridges the gap between Bay Street and the creative world. The firm specializes in corporate and commercial law, intellectual property, and brand protection, with experience in trademarks, copyright, industrial designs, entertainment law, and technology law.

Project Summary: The selected student will gain practical experience across four areas: corporate law, entertainment law, industrial designs and design patents, and employment law. The opportunity combines legal research and writing with precedent development, resource creation, and public-facing legal content.

Health Law Firm LLP (external link)  is a boutique Toronto law firm dedicated to representing regulated health professionals across Ontario. Its work includes professional regulatory investigations and disciplinary proceedings, as well as advocacy before tribunals, courts, and other decision-making bodies.

The firm appears before the Health Professions Appeal and Review Board, the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, the Superior Court of Justice, the Divisional Court, and other boards and tribunals.

Project Summary: The selected student will work closely with counsel on a variety of health and regulatory law matters. The placement may include legal research, memorandum writing, drafting court and tribunal materials, reviewing case files, and assisting with case preparation and management.

Where possible, the student may also observe hearings, participate in client meetings, contribute to public-interest litigation, and discuss their analysis and perspectives on active matters with counsel. As this is a small boutique practice, the nature and volume of assignments will depend on the firm’s available work.

Gilbert’s LLP (external link)  is a Toronto-based law firm that works with businesses, entrepreneurs, innovators, and organizations at all stages of growth. The firm advises clients on corporate and commercial matters, intellectual property, and litigation, with a strong focus on innovation-driven companies.

Gilbert’s LLP provides practical, business-focused legal advice to help clients protect their ideas, structure and grow their organizations, manage risk, and pursue new opportunities. Clients include startups, founders, companies, investors, institutions, and community organizations.

Project Summary: The Slingshot x LASL Clinic is a collaboration between Gilbert’s LLP and the Lincoln Alexander School of Law. The Clinic provides pro bono legal support to clients who face barriers to accessing legal services and require advice relating to their companies, not-for-profit organizations, or charities.

Students will work in teams to research clients’ legal issues, prepare legal deliverables, and communicate legal information directly to clients under the supervision of Gilbert’s LLP lawyers.

HIV & AIDS Legal Clinic Ontario (HALCO) (external link)  is a community-based legal clinic that provides free legal services to people living with HIV across Ontario. In addition to direct legal services, HALCO undertakes public legal education, law reform, community development, and systemic advocacy relating to legal and policy issues affecting people living with HIV and HIV-affected communities.

Project Summary: The student will work closely with HALCO lawyers under the overall supervision of the Staff Litigation Lawyer. The placement will involve legal research, client file work, case preparation, and client-support activities. The student may also contribute to public legal education, advocacy, law reform, and other community-based projects.

The Canada-US Border Rights Clinic (external link)  is a virtual pro bono legal clinic that provides legal information, advice, and limited representation to people seeking protection at the Canada-US border. The Clinic also conducts public legal education, supports capacity-building among legal and settlement service providers in Canada and the United States, and participates in systemic advocacy.

Project Summary: Students will join the Clinic’s Client Management Team and work closely with the Clinic Coordinator, Client Service Coordinator, and staff lawyers based across Canada.

The placement will provide extensive experience with the application of the Safe Third Country Agreement at the Canada-US border. Students will assist people directly affected by U.S. immigration law and enforcement while developing practical skills in client interviewing, case management, legal research, and virtual legal-service delivery.

Although the placement is virtual, students may have opportunities to meet in person with a staff lawyer based in Toronto. Students may also attend the Clinic’s bi-weekly team meetings where scheduling permits.

Black Legal Action Centre (BLAC) (external link)  is a community legal clinic that provides free legal services to eligible Black Ontarians. Its areas of work include education, employment, housing, human rights, prison and police interactions, and government income support. BLAC also addresses individual and systemic anti-Black racism through test-case litigation, law reform, public legal education, advocacy, and community-based initiatives.

Project Summary: The selected student will work under the supervision of a BLAC lawyer or paralegal and assist with client files, legal and policy research, public legal information, and tribunal-related matters. The placement will provide exposure to community-based legal practice and the ways individual legal services, public education, and systemic advocacy can be used to challenge anti-Black racism.

Legal Aid Ontario (LAO) provides legal assistance and services to financially eligible individuals across Ontario, with a particular focus on supporting people experiencing financial and systemic barriers to justice.

Within the Ontario Court of Justice, System Navigators assist unrepresented accused persons by explaining court processes, helping them identify and complete their next steps, and connecting them with appropriate legal, court, and community resources.

Project Summary: This placement will provide students with direct exposure to Ontario’s criminal justice system and the experiences of self-represented accused persons appearing at the Ontario Court of Justice.

Working alongside System Navigators and other courthouse stakeholders, students will help individuals understand and navigate criminal court processes. They will learn about the respective roles of Duty Counsel, Legal Aid Ontario, Court Services, probation services, community organizations, and other justice-system participants and receive exposure to specialty courts and programs, including Gladue Court, Drug Treatment Court, Mental Health Court, and Community Justice Centres.

The TNG Community Mediation Project supports community members in addressing conflict through accessible and collaborative approaches to dispute resolution. The program helps individuals work through disputes constructively while promoting communication, relationship-building, and community-based conflict resolution.

Project Summary: This placement introduces students to community mediation and alternative dispute resolution through a combination of formal training, community engagement, and public education.

During the first semester, students will complete TNG’s Community Mediation training. TNG’s existing five-day intensive training program will be adapted into approximately two-hour sessions delivered over several weeks.

During the second semester, students will support TNG Community Mediation Services through volunteer and outreach activities. They will also serve as Mediation Ambassadors within the Lincoln Alexander School of Law and collaborate on an outreach plan to increase awareness of community mediation. The first cohort will work toward organizing a mediation-focused event for the law school community, such as a Lunch and Learn.

Neighbourhood Legal Services is a community legal clinic that provides legal assistance to individuals experiencing financial and systemic barriers. Its work supports access to justice and addresses legal issues affecting members of the communities it serves.

Project Summary: Student will support Neighbourhood Legal Services’ housing law team with litigation administration. This placement will provide practical exposure to housing law matters and the administrative processes involved in supporting litigation within a community legal clinic.

Friends in Toronto Community Services (FITCS) provides community-based programming and support to justice-involved youth. In partnership with the Lincoln Alexander School of Law, FITCS offers students supervised opportunities to participate in restorative justice programming focused on accountability, healing, relationships, personal development, repair, and reintegration.

Project Summary: Students will receive training and support FITCS restorative justice programming in youth justice facilities, transitional housing, community organizations, schools, outreach settings, or other approved locations. Students will help facilitate structured conversations, Healing Circles, group activities, reflection exercises, accountability planning, and reintegration-focused programming.

The placement is grounded in restorative justice principles and is designed to be trauma-informed, youth-centred, culturally responsive, anti-oppressive, and attentive to safety. Students will not work independently and will be paired with an experienced FITCS facilitator whenever they participate in program delivery or engage directly with youth.

The John Howard Society of Ontario (external link)  works toward effective, just, and humane responses to crime and its causes. Through community offices across Ontario, it provides programs and services that help people affected by the criminal legal system navigate legal and social barriers, develop life skills, and rebuild their lives following incarceration.

Project Summary: Thousands of Individuals are released from correctional facilities annually with no fixed address, creating a revolving door between incarceration and homelessness. This lack of stable housing exacerbates the homelessness crisis, jeopardizes public safety, and impacts physical and mental health. This issue is significant because there are limited options available after release, and individuals may find themselves back in the same situation, risking reoffending and experiencing poor outcomes. 

The increase in homelessness has impacted communities by overburdening emergency services, health systems, and municipal resources. There are also significant public safety concerns and social tensions related to the risks posed by encampments and visible homelessness. The policy window has opened due to increasing public and political concern over visible homelessness, the rise of encampments, and open drug use. Various solutions are being sought across multiple areas of the province. Therefore, it is important to address this matter before the policy window closes and opportunities for change are lost.

Amnesty International Canada (external link)  is part of the world’s largest grassroots human rights movement and works to protect and promote human rights in Canada and around the world. The organization mobilizes members and supporters, conducts urgent-action campaigns, provides public education, and advocates for government compliance with international human rights standards.

Amnesty’s work addresses a broad range of issues, including freedom of expression, refugee protection, gender equality, Indigenous rights, and the abolition of torture and the death penalty.

Applicants are encouraged to review Amnesty International Canada’s commitment to anti-racism, anti-oppression, diversity, equity, and inclusion (AROA-DEI) (external link) . A demonstrated commitment to these principles will be considered when applications are reviewed.

Project Summary: The selected student will support Amnesty Canada’s legal advocacy by developing and managing a strategic litigation page that highlights and amplifies the organization’s human rights work.

The student will monitor ongoing human rights cases and relevant legal developments, prepare accessible legal summaries, and produce public legal education materials. This work will help strengthen Amnesty’s legal presence and support timely public engagement with human rights litigation and campaigns across Canada.

The Wrongful Conviction Law Review (external link)  (WCLR) is an international, open-access, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to wrongful convictions and miscarriages of justice. The journal advances public and professional understanding of the systemic factors that contribute to wrongful convictions and promotes reforms aimed at preventing them.

Project Summary: Students will participate in the journal’s editorial and publication process by reviewing scholarly submissions, verifying citations, and helping prepare articles for publication. Students may also have opportunities to write book reviews or case comments, either independently or collaboratively. This placement allows students to engage with emerging scholarship in criminal law and wrongful-conviction research while developing advanced legal research, writing, editing, and citation skills.