Counsel with Hamilton, Duncan, Armstrong+Stewart in Surrey, BC Counsel at Black Gropper in Vancouver, BC
Since the internship, that career path has developed to include Canadian and international labour law facets. Within Canada's labour law community, I have participated in Ontario's Ministry of Labour Co-Op program (comprising secondments to the Ministry's legal services branch and the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal) and completed articles in a Toronto firm with a strong labour law practice, Koskie Minsky, where I have continued on as a labour department associate. Having developed a core interest in international labour issues, I have also sustained my involvement in international labour law by completing a Masters of International Law concentrated in international labour issues, and through active membership in the Canadian Bar Association's international law section. Read quotes from the 2011 ILIP participants
Reflections from our Alumni
Four months that will change your life! Our successful alumni reflect on their ILIP experiences, a few years into their careers.
Jonathan J. Weisman, Class of 2007
Where did you Intern?
I interned as a clerk with the Caribbean Court of Justice in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, W.I.
Looking back, how do you feel about the experience?
It was a tremendous opportunity. I was able to clerk with an appellate court before
graduating, and to consider legal issues which will never come before Canadian courts. The place, people, and work itself were all memorable.
What did you gain from the ILIP internship?
The Court was newly-constituted, and … a significant aspect of the Justices' work was promotional. The Court had selected a capital case for one of its first appeals. Since the drive for the Court's creation came, in part, from controversy over recent judicial trea tment of capital punishment, the political and public policy dimensions of the judicial system were on open display…
The openness of the Court to a range of Commonwealth precedent seems more advanced, in a way, than our Courts' preference for local precedents (a luxury afforded, i suppose, to appellate bodies). I was able to learn about a variety of approaches: those of the diverse bench and those of the diverse legal sources.
Did the experience help you get where you are today?
It is eye-catching on a resume. I'm confident it led to more interviews and more interesting conversations in those interviews. It continues to come up at this stage of my legal career, and was a major topic of conversation when I moved firms.
Were there any skills or experiences that you learned that have been useful to you in practice?
I learned what the courtroom looks like from the judge's bench. I learned about what judges are looking for and much about the purpose of their questions. I learned how to write for appellate courts and the ways they assess the precedential value of their incipient judgments. All of that has been useful to me as a litigator.
Carolyn Janusz, Class of 2008
By spending a summer with an organization dedicated to advancing the panoply of workers' rights, I grew to understand the significance of workers' rights as a set of human rights, the observance of which affects the lives of the world's billions of people each and every day. Having entered law school precisely to pursue a career in which I would advance the quality of peoples' lives, my ILO internship thereby focused my career goal to the pursuit of a career in labour law.
The ILO benefits from the program as well. During the internship, the ILO was able to rely on the strong research and analytical skills of a law student in the preparation of the second Global Report on Equality in the Workplace. Throughout my 15 weeks at the ILO, I put these skills towards drafting numerous reports about the legal and political approaches found to eliminate discrimination against women globally and against the Roma within Europe, which were included in the final report. Moreover, as a result of my internship, the ILO gained a partner in the international community's endeavour of achieving equality in the workplace, and universal observance of labour rights. Indeed, after the intensive exposure the internship provided, this global project is one I feel both privileged and bound to contribute my efforts towards.
The most important thing I took from my experience at the ILO that has been invaluable to practicing labour law in Canada is a broad, complex perspective of the ‘world of labour relations’. During the first few years of practice as a new lawyer, I am particularly motivated to learn the skills and develop knowledge of Ontario and Canada’s labour laws when I can see my mastering of these skills as a step towards affecting change and contributing to improvement in the world’s workplaces. Learning to conduct a cross examination or prepare a written legal opinion becomes part of an overarching global and Canadian project of improving workers’ lives, which was a project I was both familiar with, and have become passionate about thanks to my internship.
That said, I would also have to emphasize that it was wonderful to spend a summer working in a legal setting that is inviting and welcoming to law students and young lawyers. Many of the supervisors at the ILO take on summer interns because they genuinely enjoy their past experiences working with the new generations of lawyers, and are interested in teaching and mentoring students. I appreciated having officials who were passionate about their work ‘show me the ropes’ of my first legal memos, business letters, department meetings etc., without being concerned about being hired back for articles or associate positions.Read quotes from the 2010 ILIP participants
Read quotes from the 2009 ILIP participants
Read quotes from the 2008 ILIP participants
Read quotes from the 2007 ILIP participants
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