Transitioning from in-person to online public legal education programs

Description

Staff from the Legal Information Society of Nova Scotia, Migrant Workers’ Centre BC, and Community Legal Clinic – Simcoe, Haliburton, Kawartha Lakes share their challenges and successes when transitioning from in-person to online PLE programming due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Speaker Bio

Heather De Berdt Romilly has been the ED of LISNS since 2014 and has had the pleasure of serving in the past as PLEAC President. She is a lawyer with a Master of Laws in Conflict Resolution and has both local and international consulting experience in policy and human resource management along with senior management experience with the Provincial Government. She was the first female President of the Arbitration and Mediation Institute of Canada, and formerly a Chair of the Halifax Avalon Sexual Assault Center Board.  Heather is passionate about access to justice and has been focusing on developing navigator type programs since she started with LISNS.

Allison Smith is a Human Rights Officer with the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission. She is currently on secondment with the Legal Information Society of Nova Scotia, where she is delighted to be coordinating the Workplace Sexual Harassment Project. Since receiving her law degree from Dalhousie in 2014, Allison has built a career on advocating for marginalized communities, and in particular on issues surrounding gender diversity and the experiences of the 2SLGBTQ+ community.

Jeanne Robert, Legal Advocate at Migrant Workers’ Centre BC, grew up in France and in Peru. She arrived in Canada in 2012. She graduated from the Quebec Bar School in 2016 and she has a master’s degree in International Law focused on Human Rights from the University of Montreal. Before moving to British Columbia, she practiced family law and immigration law in a law firm in Montreal. In 2018, her strong interest for social justice led her to join the Vancouver Island Human Rights Coalition in Victoria as a human rights advocate. In this position, she provided advocacy for human rights cases, primarily in regard to complaints made to the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal. She joined MWC as a legal advocate in 2019.

Aman Dhillon, Staff Lawyer at Community Legal Clinic, joined the Clinic in 2016 and mainly practices in the areas of social assistance, income security, and human rights law. Aman is a graduate of Health Sciences at McMaster University and the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law. She worked with UNICEF, organizing campaigns advocating for social change and the global advancement of children’s rights, and volunteered with Pro Bono Students Canada, Downtown Legal Services, and the Metropolitan Action Committee on Violence Against Women and Children, assisting low income individuals in the areas of immigration and family law. Aman completed her articles with the Renfrew County Legal Clinic and worked at the Scarborough Community Legal Clinic prior to joining the Clinic. In 2017, Aman played a vital role in assisting vulnerable individuals with claims following the Further Schedule 1 Class Action. In 2018, Aman worked with Clinic colleagues to successfully represent victims of elder abuse before the Court of Appeal for Ontario in the matter of Danilova v. Nikityuk. More recently, Aman was appointed to the Ontario North Regional Board for the CNIB Foundation, an organization that provides services and supports to individuals with low vision and vision loss.

Nicolas Rodrigo, Project Support Worker at Community Legal Clinic, joined the Clinic in September 2019 as a Graphic Designer and Project Support Worker. He attended Georgian College for Fine Arts and Indigenous Studies from 2014 to 2019, during which he focused on studying traditional storytelling and experimental art mediums. His first tasks with the Clinic were to design the brochures, posters, and PowerPoints that would be used as PLE for the Sexual Harassment in the Workplace (SHIW) initiative. He would then deliver paper materials and help facilitate the Clinic’s presentations throughout Simcoe County. Once COVID-19 made in-person outreach unfeasible, the Clinic refocused its efforts on expanding the SHIW initiative’s social media presence. Due to his experience in videography, Nic offered to create videos for the initiative. He has so far created two animated videos that have been posted online.