Superintendent lays down the law
Metro Huculak teams up with legal society to encourage students to get excited about a possible future profession
Evan Kiyoshi French
Northern News Services
Friday, March 18, 2016
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Metro Huculak is dreaming up ways to inspire his students toward law careers.
The Law Society of the NWT has contacted public district superintendent Metro Huculak - seen here, peeling through a law book at the district office on Monday - to find out how to get programming in schools in the hopes of encouraging Northern youth to consider legal careers. - Evan Kiyoshi French/NNSL photo |
The Yellowknife Education District No. 1 (Yk1) superintendent told trustees gathered for a board meeting earlier this month he plans to meet with members of the Law Society of the Northwest Territories to hash out a plan to increase general awareness of the law and court proceedings, and to encourage more Northern students to study law.
The society approached the district to start a conversation on engaging students with the law.
"They basically want to increase people's general knowledge and understanding of our laws, courts and alternative forms of dispute resolution," said Huculak. "And, to encourage more Northerners to enter the legal profession."
Margo Nightingale - chairperson for the NWT access-to-justice committee and a member of the law society - said gaining a law degree can open doors to careers in social services, government and with private corporations but for reasons she can't fully understand very few Northern students are studying it.
"We just don't see that many Northern students choosing law as a profession," said Nightingale. "I don't really know why and I think some of it might be that we just haven't been as proactive as some other professionals in terms of reaching out and letting people know what is possible with a law degree."
Nightingale said the society has asked Yk1, the Catholic district and Aurora College to brainstorm how they might present their case to students.
"We're willing to consider whatever the schools or school boards themselves think will help," she said.
Nightingale said the society struck its access-to-justice committee in 2014, with a mandate to find out what people in the territory see as the barriers to the justice system in the North and come up with solutions. The initiative was spurred into existence after Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin struck a national access-to-justice committee - the National Action Committee in Civil and Family Matters - which generated a report from research gathered at meetings across the country. She said the report found access to justice was a big problem in the civil and family law sectors.
"This helped us to get the ball rolling," she said. "We have contacted members from the Supreme Court, Territorial Court, government and other agencies involved."
Nightingale said the society canvassed local residents to find out where the system is breaking down.
Barriers to justice in the North include the complexity of the system, the cost of pursuing court matters and the trouble in finding lawyers.
"Some of it comes down to people's awareness of when a problem actually has a legal component and so a legal solution," said Nightingale.
Huculak said the law society could hold a job fair and Sir John Franklin High School.
Nightingale said the group has offered to give in-class sessions talking about the law and the careers surrounding it.
"We would be willing to provide some in-class seminars on anything that might be within their curriculum already," she said. "I really don't know what their curriculum is at the moment, or ways that we would overlap.
"We've done presentations ... in past years but we'd like something that is a little more consistent and fully formed. So students have a broader context and more information given to them."
Nightingale said the group is looking for suggestions from teachers as to how they can keep students attention focused on a topic that might seem a bit dry for youngsters.
"It might be talking about situations that are really relevant to their lives," she said.
"Kids are going through a lot of challenging experiences in their home or they see their friends going through these experiences, and they don't necessarily have an answer for why this is happening or what's happening. Whether or not that would be appropriate would depend very much on the advice we get from the school boards themselves."
