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PAGE 6 MARCH 10, 2014 • LAW TIMES www.lawtimesnews.com COMMENT Partial justice for outrageous wage rate erri-Lynn Garrie may have some trouble collecting on the nearly $187,000 the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario or- dered her employer to pay her as redress for the paltry wage she received for 10 years as a general labourer, but there's at least some hope the case will shed light on systemic wage discrimina- tion against people with disabilities. On Feb. 28, HRTO tribunal vice chairman Ken Bhattacharjee or- dered Janus Joan Inc. to pay Garrie, a resident of St. Catharines, Ont., $142,000 for lost income during the time she worked for the company at $1 or $1.25 an hour. She's also to receive almost $20,000 for lost in- come a er she lost her job and a further $25,000 for the violation of her inherent right to be free from discrimination and for injury to dignity, feelings, and self-respect. It was a welcome decision, particularly a er the HRTO had earlier rejected her claim for redress for the 10 years she and others with disabil- ities worked for the company because the allegation was untimely given that the discrimination had begun in the late 1990s and Garrie made her application in late 2009. Fortunately, the HRTO reconsidered that decision and ordered a new hearing that resulted in the Feb. 28 ruling. e case was troubling on a number of levels. First, the company was wrong to justify the paltry pay as a so-called training wage. Second, the arrangement was an aff ront to taxpayers who were on the hook for On- tario Disability Support Program benefi ts that eff ectively subsidized the discriminatory wage. And, of course, the HRTO's original decision to award compensation for lost wages during the post-employment period ©2014 Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. All rights reserved. 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But those assisting her should at least do their best to seek enforcement. In the end, the decision sends a clear message to employers that may try to justify discrimina- tory wages on the basis of claims such as those put forward by former Janus Joan Inc. owner Stacey Szuch that the company was providing "volunteer trainee" placements to people who didn't have time cards and could look at magazines or play cards. As part of his ruling, Bhattacharjee recommended the Ontario Human Rights Commission look into how widespread such discriminatory wages against peo- ple with disabilities are. Hopefully, the commission will take up the task. — Glenn Kauth T EMBRACE LAKEHEAD'S INNOVATIONS I have been following with interest the ongoing debate about how to best prepare law- yers to practise in the real world of law. In particular, I note the article dated Feb. 25 by Prof. Gus Van Harten of Osgoode Hall Law School in which he expresses a harsh opinion on the "Lakehead approach" to legal education. Van Harten's opinion relies on a number of implicit assumptions: • It is impossible for any law school — Lakehead University or otherwise — to suc- cessfully combine a theoretical and practical approach to teaching law. • e inclusion of practice-based content into a law degree curriculum somehow guarantees an inferior result. • Practice-ready lawyers are somehow less ethical than their traditionally educated counterparts. As a practicing lawyer and chairwoman of the County & District Law Presidents' Association, I take some exception to these assumptions. I appreciate that there is a wide divergence of opinion within the profession and in- deed even among our own membership on how best to train lawyers and prepare them for practice. However, we do know that in many parts of the country — particularly in smaller centres and among certain disadvantaged communities — there is a shortage of lawyers willing to practise, something that has far-reaching implications for access to justice in these communities. So in Canada, we have this peculiar situation where a shortage of lawyers exists in one part of the market with an oversupply in other parts, as evidenced by the diffi culty and pressure faced by many large fi rms such as Heenan Blaikie LLP. Yet our law schools contin- ue to churn out graduates who are cultivated for the part of the job market that is shrinking. In my view, the enhanced Lakehead curriculum approved by the Law Society of Up- per Canada seeks to introduce practical elements to the curriculum that are in addition to and not instead of the usual three years of law school study. From what I have read and seen, Lakehead students will be required to work harder in a more intensive course of study to graduate. Further, no cogent evidence whatsoever is presented to support the conclusions that a focus on appropriately teaching the skills required for the prac- tice of law will result in inferior, unethical lawyers. I am a product of the articling system and an articling principal. However, a genera- tion of lawyers has decried traditional legal education as inadequate preparation for the practice of law even with the benefi ts associated with articling. Our focus should be on striving to provide the education, skills, and training, in whatever manner works best, to new lawyers so that they are properly and competently prepared to meet the needs of the public. As for the argument that these reforms to legal education and the training process will result in a glut of lawyers, lower fees, and inferior quality, I simply do not buy the correla- tion. How can better preparing lawyers to be successful in the practice of law — including the business side of running a practice — result in anything but better service, more in- novation, and greater access to justice? e free market will decide who succeeds and who might fi nd better opportunities in another profession, and those are decisions best le to the market and not the halls of academia. Lakehead dean Lee Stuesser and his faculty have a vision for how to better prepare law students to serve the public. We believe this vision will also result in lawyers ready and will- ing to take on the unique challenges of practising law in communities that are presently underserved. I appreciate that no one can guarantee at this point that the Lakehead experi- ment will be a success. But I applaud Stuesser for trying to fi nd a new approach to an old problem. Instead of sniping from the sidelines predicting what might happen in the fu- ture, let's embrace the disruptive innovations underway and watch the results closely when the fi rst class of graduates enters practice in three years time. Janet Whitehead, Chairwoman, County & District Law Presidents' Association, Sarnia, Ont. X Letters TO THE EDITOR

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