Law Times

Law Times • January 12, 2009 NEWS PAGE 5 cedures at an upcoming meeting with the Ontario Law School Ap- plication Service, following the recent discovery that a student used a forged degree to gain ad- mission to Osgoode Hall Law School. An investigation by the To- Ontario law schools eye procedures in wake of fraud O BY JEFFREY H. WAUGH Law Times ntario law schools say they plan to discuss degree-verifi cation pro- before forwarding it on to the schools chosen by the applicant. She says the nature of law school applicants and the process itself already contain some safeguards, particularly for students from Canadian universities. "Most of our applicants are ronto Star identifi ed Quami Frederick as one of at least 220 Canadians who had purchased a forged degree. Th ose credentials were then used for her successful application to the law school. Frederick was halfway through her third year when the Star investigation was released last month. While Osgoode will not comment on her enrol- ment status for privacy reasons, Frederick has since resigned from her articling position with Wildeboer Dellelce LLP, which was scheduled to begin after the completion of her law school de- gree. Th e discovery has prompted Ontario law schools to take a closer look at their admissions procedures. "We are in the process of inves- tigating additional verifi cation pro- cedures and security measures that could be put in place to detect cases of fraud in the admissions process," writes dean Patrick Monahan in an e-mail to the Osgoode Hall Law School community. "We will be discussing these measures with our colleagues at the other Ontario law schools as well as with the On- tario Law School Application Ser- vice (OLSAS), at the next OLSAS meeting in February 2009." Monahan tells Law Times a re- view of other law students has not turned up any other cases. "Th e fi rst thing we did, which has been completed, is to ensure that it was an isolated case," says Monahan. "And we're comfortable with that conclusion. "I've asked the chair of the admissions committee to meet with other admissions chairs across Canada, and as well to work with OLSAS, because we are absolutely going to ensure that our application and admis- sions process has integrity," says Monahan. "And that's a personal commitment of mine." Jane Emrich, assistant dean of student services at Queen's University Faculty of Law, says the incident has caused them to examine their procedures. "We are in the midst of re- viewing our policies, procedures, and institutional structures in the wake of the Quami Frederick in- cident reported in the Toronto Star on Dec. 17, 2008," says Emrich. "I think it's alerted us to the fact that we need to be much more care- ful in assessing degrees," says Mary Gold, associate dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Wind- sor. She confi rms her team plans on having the issue added to the agenda at the February OLSAS meeting, "just to attune us to the fact that this is something we have to be concerned about." Gold explains that all appli- cations to Ontario law schools are processed through OLSAS, which compiles the information from Ontario universities and ev- erything goes through OLSAS," says Gold. "You know what the Ontario universities are, and the transcripts are sent directly by the university to OLSAS, so you don't have students sending in transcripts themselves." Most transcripts are computer generated by the schools and sent to OLSAS electronically, she says, especially universities in Ontario. Th is results in a summary page from the service, which automati- cally tabulates grade averages for each term and year of the student's education. Th ese measures tend to reduce the risk of forged docu- ments being submitted, she says. "So all the material we get elec- tronically. Now I don't think this would be the case with foreign degrees, because they can't be pro- cessed in the same way," she says. Monahan says there's a need to clarify exactly who's respon- sible for verifi cation procedures, be it the law schools or OLSAS. "Without getting into specifi cs, there are things that OLSAS does do and should do, or in our view should do, and so we need to dis- cuss with OLSAS their understand- ing of what it is they should be doing, and make sure that every- body is on the same page," he says. "And if OLSAS is going to do something, that's fi ne. If they're not going to do it, then we'll do it," says Monahan. "It's a question of knowing exactly who's responsible for doing certain verifi cations." Frederick's forged degree was from a school outside Canada. According to OLSAS, transcripts from outside North America must be notarized prior to being submitted. Th ey will then for- ward the copies to the school. Gold explains they get very few applications from students outside Canada, given that "the law degree is not transportable." When they do happen though, they tend to garner extra atten- tion from the admissions com- mittee. "We have a special commit- tee in the law school, called the special cases committee, that looks at diff erent kinds of applications . . . and people whose undergraduate degrees are from non-Canadian universities, those applications go to that committee." While this isn't a negative ele- ment in any way, Gold says it does provide an extra level of scrutiny to transcripts that may have the potential to be forgeries. Unlike Canadian transcripts, foreign credentials require extra attention to accurately translate and convert the grading scheme used by the school. "You have to manually go into it," says Gold. When the committee comes across information from a univer- sity it isn't familiar with, extra steps are taken to verify the information. "If, for example, you come across a transcript from a univer- sity you're not sure about, then sometimes committee members will call our Faculty of Gradu- ate Studies," says Gold, "because graduate studies faculties in uni- versities deal with international applications all the time, so they might be able to tell you some- thing about a university." Gold says she's surprised by the discovery at Osgoode, and feels it's a very isolated incident. "My guess is that this is probably an anomaly," she says. "If you get a transcript from a university you don't know, and you have trouble "If you attend only one CLE event in 2009 - this is it." Learn Network Renew February 2nd and 3rd Metro Toronto Convention Centre – South Building January 31st Ontario Bar Association Conference Centre – (Criminal Justice only) www.oba.org/2009institute 1-800-668-8900 Untitled-4 1 12/23/08 10:38:44 AM understanding what the transcript means, you can always check. And you would. Th at's not even to check to see whether it's forged, but just trying to fi nd something about the university and what LT FIRM UP! 10% 15% 1 Year $65.00 + gst Digital Editons FREE with each paid subscription Receive the Purchase 5 or more subscriptions for your law firm to Law Times or Canadian Lawyer and save Purchase 20 or more and save 1 year $135.00 + gst, go online at www.lawtimesnews.com 2 Year $105.00 + gst go online at www.canadianlawyermag.com or call 1-888-743-3551 Special rates for students and international subscribers. www.lawtimesnews.com LT - 1/4 x 3.indd 1 1/8/09 6:21:42 PM BONUS

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