Note: Students enrolled in year-long externships must participate in the fall term Externship Seminar.
Innocence Canada is a national non-profit organization dedicated to overturning wrongful convictions. Over the past 31 years, we have helped exonerate 29 innocent people across the country. The work we do at Innocence Canada is a highly specialized area of criminal law that only a handful of lawyers across the country have expertise in, and we exclusively focus on homicide cases. We are also a national leader in wrongful conviction education and reform, regularly lending our expertise to academic institutions, the criminal justice system, government bodies, legal entities, media outlets, and everything in between.
This externship provides law students with the unique opportunity to gain hands-on experience in wrongful conviction advocacy. Throughout the externship you assist with our legal work and/or education/reform work. Legal work often includes analyzing case files, reviewing disclosure and transcripts, identifying new avenues of investigation, and conducting legal research whereas education work can include creating and delivering presentations/trainings to a wide variety of audiences ranging academic institutions to the criminal justice system (ie. police).
Externship students will the opportunity to develop their advocacy in a highly specialized criminal law setting, specifically in wrongful convictions. While assignments will necessarily vary, students in this externship can expect to be exposed to the following fundamental skills:
- Problem solving,
- Legal analysis and reasoning
- Legal research,
- Factual investigation,
- Communication (written and/or oral)
- Investigative work,
- Organization and management of legal work,
- Recognizing causes of wrongful conviction in practice, and
- Identifying and exploring new avenues of new and significant information and evidence
- Legal education
Students will receive a comprehensive orientation during the first month of the externship as well as ongoing professional development and training throughout the year. Continuing professional development/ training will include regular group meetings with our Director of Education where you will learn about different areas within wrongful convictions. These meetings will frequently feature guest speakers within the criminal justice / wrongful conviction realm who will share insights about their career paths. Ongoing mentorship and training will also be provided by the Director of Education and the Legal Director throughout the year. Please note, all students will be required to sign a confidentiality and non-disclosure agreement at the first meeting.
Enrolment:
If you are interested in working in this Externship, send a cover letter with statement of interest, a CV, and a transcript to Sara Faherty at sara.faherty@utoronto.ca before the deadline for course selection submissions. Please include a list of relevant courses you have taken. We will select students with demonstrated interest in criminal law related course work (e.g., Wrongful Convictions, Criminal Procedure, Evidence).
