Pro Bono Students Canada (PBSC)
What is PBSC?
Pro Bono Students Canada (“PBSC”) is a national, multiple award-winning organization with chapters in 22 of Canada’s 23 law schools. The first pro bono organization in the country, PBSC has been working with law schools and the bar to deliver high-quality legal services for over 20 years. PBSC has extensive program expertise and experience designing access to justice placements that are recognized as having a significant impact on access to justice. Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Abella has described PBSC as “one of the most visionary undertakings I have seen in my 40 years at the bar.”
Pro bono work refers to legal services that are offered free of charge to members of the community who are otherwise unable to access the justice system. Canada is currently facing an access to justice crisis, and PBSC aims to tackle this crisis while providing law students with practical and valuable professional experience. Law school is a great place to start contributing to the access to justice movement and joining PBSC allows you to develop your legal skills outside of the classroom while combatting the access to justice crisis.
Each year, about 1,600 PBSC student volunteers provide approximately 132,500 hours of free legal services in over 450 projects across Canada. PBSC-UBC partners with public interest organizations, legal clinics, and lawyers to provide law students with practical, supervised learning experiences. Some of our partners in Vancouver include Access Pro Bono, Migrant Workers’ Centre, and West Coast LEAF, to name a few.
How does PBSC work?
PBSC matches students to a specific project based on their interests and skills. Projects vary considerably, and generally fall into one of the following categories: client intake or assistance; public legal education; legal research and policy development; and student internships. Each project has been developed to assist a specific community and operates through a local organization. These organizations may be not-for-profits, public interest groups, legal clinics, or law firms. In addition to the support provided by the matched organization, PBSC students are also supervised by a lawyer, which provides additional opportunities for mentorship.
Students are expected to work on their projects from 3-5 hours per week and are exempted from completing placement work during exam period (December and April). Given many Peter A. Allard School of Law classes will commence in an online format in September, we are adapting and creating projects to function as remote placements, which will allow students to still participate in PBSC and gain valuable experience, while respecting public health guidelines.
The Program Coordinators this year are Michelle Markell (2L) and Tess Gregory (2L). They are extremely excited to showcase all of the unique opportunities offered by PBSC this year and look forward to meeting you during orientation. They would like to extend a warm welcome and congratulations to all of the incoming 1Ls and cannot wait to get to know you!
PBSC-UBC is funded by the Law Foundation of BC, and we thank them for their generous support.
How can I find out more?
To learn more about PBSC, please visit our website. You can also contact us at pbsc@allard.ubc.ca.
Our Instagram and Twitter can be found @PBSUBC and our website is http://pbsc.allard.ubc.ca. Stay tuned for recruitment information over the summer!
