What they don’t learn at law school
Domestic violence education is mostly ignored, survey finds
Ontario law schools were told to make domestic violence a compulsory part of their curriculum by 2015, but a Star analysis has found only two schools in the province have done so.
Unlike law schools in the United States, most in Ontario have snubbed recommendations to implement mandatory domestic violence education for more than a decade.
Victims’ advocates and advisory bodies that made the recommendations argue that inadequate training of students is putting victims at risk.
In 2011, after reviewing many domestic homicide cases in which victims had been given poor — and sometimes fatal — legal advice, the Domestic Violence Death Review Committee called for the topic to be included in compulsory first-year ethics and professional responsibility courses at law schools by 2015.
On the heels of that recommendation, the Law Commission of Ontario created teaching modules on domestic violence to help law schools easily roll out the change.
“To my knowledge, no one actually took up the suggestions we made,” Dr. Patricia Hughes, executive director of the law commission, told the Star.
“Is it good enough? No, of course not,” she said.
“It’s always disappointing when nothing is done, and I do believe strongly in the need to address this.”
“It’s always disappointing when nothing is done, and I do believe strongly in the need to address this.”
PATRICIA HUGHES EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, LAW COMMISSION OF ONTARIO
Dr. William Lucas, chair of the death review committee, said Ontario family lawyers have a “terrible lack of understanding of domestic violence issues.” The committee has raised the problem repeatedly since the early 2000s, he said.
Several murders investigated by the committee involved victims who sought advice from a lawyer shortly before being killed by their abusive partner, reports show.
One of those victims died after being pushed off a cliff by her partner. Another woman was seriously assaulted after a lawyer told her to stay in her violent home to protect her property rights. Her partner went on to kill their baby daughter.
Lawyers often see victims of domestic violence in times of crisis, and they have a unique opportunity to connect their clients with social agencies to potentially save their lives, the law commission’s report says. Without training, lawyers could miss the warning signs of domestic violence or offer legal advice that could place their client in further danger.
Inadequate training can result in “extreme mis-advice” being dished out to people at risk, said Pamela Cross, the domestic violence expert who co-ordinated the commission’s curriculum modules.
“Many people who become family lawyers graduate with no formal education on domestic violence,” Cross said, adding that this oversight can be lethal.
The death review committee and the law commission are only advisory bodies — they have no power to enforce or lobby for the recommendations they make. Law schools are independent entities and the Law Society of Upper Canada has no authority to dictate their curriculum, a society spokesperson said.
After contacting Ontario’s seven law schools, the Star found only two — the University of Western Ontario’s Faculty of Law and Lakehead University’s Bora Laskin Faculty of Law — have actually done what was asked.
Four other law schools do not include domestic violence education in their mandatory courses, but said the subject is covered in some criminal or family law courses. The University of Windsor did not respond to the Star’s questions on this issue.
The death review committee and the commission are not alone in call- ing for domestic violence education to be compulsory in law schools — the Family Lawyers Association, the Joint Committee on Domestic Violence, the Domestic Violence Advisory Council and abused women’s centres support the recommendation.
The Star spoke with two Ontario law professors who had conflicting opinions on the topic.
Janet Mosher, associate professor at Osgoode Hall Law School at York University, says domestic violence should not be a compulsory subject, but Nick Bala, professor at Queen’s University, says it definitely should.
Mosher, who teaches a seminar on domestic violence, said it was only one of a number of important issues law schools are being lobbied to include in compulsory training.
“In the context of legal education, there are many, many views about what subjects should be mandatory,” Mosher said, adding there are opportunities to teach domestic violence within noncompulsory courses.
Bala, who teaches a two-hour class on domestic violence, disagreed, saying every law student must have basic training in this area.
“I support making domestic violence a mandatory part of legal education,” he said. “If you are going to practise family law you have to know about this.”
Exposing every law student to this subject is critical because, as lawyers, they will all inevitably face a client who is either a victim or a perpetrator of domestic violence, the commission’s Hughes said. It’s likely some law schools were reluctant to implement the recommendation because it could mean another important part of a mandatory course had to be dropped, she said. While the commission understands the importance of academic freedom, Hughes said there is also an expectation for law students “to know some basic stuff before they are admitted as a lawyer.”