Helping the public and furthering your career at the same time.
PBSC Celebrates 20 Years of Law Students Serving the Public Good
Each year, PBSC at Queen's offers a number of community placement projects, where law students provide free legal services to local organizations. By participating with PBSC, law students develop their legal skills and increase access to justice. The program reflects the legal needs of community organizations in Kingston and in the surrounding area.
PBSC maintains their own website at http://www.pbscqueens.com.
PBSC’s impact on access to justice in Canada is remarkable: each year, about 1600 PBSC law student volunteers provide over 130,000 hours of free legal services to between 400-500 public interest and other community organizations, courts and tribunals across the country. Tracking just 45% of our projects, PBSC volunteers assisted almost 14,000 low-income Canadians with their legal needs. PBSC also has an impact on the profession’s pro bono culture: 85% of PBSC students currently report that they plan to provide pro bono services upon graduation, and 64% report that their placement with PBSC contributed to that decision.
For students...
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Gain Invaluable Experience. When many students apply to firms they become occupied trying to show firms how their marks lend themselves well to an area of law. Your Pro Bono experience will show employers how you actually took on a project, wrestled with and applied an area of law. |
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Apply and Polish Legal Research Skills. These skills are central to the profession. In the meantime, developing them must surely be reflected in your marks. |
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Don't just join groups for the sake of it. Anyone can join a group.What's determinative is what you do with it after joining. Take on a project, take responsibility for it, and produce a shining product. That's impressive. Your experience with Pro Bono Students Canada is the beginning of a career long journey to establish a stalwart reputation for yourself. You will be told over and over during your education that the legal community is small; it is! Become known as a go-getter and a person with ability and candour. |
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Exposure People wonder all the time, what type of law are you interested in? Surely courses are helpful in hazarding a guess, but professors will agree, that the practice of law diverges greatly from its theory. Don't wait until law school is over to figure it out, PBSC can give you a taste of practice immediately. We pride ourselves in developing a diverse program. Give it a try. Kingston is a tight-knit community, people are excited to know what we are working on. We aren't overlooked, we're valued. Help preserve and enhance our reputation. Pro Bono connects you with leaders in the Kingston community. So even if your interests change, the organizations can bridge you to where you need to go. |
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Professional Connections We meet with the leaders of organizations—the heartbeats of the community. Our supervisors are not only lawyers, they are mentors. It's no secret that it is difficult to obtain employment and work with lawyers. Here's your chance to gain exposure and learn under champions of the craft. Why wait to gain exposure and make a difference? Become Pro-Pro Bono with PBSC! |
For community organizations...
| Local not-for-profit organizations can find out more about the benefits of working with PBSC by emailing Kevin Kolumbus and Liz Guilbault at probono@queensu.ca. We do our recruitment in the summer and projects run from October to March each year. |
For lawyers...
| Lawyers in the Kingston community who are considering working with PBSC can find out more by emailing us at probono@queensu.ca. The Law Society of Upper Canada allows volunteer lawyers to claim 3 hours of CPD credit and up to 9 hours of professional mentoring credit for their work with PBSC. |
For the public...
| Please note that, as a student organization, we only provide legal information, and are unable to provide legal advice or to assist individuals with legal troubles. If you are an individual seeking advice, please refer to your local Legal Aid Clinic or to Pro Bono Law Ontario. Organizations, students and lawyers interested in the program should contact the probono@queensu.ca. |
Our sponsors...
The fantastic work done by PBSC would not be possible without the generous support offered by our sponsors.
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Principal Funder
Law Firm Partner
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Principal Funder Ontario Family Law Project (FLP)
National Legal Research Partners
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