About This Project

Sarah Buhler

Sarah was born in Saskatoon but grew up in Bangkok, Thailand.  She lived in Winnipeg and Toronto before moving back home to Saskatoon.  She has been a faculty member at the University of Saskatchewan College of Law since 2010, with a focus on clinical legal education, legal ethics, access to justice, and legal issues relating to housing.  Sarah is a co-author, with Gemma Smyth and Sarah Marsden, of Clinical Law: Practice, Theory, and Social Justice Advocacy (2015: Emond Publishing).  Sarah and her husband Charlie have three kids, Simon, Ben, and Rachel and a beloved family dog, Cocoa.

Chantelle Johnson

Chantelle Johnson grew up in a small town in North-West Saskatchewan surrounded by the bush and lakes. Chantelle has been the Executive Director (ED) of Community Legal Assistance Services for Saskatoon Inner City Inc. (CLASSIC) since 2012. She has sociology and law degrees from the University of Saskatchewan. Chantelle’s work experience is varied and ranges from: · private practice, · the Indigenous Law and Justice Branch of the Australian Department of Justice and Attorney General (policy), · the Child Sexual Exploitation Unit in Alberta (policy), · Crown Prosecutions in BC (trial lawyer), · the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission (policy and legal research), and · consultant to First Nations’ Trust. Chantelle believes all people deserve respect and dignity and knows CLASSIC’s clients have far more to teach the students and staff than the other way around. Chantelle thinks we often take ourselves too seriously and believes that philosophy has helped her survive as Executive Director of a non-profit in Saskatchewan.

Gemma Smyth

Gemma Smyth (she/her/hers) is Associate Professor and Externship Director at the Faculty of Law, University of Windsor, on the territories of the Three Fires Confederacy. Gemma researches and writes in the areas of clinic law, dispute resolution, lawyering skills, and legal education. She is interested in the intersection of clients’ and communities’ experiences of law and lawyering. Gemma is the co-author of the first text on clinical legal education in Canada, with Professors Sarah Buhler and Sarah Marsden. She also hosts an open-source YouTube channel with materials on law practice with a focus on clinical law skills. She is Past President of the Association for Canadian Clinical Legal Education, a national collaborative working on issues related to clinical and experiential legal education in Canada. Gemma’s papers and other publications can be found on the University of Windsor’s digital repository. See a full list of Windsor Law’s clinical programs.

Meris Bray

Reference Librarian Meris Bray (they/them/theirs) holds a multidisciplinary BA, and a MLIS from Western University. They have extensive work experience at the LSO’s Great Library, the University of Alberta, and the University of Windsor, totaling nearly a decade and a half of providing practical legal research assistance to students, articling students, and lawyers. As a law librarian, they believe their role is to focus on helping learners build practical, practice-ready legal skills, and they offer expertise not only in how to do legal research, but also in the practicalities of life and research in the “real world.”

Dave Cormier

With 25 years of experience as teacher, researcher and author, Dave is interested in how technologies change what it means to learn and to have learned. He is currently a learning specialist for digital strategy and special projects at the Office of Open Learning at the University of Windsor in Ontario Canada.
His new book, ‘Learning in a time of Abundance: the community is the curriculum‘ is available @ Johns Hopkins University Press and other online retailers.