Osgoode Hall Law School opens first free Investor Protection Clinic in Canada

Ghizlane Zerzkhane | Contributor

Featured image: The Investor Protection Clinic gives ordinary Canadians a place to turn for legal support. | Courtesy of Lukas Blazek

Osgoode Hall Law School, in partnership with the Canadian Foundation for Advancement of Investor Rights, and funding from The Law Foundation of Ontario, have opened The Investor Protection Clinic, a legal aid service, this past fall.

The Clinic caters to investors who believe their funds have been handled unjustly and are seeking legal assistance, but are unable to afford a lawyer themselves.

The new Clinic is staffed by Osgoode law students and supervised by business lawyers, and is open to all York students.

The initial goal of the facility is to provide free legal aid to investors who qualify for their service. The challenges that the Clinic may be able to aid investors with include misinformation by advisors on the risks of an investment, an advisor not receiving an investor’s permission on signing forms or funds, or an advisor doing anything that will affect the investor without first seeking their permission. The Clinic supports clients by writing complaint letters, providing free legal advice, and even representing them at legal hearings.
Osgoode Professor and Director of the Clinic Poonam Puri says this service chooses which clients are eligible for legal assistance based on the cases that they are faced with.

“Prior to the Clinic opening last fall, there was nowhere for ordinary Canadians to turn to get free legal advice when they believe they suffered an investment loss,” says Puri.

The Clinic took two years to develop.

Ekin Ober, a graduate student at Osgoode and Schulich and a caseworker at the Clinic, says: “For me, the Clinic is a way to give back to the community and to fill in a neglected gap in the financial services sector. It allows me to use my legal knowledge and skills to help those who are in need of these services, while learning first-hand about investors’ experience with the market and their concerns about their advisors.”

York faculty members and students who are stuck making investments and unable to look for legal aid for their issues may now have an avenue towards receiving such a service.

“With this ground-breaking initiative, we can make a difference in the lives of people in our communities and beyond,” adds Ober.

The Investor Protection Clinic aims to function not solely as a legal service, but as a research lab as well. The Clinic collects anonymized data for research purposes, which will guide in navigating through the legal aspects of investments.