This evening The Star announced that Wendy Babcock was found dead yesterday in her home.   Wendy would have entered her third year of law school at Osgoode Hall this Fall.  She gained notoriety given her background as a homeless teenage prostitute (she would say “sex worker”) before entering law school.

Third-year students expressed frustration today after Toronto area articling position offers closed when many were still waiting for a job.  Wendy recently asked me whether she should consider changing her name for law firm applications, because she was apprehensive about what law firms would think about her background.   The Eye Weekly once did a piece on her entitled, “All that she can’t leave behind,” and I responded that her experiences were what made her special.

Knowing the advocacy work that I’ve been involved in she also questioned my career path, asking me why I wasn’t practicing human rights law.

Wendy will live on in memories, and through the social media footprint she’s left behind (her “memoranda”).  Coincidentally, I just viewed this TED video earlier today:

Here are some of the sites you can find out more about Wendy:

Wikipedia Page

Facebook Fan Page

CBC Interview

Personal Blog

From the Stroll to Law School

W.H.O.R.E.

Wendy Babcock - a site created post-mortem by her friends

And finally, here is her last note posted on Facebook, giving us some insight into a controversial subject currently being deliberated by the Supreme Court of Canada in Bedford v. Canada:

Can A Person Be A Sex Worker Rights Activist While Not Enjoying Sex Work Themselves? (ROUGH DRAFT)

by Wendy Babcock on Wednesday, 03 August 2011 at 19:28

I have to get something off my breasts… er… I mean chest. At the risk of offending the pro sex positive feminist movement (which I have no inclination of doing) I have to admit that as a sex worker rights activist, and more so a former sex worker, I have never enjoyed sex work. In fact I am remorseful that sex work is how I lost my virginity, I regret that at 15 I entered sex work, and I despise the fact that I learned about my sexuality through sex work while the majority of other girls my age were discovering theirs in the school yard – usually with kids their own age.

For me, sex work was something I did to survive to get me through the years when I was homeless and too young for a full-time job, general welfare, youth shelters, and food banks. I did NOT engage in sex work because I wanted to express my sexuality, bring pleasure to others, or any of the other reasons pro sex feminists have for engaging in sex work. Not that I’m condemning them for their choice or suggesting that their decision was not a well thought out choice to engage in sex work. I’m just saying that my reasons for being involved in sex work were different. How could I have gone into sex work for any of those aforementioned reasons without first discovering my own sexuality – let alone be comfortable with it? Hell, I never even kissed another person before I headed out to my first call in Mississauga to meet a business man who would pay me money for my virginity. I did not enjoy sex work as a teenager nor did I enjoy it as an adult. There was always the fear of a bad client, a broken condom, and the judgment of johns regarding my appearance (which includes having a few too many of them comment on my stretch marks, cellulite, and a whole slew of other insecurities that unfortunately we as woman must deal with – thanks to the airbrushing of models in magazines like Vogue, Glamour and Maxim), which would be reviewed and commented on by many “johns”. I didn’t enjoy the stigma, the fact that I had to hide my profession for fear of being socially isolated, teased, and worse – arrested.

Had I enjoyed sex work I wouldn’t have quit doing sex work and taken a job that didn’t require me to be sexual with the people I serviced when the opportunity presented itself. Yet I still consider myself to be a sex worker activist, one that promotes the decriminalization of prostitution. And do I think that not getting pleasure from sex work diminishes or sets the sex worker rights movement back? Hell no, in fact I believe it enhances it. Yet our voices are not heard in the sex worker rights movement, as it is universally falsely believed that current or former sex workers who dislike their previous or current occupation have no place in the sex worker rights movement.

I remember when I first got involved in sex worker rights and was a naively impressionable young woman. I did a talk show for AM 680 (the Bob Oakley Show) and when I mentioned that I didn’t like sex work myself I was chastised by fellow activists. “How will anyone understand why decriminalization is important if you keep telling interviewers that you don’t like sex work?” “Don’t tell people you don’t like sex work, if you want to do that you have no business speaking for sex worker rights” and “You are discounting everything other sex worker rights activists are saying!”

Stunned and not wanting to upset anyone as I felt really passionate about the need to decriminalize sex work I kept my mouth shut about my true feelings and instead pretended that sex work was this revolutionary way for me to reach my true sexual potential. And please don’t get me wrong, it is for some sex workers, for those sex work can be freeing, empowering, and a slap in the face to the misogynistic notion that men are the ones with the sexual power and women should just submit.

However, not all of us sex workers feel this way. In fact in my 8 years of working with street involved sex workers very few expressed that this was the way they felt as many of them were survivors of violence, ripped off by clients, faced arrest and were harassed on a regular bases. Many of them did not feel represented in the sex worker rights movement. This is an absolute shame as if anyone, ANYONE should feel they belong in the sex worker rights movement it’s the street sex workers who face the brunt of criminalization, social isolation, stigma, and discrimination. Yet, when sex worker rights are talked about it is usually the overtly privileged sex workers, the high end sex workers, the ones who chose sex work as a legitimate occupation over other employment choices that they could have made. These are the sex workers who work in safer environments, the ones who work independently who don’t have to give any of their earnings over to a boyfriend or agency, the ones who work from their own or shared establishments, the ones who have the luxury of choosing where, when and who they work with. These do not tend to be the sex workers who see sex work as their only means of survival – who don’t have (or are not aware) of other employment options. So then, why if it is street involved sex workers who feel harshest effects of criminalization not heard when it comes to the question of sex worker rights and decriminalization?

I can’t answer that question, for I do not know the answer. What I do know is that we, while acknowledging my own privilege at having my voice heard in this movement, as allies for the sex worker rights movement have an obligation to our brothers and sisters who face a much higher rate of isolation than us must embrace sex workers that do not feel that they would stay in sex work if given the opportunity to be employed in another profession.

Back to my question, Can A Person Be A Sex Worker Rights Activist While Not Enjoying Sex Work Themselves? I say, ABSOLUTELY! Just because a person does not enjoy sex work does not mean that they have nothing to add to the decriminalization debate. Since when does not liking your job mean that you can’t (or shouldn’t) speak up against the barriers that make your trade MORE unenjoyable – even distasteful? Personally, I believe that any debate about sex worker rights should be more diverse than just between the people who utterly despise the profession and want it criminalized to the people that love their profession and want it decriminalized to include the people who neither like it nor avoid it but can justifiably see that things still need to change. There is nothing worse than hating your job and feeling like you have no voice in changing things. Worse still, if you hate your job, the isolation, stigma, criminal records, and other legal repercussions (such as fearing custody of your children, ability to retain status in your chosen country, etc.) does nothing to assist those sex workers who would prefer to leave the profession. I may have disliked providing sexual services for money but that shouldn’t disclude my voice (or others) that the laws that keep sex workers working underground. Personally I think ALL voices need to be heard. What do you think?

Blawg Review is an international peer-reviewed blog carnival, presenting various recent blog posts with a legal connection, traveling to different legal blogs every week. I had the pleasure of hosting Blawg Review 249 on Slaw, and Blawg Review 278 here on Law is Cool.

In Blawg Review 300, the editor at Blawg Review looked at the posts for 2010 and took various submissions from the online legal community for the Blawg Review of the Year.  Last night the announcement was made that Blawg Review 278 was the winner.

This is great exposure for the site and the Canadian legal community, so let’s hope we have more Canadians hosting future Blawg Reviews in the coming year.

The 2010 Canadian Law Blog Awards are out!

Law is Cool was a finalist for the Legal Culture Award. In the past, we won the Legal Culture Award in 2009 and 2007, and were finalists in 2008. This year we also scored a shout out in the Friends of the North Award for hosting the Blog Review in August.

Thanks to everyone who nominated us, and to all the contributors and readers who have helped build this site. Congrats as well to all this year’s winners. Here’s to 2011, another year of community!

The article interviews Omar Ha-Redeye, the site’s founder and podcast host for much of this period. It also mentions Devin Johnston, who ran the podcasts for some of this time as well.

So do you want to get coast-to-coast media coverage in publications that every partner in every law firm reads? Looks like you might have a chance:

“Since we’ve [Ha-Redeye and Devin Johnston, who also worked on podcasts for the legal blog Law Is Cool] started articling we haven’t had any podcasts at all, because we simply don’t have the time to do it,” Ha-Redeye says. “We need a new law student to take over the show.”

Drop us a line if you’re interested.

You can read the profile by Christopher Guly on the website here,

Ha-Redeye established the Western Law Review Association, a group dedicated to publishing a student-run law review at UWO, and was active in various groups on campus, including as president of the Black Law Students’ Association, Health Law Club and Mature Students Club.

But his activities are best known in cyberspace.

Even before being called to the Ontario Bar, Ha-Redeye has made an impression on the profession with his blogs and postings on legal issues.

He runs his own website (www.omarha-redeye.com), as well as a blog and podcast on Canadian law schools (www.lawiscool.com) and regularly contributes to the legal weblog, www.Slaw.ca.

Now, he’s on the path to practising law.

This site is currently transitioning to a whole new line of administrators, and we expect equally great and exciting things from them in the years to come.

This year’s award goes to Ahsan Mirza, Senior Contributing Editor (2009-10), at theCourt.ca

Ahsan Mirza recently completed his J.D. from Osgoode Hall Law School (2010). He is the recipient of the Osgoode Student Honours Award, the F.W. Minkler Prize for Integrity and Scholarship, and the Osgoode Hall Law Journal Prize.

During his final year, he was a Senior Contributing Editor at www.theCourt.ca where he wrote on a number of relevant legal issues and developments in the form of general commentary and more specific SCC case comments.

Besides working for theCourt.ca, Ahsan was also Managing Editor at the Osgoode Hall Law Journal which became one of Canada’s only Open Access Law Journals under his leadership. Ahsan was also the founding President of the Muslim Law Students Association. He revived this student club which had extinguished several years earlier to create a social network for muslim law students and to bridge any gaps between muslims and non-muslims at Osgoode. Notably, he co-wrote an article in the Toronto Star with his counterpart at the Jewish Law Students Association, advocating cooperation and dialogue as opposed to the chest-thumping and fist-pumping common at YorkU during Israel Apartheid Week.

Prior to law school, Ahsan studied Political Science and Economics at Carleton University in Ottawa. He was awarded the Senate Medal for Academic Achievement and the Millennium Excellence Award for Leadership. Ahsan is the co-founder of the International Policy Forum.

Ahsan is currently articling at the Toronto offices of McMillan LLP.

The award is presented by the University of Manitoba Students’ Union (UMSU), Local 103 of the Canadian Federation of Students, to students who,

have made an outstanding extracurricular contribution to the quality of student life and has exhibited special leadership in undergraduate activities in journalism or broadcasting.

Devin was also presented with the 2009 Student Blogger of the Year Award on this site.  As Devin is graduating from Robson Hall this year, we’re always looking for new law students to take his responsibilities, and the operation of the rest of the site.

The graduating class of 2010 is particularly affected given the less number of articling positions available.  Unlike some jurisdictions outside of Canada, where students can be licensed and practice as a lawyer straight out of law school, an articling position remains a prerequisite for admission to the bar.

We’re setting up a page on this site to list some articling positions available, to help students and potential employers find themselves.  We’re going to try to offer this project free of charge, as a service to our primary readership, law students and members of the legal community.

We encourage law firms, sole practitioners, and career service officers to contact us to help us populate this page and keep it current.  Because it’s all fine and dandy to go to law school for three years and pay enormous amounts of tuition, but it would be pretty cool to get called to the bar as well.