I am pleased to submit this letter as a part of my application for a clerkship position with the Supreme Court of Canada. My chief contribution is my experience in research and writing. Prior to law school, I completed my Master of Arts degree in Philosophy, and my thesis primarily focused on ethics. This experience provided the opportunity to engage in interdisciplinary approaches to scholarship, particularly in areas of law, psychology, and sociology. I learned new ways to approach classical problems and, as a Teaching Assistant, this allowed me to analyze complex ideas into more manageable components for undergraduate students. During my first-year summer, I had the opportunity to assist four Professors with their research projects. Here, I further developed my legal research skills and enjoyed comparing nuanced lines of argumentation by judges, lawyers, and scholars. For example, Professor Jennifer Nadler’s work on contract law theory focused on the theory underlying the doctrine of expectation damages, while Professor Carissima Mathen’s work on Section 7 of the Charter focused on the theory underlying the principle of arbitrariness. These narrow issues gave me the opportunity to explore caselaw, commentary, and textbooks.

I continue to sharpen my research and writing skills through my law school extracurriculars. As an Associate Editor on the Osgoode Law Hall Journal, I reviewed and analyzed articles for publication. I also completed substantive checks of citations to ensure that they conformed to the McGill Guide. To expand the legal scholarship I engaged with, I took on an editorial role for the Intellectual Property Journal and the Transnational Legal Theory Journal. In these roles, I provided substantive feedback on preliminary drafts and copyedited final versions for publication. My exposure to diverse scholarship has renewed my passion for the importance of advocacy, the complexity of social justice issues, and the varied nature of policy reform.

Studying both philosophy and law has led me to consider how questions of ethical, political, and economic theory have a role in illuminating judicial decision-making. Currently, I am interested in tracking normative moral claims in the law, especially in contract law theory, theories of criminal punishment, and Section 7 of the Charter. I am confident that my research skills and enthusiasm for legal analysis would be a valuable asset for the clerkship program.