Community Legal Assistance Services for Saskatoon Inner City Inc.
CLASSIC provides free legal programming, services, and supports for people who experience poverty and injustice. CLASSIC is also a clinical legal education site. Operating in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, CLASSIC has provided service to the community since February 2007. CLASSIC is located within community, and we have good relationships with other community-based organizations, which allows for mutual referrals and working together.
We recognize that our clients, from a diversity of backgrounds and communities, are experts in their own lived experiences. We work with and in community to ensure that our clients' voices are heard, and to approach the challenges faced by our clients holistically, and in context. We are committed to learning from our clients and stakeholders, through reciprocity and respect.
Everything about how we approach the law challenges the system. We teach, research, and engage in social-justice, anti-racist, and trauma-informed lawyering. By definition, this requires that we acknowledge and challenge the role that we, along with certain laws, policies, and legal institutions, have played in reinforcing colonialism and other forms of inequality and oppression.
We are committed to the highest standards of competence and ethical practice. This requires us to be good listeners and engage in self-reflective practice and evaluation. It also means that we live in tension – acknowledging that as a legal clinic we are part of a system that causes suffering and inequity. Our approach to professionalism informs how we educate our students as well as our commitment to take care of ourselves and each other as we work towards a more just community.
CLASSIC makes a difference in our clients' lives. The courage and resilience of our clients inspires us – and underscores our commitment to ensuring that CLASSIC's model, and its ability to meet our clients' needs, is viable, even as it grows and evolves.
See our media release here - https://classiclaw.ca/images/CLASSIC%20Media%20Release%20-Funding%20Cut%20April.24.pdf
In the heart of our community, Community Legal Assistance Services for Saskatoon Inner City Inc. (CLASSIC) has played a vital role providing accessible legal services and programming to people who experience poverty and injustice. CLASSIC, the only community legal clinic in Saskatchewan, is facing an operational threat due to the Saskatchewan Ministry of Justice’s decision to discontinue its funding starting April 1, 2024. As we navigate challenging times, your support becomes ever more critical.
Here are two ways you can stand with us:
Donate Using the Orange Button in the Top Right Corner
Support justice in Saskatoon with CLASSIC through your financial support as a monthly donor or with a one-time donation. Your support fuels our ability to offer legal assistance to those who cannot afford it. Every contribution, large or small, helps sustain our services and expand our reach to more families and individuals.
Raise Awareness
Your voice is a powerful tool to support justice in Saskatoon. CLASSIC opened nearly two decades ago as a grassroots initiative led by passionate students who recognized and sought to fulfill a community need. They also wanted a clinical law program available through the College of Law, University of Saskatchewan. Today, we stand as a testament to the fact that collective voices can indeed foster significant change and support justice in Saskatoon.
Be a community advocate for continued support to CLASSIC and inform the community about the critical services CLASSIC provides:
Volunteer Your Expertise
If you are a lawyer looking to give back to the community with expertise in the areas of family, civil, criminal or immigration law, we need your skills and dedication. By committing a minimum of three hours a month to our Legal Advice Clinic (LAC), you can provide crucial support.
Your support, whether through donations, advocacy, or volunteering, is invaluable. Thank you!
