In the quest to tackle unpaid internships, aspiring lawyers at the University of Toronto are being presented with a new strategy involving deep pockets and a collegial spirit.

The Spring Pledge Drive, to be launched in March by the Students’ Law Society with faculty approval, is asking students who land paid summer jobs to donate one day of their wages to help subsidize those in unpaid roles.

But the #OneDayofPay campaign has some wondering why debt-strapped youth are funding salaries that should rightfully be paid by employers.

“It’s really the wrong target in my opinion,” said Ella Henry, a third year law student at the school. “They’re sort of suggesting that the people who should fix the problem of unpaid work are students rather than employers that are getting people to work for free and getting the benefit of that work.”

In an e-mail circulated earlier this month, the Students’ Law Society says funds raised through the pledge drive will provide grants of $1,000 and $2000 to first and second year students to support “unpaid, public interest work over the summer.”

Nathalie Lum-Tai, the Society’s president, told the Star the idea was inspired by a similar project at the University of California, Berkeley. Although the Faculty of Law and SLS both provide fellowships for students to pursue unpaid social justice work, Lum-Tai said the programs were severely oversubscribed.

“We just hope that our peers will be able to pursue work that they’re passionate about,” she said.

But while they agree with the sentiment, critics worry the campaign will do little to address will a worrying increase in unpaid student jobs in the legal sector – even as tuition fees and debt loads soar.

“That’s something that the University should be taking a lead on,” said Henry.

“Tuition fees are exorbitant and I think on top of this, having unpaid internships over the summer being an accepted part of a law student’s life is just not acceptable,” added first-year student Riaz Sayani-Mulji.

Yearly tuition for University of Toronto law students is $30,710, the highest in the province. A report published by the Law Student’s Society of Ontario last year found that the province’s young lawyers graduate with an average of $70,000 in debt.

Many public-interest groups providing legal services to low-income Ontarians say squeezed budgets prevent them from paying student workers. Although articling students are exempt from minimum wage provisions in Ontario, employment lawyer Andrew Langille said law students in summer jobs must be remunerated for their work in “99 percent” of cases.

“I really worry about the road that the legal profession is going down if there’s continual demand for law students and young lawyers to work for free,” he told the Star.

Lum-Tai of the Student Law Society said her organization did not condone illegal unpaid internships. Judith McCormack, Assistant Dean for Students, added that while the Faculty of Law will help administer the student-led pledge drive, it did not support unpaid positions and does not post them on its career website. She said the pledge drive would “make the point among future members of the legal profession that this work shouldn’t be unpaid.”

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Given that worthy aim, Sayani-Mulji coyly suggests the campaign might like to target a new clientele.

“It would have been great to see if our faculty which are one of the highest paid in the province…were asked to give half a day or a day of their pay.”