Meet: Cristin Hunt - 2022 Summer Student
Current Rotation: Administrative Law
Cristin is a rising 3L in the JD/Masters of Public Policy program at the University of Toronto. She has a background in political science, and broad interests in environmental and administrative law, policy, and government relations.
Outside the lecture hall, Cristin is involved with the University of Toronto’s Environmental Club. She developed her interest in client-facing, corporate and commercial law while doing telephone intake with the Downtown Legal Services – a pro bono public interest organization. In her free time, she enjoys baking, interior design, and has a knack for flipping curbside furniture on Facebook Marketplace.
Why Goodmans?
From coffee chats with different lawyers to the interview itself, Cristin notes that her interactions with Goodmans stood out as unparalleled in the way she was treated with kindness and consideration. As an applicant, she was also especially excited to get involved in our administrative law practice area.
Tips for Aspiring Summer Students?
Reach out. Cristin recommends reaching out to partners, associates, and articling students in your areas of interest to learn about their experience, get a sense of the culture, and understand the firm on an interpersonal level. Remain flexible, as the in-firm process evolves quickly.
A Typical Day
As the only summer law student in our administrative law practice group, Cristin enjoys rotating through a variety of files and working with different lawyers each day. She spends most of her time compiling meeting notes from client meetings, completing research tasks directed by client questions, pulling relevant case law, and observing hearings at the Ontario Land Tribunal.
Cristin’s biggest learning moment was seeing research from a memorandum that she drafted but was initially unsure about, included in it’s entirety in an email to a client. This moment represents an important aspect of a Goodmans summer – conquering self-doubt by challenging yourself with client-facing work and receiving feedback from your assigning lawyer or mentor.
Outside of the Office
When not tackling complex problems in administrative law, Cristin loves to grab coffee and lunch with other summer students (the vegan milkshakes at Planta have her heart). She notes that summer students lean on each other when encountering challenges and are an open, non-judgmental sounding board.
To learn more about Cristin’s experience or to chat with her, feel free to reach out at cristin.hunt@mail.utoronto.ca.
Author: Cristin Hunt, University of Toronto Faculty of Law 2023
