Indigenous Law Students’ Association rebuilds community

At the start of every academic year, four $1,000 awards are given to second- and third-year Indigenous law students at Allard Law, chosen for their hard work and accomplishments. 

The funds for the Indigenous Law Students’ Association Award are raised by the Indigenous Law Students’ Association (ILSA) at Allard Law, and the goal over the past few years has been to permanently endow the ILSA award fund at $50,000. 

This goal recently became a reality.

This year, the executive for the Indigenous Law Students’ Association – Jena Kieren (Secretary), Samuel Spartano (Treasurer), Samantha Olsen (Vice-President), and Brooklyn Fowler and myself, Kristofer Charlebois, as acting Co-Presidents – had one goal in mind for ILSA: Rebuilding Community. This has been the club’s goal since the start of the 2024/2025 academic year, and through hard work and determination, we not only solidified a revitalization of ILSA, but the legal community from across Vancouver has responded in kind. 

We worked hard to ensure the club was a space for everyone, not just Indigenous law students, while working to mend a fractured Indigenous community at Allard. A key component to this has been our approach to outreach, having hosted multiple joint events this year with other affinity-seeking and school clubs, such as the Black Law Students’ Association and the Environmental Law Group.

This approach has led Brooklyn and me to focus on building relationships inside Allard's halls and within the greater legal community across the Lower Mainland. These relationships became pivotal in the club's recent success, and by embracing this ideology, ILSA reached new heights this year. 

On Friday, February 28^th, 2025, we held our annual Gala. This event was the culmination of months of hard work by the club’s executive and members who volunteered. This year, though, the Gala represented more than just a fundraiser; it demonstrated that Indigenous ways of community building have a ripple effect on those around you. 

Through our relationships, the Indigenous legal community reached out to ILSA en masse. This was made possible by strengthening relationships with firms that have wished to facilitate events with ILSA in past years and through the relationships created with the Aboriginal Lawyers Forum, which invited all general members in late January. 

The ILSA Gala is the club's highlight event each year. Although this year’s gala was unforgettable, the response from the Indigenous and non-Indigenous legal community towards the club and its endeavours has had the most significant impact. The ILSA Gala culminated in raising over $30,000 for the ILSA Award Fund, permanently endowing the fund and solidifying autonomy for future ILSA executives to choose how many awards they wish to grant each year. For Brooklyn and me, the reaction of the leaders among the Indigenous legal community, as well as their fervent support, validated our decisions regarding ILSA this year. 

The impact of Rebuilding Community has seen ILSA revitalized this year, and we plan to continue with this approach for the 2025/2026 academic year as we work to strengthen the community.