Akitsiraq law school aims to offer 2nd round in 2010

Organizers of Nunavut's first law degree program are working on enrolling a second batch of students in the hopes of giving more Inuit the opportunity to study law closer to home.

The Akitsiraq Law Society established its law program in 2001, teaming up with the University of Victoria's law school to offer courses in Iqaluit.

Eleven students graduated from the program's first offering in 2005, and seven have since been called to the bar. Still, members of Nunavut's legal community say there continues to be a shortage of lawyers, especially Inuit lawyers, in the territory.

Now the society is working with another Canadian university to run a second round of study starting in January 2010.

"A partnership has been formed with [the] University of Ottawa," Sandra Inutiq, the program's northern co-ordinator and one of its 11 first graduates, told CBC News.

"The things that will need to be fleshed out are criteria for accepting students and the curriculum for the law school," she added.

Inutiq said the society will also begin to seek funding in the new year.

At the time the Akitsiraq program was founded, Nunavut had only one Inuit lawyer: politician Paul Okalik, now the MLA for Iqaluit West and the territory's former premier.

Inutiq said the society hopes to have more men studying in the program, given that only one man was among the 11 graduates in 2005.

"We're hoping that we can have more of a population representation in terms of male and female," she said.

As for how many Inuit the law program will accept, Inutiq said it's too early to tell, as it will depend on how much funding it receives.