Jingkun Dong was born and raised in Mainland China. Before coming to Canada in 2010, she obtained her law degree in China then spent two years in Ireland completing an MBA program at Dublin Business School. Although she had the degrees, Jingkun still wasn’t sure what her future plans were.
After deciding to start a new life in Canada, she chose to attend Fanshawe’s Law Clerk program instead of applying to the LLM program. Jingkun knew the importance of gaining practical legal skills in order to work in Canada after graduation. She chose Fanshawe because she felt comfortable living in London – a safe and peaceful city.
Jingkun is so glad she decided to become a member of the Fanshawe community. She’s not an outgoing person and struggled to socialize with people, especially since English was not her mother language. During her two years at Fanshawe, Jingkun pushed herself to participate in a few school-organized volunteer activities, including the peer-to-peer program to get to know local culture and improve her language fluency. She was also a FOL Ambassador, assisting students with their FanshaweOnline questions. While in her third semester, Jingkun worked as a peer mentor to support first year Law Clerk students. She met many nice and interesting people and those experiences made her feel more confident about herself.
The Law Clerk program offers courses on many different aspects of law. Her professors included retired and practicing lawyers, paralegals and law clerks who taught both the principles of law and the technical skills required for practice in the real world. Jingkun achieved academic success and was on the the President’s Honor Roll and received the Maria G. Mendes Award when she graduated in 2016.
Brown Beattie O’Donovan LLP hired her as a real estate law clerk upon graduation. The fast-paced work environment was overwhelming at first, but Jingkun became good at her job after a few months and found her learning at Fanshawe to be very useful. In May 2017, Jingkun followed lawyer Mr. Xin Sun and assisted him in starting his private practice, overseeing the operation of the firm.
It had been Jingkun’s dream to become a lawyer since she was little. A lawyer is capable of assisting people in resolving their issues and providing access to justice, which make it a noble profession. Many immigrants and newcomers to Canada would have a difficult time settling down in a new environment with different cultures and language barriers, thus they need assistance from someone who speaks same language and has a similar background. She enjoys assisting people from different countries and understands the importance of respecting diverse culture.
She knew her dream would come true when she learned that a lawyer or law student trained outside of Canada could obtain a Certificate of Qualification to apply to bar admission programs in Canadian common law jurisdictions after completing the assigned courses or examinations through the National Committee on Accreditation (NCA) process.
During the past five years, while still working on a full-time basis, Jingkun became a permanent resident of Canada, obtained a LLM degree from the Osgoode Hall Law School, fulfilled the NCA qualification requirement and passed last November’s Bar Exams. She is expecting to finally become a lawyer this month after completing the Articles of Clerkship. This is not the end of her learning but a new chapter in Jingkun’s life. She will continue to learn and build her expertise to better serve the clients.
Lastly, Jingkun would like to tell her schoolmates, “Never underestimate yourself and it is never too late to pursue your dreams!”