Goodleaf graduates McGill Law
Her latest work has led her to Toronto, where she’s been working in the inquest unit of the Ontario Chief Coroner’s Office – a role where she’s found her social work experience to be an asset, particularly when working with families who are awaiting inquests into the deaths of their loved ones.
“It’s totally applicable to what I’m doing, because you’re working with families and you’re giving these families answers, and it’s a very delicate situation. It can be intrusive a lot of the time, because a lot of families have been waiting years for these inquests to happen,” she said.
“You’re reopening old wounds, they’re reliving it, so whatever training I had before as a social worker is really informing the way I want to be as a lawyer.”
It wasn’t always easy to get to the finish line, but Goodleaf surrounding herself with a supportive community was crucial to her success. That included fellow Onkwehón:we, like recent law graduate Brandon Montour, as well as her family – her mother, Coco Sky, was there at her graduation to cheer her on.
“She is and always has been a go-getter and hustler and when she works on a timeline you just hear that laptop keyboard going a hundred miles an hour. She makes me extremely proud in all her accomplishments,” Sky said.
She said she’s always known her daughter could do it, and has been more than willing to provide the encouragement she’s needed to keep going, travelling to Toronto with her to set up her apartment and always making sure there’s a homecooked meal on the table every time she came home.
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“I’ve always said, ‘You can’t give up now, look how far you’ve come. You can do it, you know you can,’” Sky said.
Goodleaf said she’s excited to make a change in the legal world, as she prepares for her articling, which she’ll also be completing at the Chief Coroner’s Office. She hopes more doors are being opened for Indigenous lawyers like herself, something she said she saw throughout her McGill degree, which included mandatory classes on Indigenous legal traditions.
“If I went to law school 10 years ago, that wouldn’t have existed,” she said. “It felt like I was heard in some way, and what we have to offer as Indigenous people is important enough to be integrated into this education system.”
Sky is glad that her daughter will be one of those Indigenous voices making changes in the justice system.
“Whatever becomes of her next chapter, we’ll all have to wait and see,” she said. “But I know her name will be well known in Indian Country.”