Goodleaf graduates McGill Law

It takes a lot to take a risk and walk away from a stable job, but when Taylor Goodleaf decided to quit a social work role she loved and instead pursue a law degree, she knew that she was making the choice that was right for her.

“It changed my life trajectory,” Goodleaf said.

Last week, Goodleaf walked across the stage and accepted her McGill Law degree, surrounded by friends and family who motivated her to follow her dreams over the last four years.

“Sometimes I had this imposter syndrome. It’s easy to wonder, ‘Do I really belong here? Is this what I’m supposed to be doing?’ But my best advice is that you already have everything you need within yourself, just talk to people who know you, they’ll remind you of who you are, where you’ve been, and what you can do.”

Goodleaf has long been obsessed with the justice system, initially aspiring to work as a corrections officer after studying Adult Correctional Intervention at John Abbott College.

But when she visited prisons as part of her studies, she began to wonder if there was another way she could be a part of the justice system that better fit her own goals.

“I realized it wasn’t a place for me, it wasn’t because of the people that were incarcerated, but it was the work environment that I saw, and I realized, this isn’t how I want to make an impact,” she said.

Goodleaf headed to Concordia University to pursue social work, and worked with families in shelters across Montreal, ultimately becoming a caseworker at KSCS in youth protection after obtaining her master’s in social work from the University of Toronto.

It was there that the spark came for her to pursue law - she found herself frustrated by having to follow Quebec’s youth protection legislation, unhappy with the way that many provincial laws didn’t support Kahnawake’s true jurisdiction over child and family services.

“A lot of that, to me, was being used as a weapon against each other in our community, rather than helping,” she said. “I got sick and tired of it. I knew there had to be a better way to do this job, where we could create our own law in Kahnawake and not have to rely on the provincial law, something that would fit our needs, and our culture, where we can be accountable to each other.”

It was a need that many of her colleagues also saw while working in youth services.

“It’s been talked about for 20 years, but nobody’s ever done it,” she said. “So that was my goal. That was my push to go to law school. I was like, ‘Okay, I’m going to figure out a way to do this.”

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.

“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.”

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