By Sheila Pursglove
Legal News
Anna Barycka’s grandfather, a civil lawyer in Poland for 47 years, was instrumental in her choice of career.
“The summer after finishing my political science degree, I went to Poland and sat down with my grandfather and his enthusiasm about helping people inspired me to choose law,” she says.
The Canadian native, who makes her home in Windsor, decided to do the American J.D. program at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law, because of the school’s clinical programs, international reputation, and proximity to important courts in Detroit.
“Also, it doesn’t hurt that Detroit Mercy is so close to the Windsor-Detroit border,” she says.
Last semester, Barycka was accepted into the school’s Immigration Law Clinic.
“It was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life,” she says. “You’re working with real clients who have sensitive problems, and you need to provide them with fast and professional solutions. You get to work directly with the clients, corresponding with them, their families and friends, immigration authorities, and in my case, I was lucky enough to take part in a real immigration hearing.”
Passionate about immigration law, Barycka also enjoys the challenges of corporate law.
“I see myself working in corporate immigration law in the future, or something similar,” she says.
She currently is clerking at Miller Canfield in Detroit.
“I enjoy clerking there because it’s truly an international law firm,” she says. “I find that being fluent in Polish is a very valuable skill in the work I do.”
Barycka earned her undergrad degree in political science from the University of Ottawa, where she was heavily involved with Quo Vadis, an international leadership conference for Polish students and young professionals. She interned at the Canadian Ministry of Public Safety, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Citizenship, Immigration & Multiculturalism, and the Senate of Poland in Warsaw; and worked at the European Parliament in Brussels. She returned to Windsor in 2014 for her law studies at Detroit Mercy Law School where she is in her 3L year.
A first-generation Canadian, she is the only child of Polish immigrants. Her father is a retired professional engineer who worked for many years for the Town of LaSalle; and her mother is a senior professional engineer working for the City of Windsor.
“Thanks to my parents’ perseverance, I’m fluent in Polish,” she says.
In 2008, she founded the Polish Canadian Students Association of Windsor (PCSAW) with a group of friends of Polish descent. The initiatives of this diverse youth group, comprising high school, college, and university students, centers on emphasizing and sustaining Polish culture in Windsor, such as “Polish Weeks in Windsor.”
In 2011, Barycka led organizational leadership workshops in Poland for young community leaders like herself, from Lithuania, Russia and Ukraine.
“It was one of the best experiences of my life,” she says. “The workshops were in Polish, so it was definitely challenging but so rewarding. I still maintain contact with the young people I met through that program.”
In her spare time, she enjoys hiking in Northern Ontario, Michigan and Ohio, and loves to travel worldwide, visiting 31 countries to date. She has been a volunteer for the Windsor-Essex Humane Society since 2013.
“I love dogs but I could never have my own because I change locations too often,” she says. “Even though I know I’m helping out by socializing with dogs at the shelter, I’ve found that especially during law school, interactions with the dogs have lowered my stress levels significantly—they are helping me out more than I help them.”
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