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Full-Text Articles in Law

Twelve Tips On Writing A Thesis, David Vaver Jul 2022

Twelve Tips On Writing A Thesis, David Vaver

Conference Papers

No abstract provided.


Modular Legal Learning: Revitalizing The Law Classroom, David Sandomierski, Stephanie Ben-Ishai Jan 2022

Modular Legal Learning: Revitalizing The Law Classroom, David Sandomierski, Stephanie Ben-Ishai

Articles & Book Chapters

The targeted and strategic use of asynchronous learning materials can free up important space for classroom teaching, and can unlock the spirit of experimentation, innovation, and engagement that animates in-person learning. This article sets out five principles that should guide future efforts to integrate asynchronous modules into legal education. Modules should be designed to supplement, not substitute, the live classroom; they should deliver content but also stimulate reflection, critique, and contextualization; they should be varied with respect to their subject matter; theoretical underpinnings, and pedagogical approach; professors should be able to easily customize their selections; and they should encourage collaboration …


American Influences, Canadian Realities : How "American" Is Canadian Legal Education?, Philip Girard Jul 2021

American Influences, Canadian Realities : How "American" Is Canadian Legal Education?, Philip Girard

Articles & Book Chapters

No abstract provided.


Teaching Civil Obligations (Or What I Learned About Law, Legal Thinking And Teaching), Allan C. Hutchinson Jan 2021

Teaching Civil Obligations (Or What I Learned About Law, Legal Thinking And Teaching), Allan C. Hutchinson

Articles & Book Chapters

In most of my decades-long teaching and professorial career, I primarily taught Torts, but never Contracts. However, last year, I agreed to teach jointly a postgraduate class of 35 students on “Civil Obligations.” It was a decision that conformed to one of the more unsettling tropes of my life— “act in haste, repent at leisure.” My role in this arrangement was, after a general opening about the nature of civil obligations and the interface of Contract and Tort, to assume responsibility for the Contracts component of the course. This presented itself as a considerable task, but I thought that it …


Tension And Reconciliation In Canadian Contract Law Casebooks, David Sandomierski Oct 2017

Tension And Reconciliation In Canadian Contract Law Casebooks, David Sandomierski

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Canadian common law contract law casebooks are beset with a tension. On the one hand, they all reveal a sustained commitment to the “wholesale assault on the jurisprudence of forms, concepts, and rules” that typifies American Legal Realism and its intellectual descendants. Concern with underlying values, functional reasoning, social realities, and policy thinking pervades the explicit messages of Canadian contract law casebooks and their editors’ related writings. On the other hand, the two casebooks most frequently assigned embody an allegiance to rules and courts that has a close kinship with the classical attitudes purportedly rejected. They convey a monolithic image …


Social Enterprise, Law & Legal Education, Lorne Sossin, Devon Kapoor Oct 2017

Social Enterprise, Law & Legal Education, Lorne Sossin, Devon Kapoor

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article examines the relationship between law and social enterprise. More specifically, it explores ways in which the law and the law school can serve to refine and promote the development of social enterprise. The article begins by canvassing the existing conceptions of social enterprise to provide a basis for understanding and to identify points of access for legal intervention. At the end of this analysis, we arrive at a working definition of social enterprise: A legal entity engaged in socially responsible economic activity for the purpose of generating revenue that is to be used to advance a social mission. …


Law School As Social Innovation, Lorne Sossin Jan 2017

Law School As Social Innovation, Lorne Sossin

Articles & Book Chapters

Legal education is in the midst of a range of challenges and disruptions. This address outlines these dynamics, and explores the potential of social innovation as a model for law schools which both responds to current challenges and enhances resilience in the face of disruption. By reframing legal education as facing outward, and advancing its public interest mandate through partnerships, collaboration and academic initiatives designed to solve social problems, law schools can enhance the student learning experience, generate new forms of legal knowledge and thrive at a time of rapid change. Address delivered at the Australian Law Teachers Association (ALTA) …


The Internet As A Site Of Legal Education And Collaboration Across Continents And Time Zones: Using Online Dispute Resolution As A Tool For Student Learning, Martha Simmons, Darin Thompson Jan 2017

The Internet As A Site Of Legal Education And Collaboration Across Continents And Time Zones: Using Online Dispute Resolution As A Tool For Student Learning, Martha Simmons, Darin Thompson

Articles & Book Chapters

Increasingly, digital technologies are influencing and impacting dispute resolution, particularly in the emerging field of online dispute resolution (ODR). ODR holds the potential to increase access to justice by engaging disputants in dramatically new ways. As a relatively new subject, ODR is unlikely to form part of the traditional curriculum at law schools. Aside from the question of whether it will become a mainstream part of tomorrow’s legal or dispute resolution landscape, ODR does show us that a familiarity with technology is becoming more important for tomorrow’s lawyers. As educators, how can we expose law students to these new forces …


A Flex-Time Jd In Canada: New Approaches To The Accessibility Of Legal Education, Darcel Bullen, Lorne Sossin Jan 2017

A Flex-Time Jd In Canada: New Approaches To The Accessibility Of Legal Education, Darcel Bullen, Lorne Sossin

Articles & Book Chapters

This article examines accessibility and inclusion in legal education. Responding to the Canadian Bar Association’s call for accessible and innovative legal education in the Futures Report, this study explores the possibilities (and limits) of a Flex Time Juris Doctor (“JD”) program and how such a program might foster further diverse and inclusive learning community for law students.The article situates the debate around more flexible forms of legal education in historical context, highlighting the role part-time legal studies has played in facilitating the entry of outsider groups into the legal profession. While there is not a mid-sized city in the US …


Why I Don’T Teach Administrative Law (And Perhaps Why I Should?), Allan C. Hutchinson Jan 2016

Why I Don’T Teach Administrative Law (And Perhaps Why I Should?), Allan C. Hutchinson

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This Commentary reflects upon the challenges of teaching Administrative Law today. Drawing upon the author’s own career trajectory and his commitment to a critical account of law and adjudication, the article seeks to question the foundations of both administrative law and critical theory. It offers no comprehensive or cogent plan as to what to do, but insists upon the relevance and importance of combining both legal theory and legal doctrine in a convincing pedagogical approach.


Addressing Access To Justice Through New Legal Service Providers: Opportunities And Challenges, Alice Woolley, Trevor C. W. Farrow Apr 2015

Addressing Access To Justice Through New Legal Service Providers: Opportunities And Challenges, Alice Woolley, Trevor C. W. Farrow

Articles & Book Chapters

Most informed observers of the Canadian and American legal systems accept the existence of a significant crisis in access to justice. One possible solution is to permit paralegals, notaries or other licensed individuals with training more limited than that enjoyed by a licensed attorney to practice in certain areas of law. This paper supports these developments, arguing for a regulated and incremental introduction of new legal service providers into the legal services market. It considers the appropriate training and scope of practice for new legal service providers, and some of the associated opportunities and challenges.


Changing Our Tune: A Music-Based Approach To Teaching, Learning, And Resolving Conflict, Linda Marie Ippolito Mar 2015

Changing Our Tune: A Music-Based Approach To Teaching, Learning, And Resolving Conflict, Linda Marie Ippolito

PhD Dissertations

The need for change within the legal profession and legal education is critical. To remain relevant and responsive to twenty-first century challenges and complexities the next generation of professionals must be creative, imaginative, and innovative thinkers. Emotional and social intelligence, the ability to collaboratively problem-solve, negotiate, and mediate complex conflict are essential skills needed for success particularly in increasingly settlement-oriented environments. Studies and reports have noted, however, that practitioners are lacking these key skills. How can these new perspectives and essential skills be taught and developed? This mixed methods research study involved five professional musicians and thirty-eight first year law …


Towards A Pedagogy Of Diversity In Legal Education, Faisal Bhabha Jan 2015

Towards A Pedagogy Of Diversity In Legal Education, Faisal Bhabha

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

There is resounding consensus that diversity in legal education is a priority. Yet, North American law schools continue to be criticized for failing to reflect the diversity of the society that they are training lawyers to serve. This article is a project of conceptual reorientation against a backdrop of critical scholarship and empirical evidence. Parts I and II examine the past twenty years of diversity promotion in legal education, concluding that, while several advances have been made, especially in increasing numerical representation of diverse groups in law schools, the promise of meaningful diversity remains unfulfilled. Part III suggests that reforms …


The E-Team Project: A Teamwork Approach To Clinical Legal Education, Hilary Evans Cameron Jan 2014

The E-Team Project: A Teamwork Approach To Clinical Legal Education, Hilary Evans Cameron

Journal of Law and Social Policy

In this article the author argues that the University of Toronto’s Emergency Team (E-Team)—a student pilot project created to assist people facing deportation on short notice—provided a critical service to its clients and gave its student members a unique opportunity to learn real-world legal skills. The first part of this article reviews the project’s outcomes and concludes that it was a success: the E-Team won nine of its ten cases, and its members credit the project both with teaching them crucial legal competencies that they did not encounter elsewhere and with fostering their passion for social justice law. The second …


When Law Reform Is Not Enough: A Case Study On Social Change And The Role That Lawyers And Legal Clinics Ought To Play, Jeff Carolin Jan 2014

When Law Reform Is Not Enough: A Case Study On Social Change And The Role That Lawyers And Legal Clinics Ought To Play, Jeff Carolin

Journal of Law and Social Policy

Based on his experience as a law student in the clinical legal education program at Parkdale Community Legal Services in 2010, the author draws on poverty law scholarship to better understand his frustrations with a law reform campaign he worked on related to refugee family reunification. The scholarship’s central critique of law reform campaigns is that they are excessively narrow: they focus on a particular law and construct the law itself as the social injustice. This leads to two subsidiary problems. First, law reform campaigns ignore the underlying socio-political context that produced the law, foregoing opportunities for broader societal transformation. …


Poverty Law, Access To Justice, And Ethical Lawyering: Celebrating 40 Years Of Clinical Education At Osgoode Hall Law School, Shelley Gavigan, Sean Rehaag Jan 2014

Poverty Law, Access To Justice, And Ethical Lawyering: Celebrating 40 Years Of Clinical Education At Osgoode Hall Law School, Shelley Gavigan, Sean Rehaag

Journal of Law and Social Policy

Collects papers presented at the Symposium in 2011 celebrating forty years of clinical legal education at Osgoode Hall Law School.


Not So Dangerous Liaisons: A Clinical Perspective On Interdisciplinarity, Judith Mccormack Jan 2014

Not So Dangerous Liaisons: A Clinical Perspective On Interdisciplinarity, Judith Mccormack

Journal of Law and Social Policy

Clinical education represents a site where conflicting accounts of law are at maximum tension, in part because the clinical experience tends to highlight the startling contrast between the narratives and social realities of law. While this contrast provides some of the fodder for the critical exploration that characterizes clinical education, the idiosyncratic shape of law as a discipline means that much of what students require to handle that fodder in a rigorous, analytical way is located elsewhere. A clinical lens indicates that exposing students to interdisciplinary perspectives is crucial if students are to be able to understand and engage with …


Framing Supervisory Relationships In Clinical Law: The Role Of Critical Pedagogy, Gemma Smyth, Marion Overholt Jan 2014

Framing Supervisory Relationships In Clinical Law: The Role Of Critical Pedagogy, Gemma Smyth, Marion Overholt

Journal of Law and Social Policy

Clinical work in law offers important opportunities for students to learn critical, reflective and politicized approaches to legal identity and practice. Such an approach is most meaningful when it is engaged by supervising lawyers and social workers in a clinical placement. The authors of this article, the Academic Clinic Director and Executive Director of two Windsor-based clinic programs, offer context, perspective and examples of how critical pedagogy (influenced by, but distinct from, critical legal studies) provides a roadmap for supervising lawyers and the programs in which they work. The paper briefly sets the context of the authors' teaching and practice. …


Conceptualizing Reflective Practice For Legal Professionals, Michele Leering Jan 2014

Conceptualizing Reflective Practice For Legal Professionals, Michele Leering

Journal of Law and Social Policy

This article examines the meaning, purpose, and promise of reflective practice in the context of the legal profession and at this critical juncture in the profession’s history. The imperatives for enhancing the reflective capacity of the profession are explored and the benefits of endorsing reflective practice as a core professional competency are reviewed. Reporting on a portion of an action research project designed to encourage reflective practice in a Canadian law school, the author synthesizes the results of a review of reflective practice literature, largely drawn from other professions, with the results of qualitative interviews with eight professors from the …


Law Student, Heal Thyself: The Role And Responsibility Of Clinical Education Programs In Promoting Self-Care, Christine E. Doucet Jan 2014

Law Student, Heal Thyself: The Role And Responsibility Of Clinical Education Programs In Promoting Self-Care, Christine E. Doucet

Journal of Law and Social Policy

The purpose of this paper is to examine the importance of self-care and stress management in the legal profession, specifically within the context of clinical legal education. Studies have shown that the legal profession exhibits one of the highest rates of mental health and addiction issues. In proactively addressing the importance of self-care and stress management amongst students, clinical legal educational programs can become a part of the solution. Using the student experience at Parkdale Community Legal Services, and drawing from other student legal clinics across Canada and the United States, several recommendations around self-care and stress management training in …


Multi-Disciplinary Practice In A Community Law Environment: Clinical Legal Education Combined With Holistic Service Provision, Richard Foster Jan 2014

Multi-Disciplinary Practice In A Community Law Environment: Clinical Legal Education Combined With Holistic Service Provision, Richard Foster

Journal of Law and Social Policy

The Monash-Oakleigh Legal Service (MOLS) is a community legal service affiliated with Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, and partly funded by Victoria Legal Aid. MOLS deals with a range of legal matters, including: criminal law, family law, tenancy and neighbourhood disputes, and a number of credit, debt, and bankruptcy issues. In July 2010, the Multi-Disciplinary Clinic (MDC) was established at MOLS to provide a holistic service to clients by involving students from three academic disciplines to deal with client issues. This paper describes some of the mechanics of how the MDC operates, including how students are assessed and supervised. It also …


Pushing The Boundaries Of Clinical Law: Exploring How Student And Community Legal Clinics Engage With International Human Rights Practice, Geraldine Sadoway Jan 2014

Pushing The Boundaries Of Clinical Law: Exploring How Student And Community Legal Clinics Engage With International Human Rights Practice, Geraldine Sadoway

Journal of Law and Social Policy

Explores methods of bringing stories of victims of human rights abuses to the international human rights bodies that conduct periodic reviews of country compliance with international human rights instruments. The project involved law students and community legal workers looking at innovative ways to use internet technologies to enhance and strengthen non-government (NGO) reports to UN Committees involved in monitoring Canada’s compliance with our international legal obligations.


Transformative Social Work In The Criminal Justice Field, Susan Noakes Jan 2014

Transformative Social Work In The Criminal Justice Field, Susan Noakes

Journal of Law and Social Policy

Discusses “transformative social work in the criminal justice field” based on the observations and case experiences of the registered social worker on staff at the Holistic Lawyering Project at The Law Centre a clinical legal education program in Victoria, British Columbia through the Faculty of Law at the University of Victoria. Examines the role of a social worker working with a law student and a client charged with a summary conviction offence under the Canadian Criminal Code. Provides an example of transformative change and highlights this challenging and empowering aspect of legal practice.


Teaching Cultural Competency In Legal Clinics, Cynthia Pay Jan 2014

Teaching Cultural Competency In Legal Clinics, Cynthia Pay

Journal of Law and Social Policy

Aims to identify various models of cultural competency training, and to reflect on ways to appropriately and effectively address this subject in a clinical legal education setting.


The Future Of Legal Education: Three Visions And A Prediction, Harry W. Arthurs Jan 2014

The Future Of Legal Education: Three Visions And A Prediction, Harry W. Arthurs

Articles & Book Chapters

In this article, the author examines three visions of the future of law schools. The first vision is that they should focus on producing "practice ready lawyers" to meet the immediate needs of today's legal profession. The second is that law schools should focus on training "tomorrow's lawyers, "graduates who are able to adapt to a rapidly-changing world. The third insists that law schools are knowledge communities whose many functions include, but are not limited to, providing students with a large and liberal understanding of law that will prepare them for a variety of legal and non-legal careers and for …


Experience The Future Of Legal Education, Lorne Sossin Jan 2014

Experience The Future Of Legal Education, Lorne Sossin

Articles & Book Chapters

This article examines the shift towards experiential legal education and its implications. While others have focused on experiential education as a means of training better lawyers, the author advances the argument for experiential education because it is rooted in substantive problem-solving, access to justice, engagement with communities, and greater opportunities for reflective and critical thinking about law and justice. Drawing on examples from Osgoode Hall Law School, which adopted an experiential curricular requirement in 2012, the article explores the ways in which experiential education may change law school and law students. The article also canvasses the implications of the experiential …


Learning The 'How' Of The Law: Teaching Procedure And Legal Education, David Bamford, Trevor C. W. Farrow, Michael Karayanni, Erik S. Knutsen Oct 2013

Learning The 'How' Of The Law: Teaching Procedure And Legal Education, David Bamford, Trevor C. W. Farrow, Michael Karayanni, Erik S. Knutsen

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article examines the approaches to teaching civil procedure in five common law jurisdictions (Canada, Australia, United States, Israel, and England). The paper demonstrates the important transition of civil procedure from a vocational oriented subject to a rigorous intellectual study of policies, processes, and values underpinning our civil justice system, and analysis of how that system operates. The advantages and disadvantages of where civil procedure fits within the curriculum are discussed and the significant opportunities for ‘active’ learning are highlighted. The inclusion of England where civil procedure is not taught to any significant degree in the law degree provides a …


The Teaching Of Procedure Across Common Law Systems, Erik S. Knutsen, Thomas D. Rowe Jr., David Bamford, Shirley Shipman Oct 2013

The Teaching Of Procedure Across Common Law Systems, Erik S. Knutsen, Thomas D. Rowe Jr., David Bamford, Shirley Shipman

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

What difference does the teaching of procedure make to legal education, legal scholarship, the legal profession, and civil justice reform? This first of four articles on the teaching of procedure canvasses the landscape of current approaches to the teaching of procedure in four legal systems— the United States, Canada, Australia, and England and Wales—surveying the place of procedure in the law school curriculum and in professional training, the kinds of subjects that “procedure” encompasses, and the various ways in which procedure is learned. Little sustained re flection has been carried out as to the import and impact of this longstanding …


Thoughtful Practitioners And An Engaged Legal Community: The Impact Of The Teaching Of Procedure On The Legal Profession And On Civil Justice Reform, Janet Walker, Andrew Higgins, Thomas D. Rowe Jr., Carla Crifò Oct 2013

Thoughtful Practitioners And An Engaged Legal Community: The Impact Of The Teaching Of Procedure On The Legal Profession And On Civil Justice Reform, Janet Walker, Andrew Higgins, Thomas D. Rowe Jr., Carla Crifò

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

What difference does the teaching of civil procedure as an academic subject make to the practice of law, to the professional community in which lawyers practice, and to civil justice reform? In this article, proceduralists from Canada, England and Wales, the United States and Australia analyze the broader implications of teaching civil procedure as an integral feature of an academic legal education rather than as a part of vocational training. They consider ways in which the approach taken to the teaching of procedure in their legal system has influenced the evolution of the profession during a decade of increased public …


A Community Of Procedure Scholars: Teaching Procedure And The Legal Academy, Beth Thornburg, Erik S. Knutsen, Carla Crifò, Camille Cameron Oct 2013

A Community Of Procedure Scholars: Teaching Procedure And The Legal Academy, Beth Thornburg, Erik S. Knutsen, Carla Crifò, Camille Cameron

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article asks whether the way in which procedure is taught has an impact on the extent and accomplishments of a scholarly community of proceduralists. Not surprisingly, we find a strong correlation between the placement of procedure as a required course in an academic context and the resulting body of scholars and scholarship. Those countries in which more civil procedure is taught as part of a university degree—and in which procedure is recognized as a legitimate academic subject—have larger scholarly communities, a larger and broader corpus of works analyzing procedural issues, and a richer web of institutional support systems that …