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Open Your Eyes: Teaching And Learning About Anti-Asian Racism And The Law In Canada, Angela Lee Mar 2023

Open Your Eyes: Teaching And Learning About Anti-Asian Racism And The Law In Canada, Angela Lee

Dalhousie Law Journal

Recently, policymakers, institutional actors, and the public have made greater efforts towards being attentive to issues relating to anti-racism and discrimination, as well as equity, diversity, and inclusion more broadly, prompted in part by growing calls for reconciliation with Indigenous peoples and the increasing visibility of the Black Lives Matter movement. Yet, there has been a relative dearth of attention paid to the specific ways in which anti-Asian racism manifests and is maintained, particularly in the Canadian context. More than just being a relic of the past, antiAsian racism is an ongoing phenomenon both within and beyond Canada’s borders, as …


Teaching Civil Obligations (Or What I Learned About Law, Legal Thinking And Teaching), Alan Hutchinson Jun 2021

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

Dalhousie Law Journal

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 …


Critique-Inspired Pedagogies In Canadian Criminal Law Casebooks: Challenging "Doctrine First, Critique Second" Approaches To First-Year Law Teaching, Sarah-Jane Nussbaum Jun 2021

Critique-Inspired Pedagogies In Canadian Criminal Law Casebooks: Challenging "Doctrine First, Critique Second" Approaches To First-Year Law Teaching, Sarah-Jane Nussbaum

Dalhousie Law Journal

This article is a critical evaluation of Canadian criminal law casebooks. The author explores the aims, practices, and challenges of these teaching texts by examining their relationship to critique-inspired pedagogical methods. A number of English-language Canadian criminal law casebooks add a welcome feature to the Canadian common law teaching landscape: all but one of six recently published casebooks teach doctrine and critique together. The research builds on an emerging scholarship of Canadian legal education by demonstrating evidence of critical political commitments and critique-inspired teaching methods within Canadian criminal law education. Yet casebook editors and other professors who utilize critical methods …


The Incorporation Of Government Lawyering In The Teaching Of Legal Ethics In Canadian Law Schools, Andrew Martin, Leslie Walden Apr 2021

The Incorporation Of Government Lawyering In The Teaching Of Legal Ethics In Canadian Law Schools, Andrew Martin, Leslie Walden

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Government lawyers, and the specific legal ethics issues that arise in their practices, remain largely overlooked in Canadian legal education. The authors argue that government lawyering should be better incorporated into legal ethics curricula in law schools, for both practical and conceptual reasons. Most importantly, understanding issues unique to government lawyering helps students better understand core concepts in legal ethics, and thus better prepare for the practice of law both in the public and private sectors. While law teachers face serious challenges in incorporating government lawyering into legal ethics education, many of those challenges can be confronted and ameliorated. The …


Celebrating 30 Years Of The Indigenous Blacks & Mi’Kmaq Initiative: How The Creation Of A Critical Mass Of Black And Aboriginal Lawyers Is Making A Difference In Nova Scotia, Naiomi Metallic Jun 2019

Celebrating 30 Years Of The Indigenous Blacks & Mi’Kmaq Initiative: How The Creation Of A Critical Mass Of Black And Aboriginal Lawyers Is Making A Difference In Nova Scotia, Naiomi Metallic

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Drawing on my own experience as alumni of the Indigenous Blacks & Mi’kmaq Initiative at the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University—one of the only dedicated access program in a Canadian law school for Black and Aboriginal students—I argue that such programs create optimal conditions for fostering greater awareness of critical race issues within the legal profession. The reason for this is that such programs create a critical mass of Black and Aboriginal law students and alumni, who support and encourage each other and, as a result, acquire confidence and skill in raising, and educating others about, critical race …


From Law To Legal Studies And Beyond: 50 Years Of Law And Legal Studies At Carleton University, Vincent Kazmierski, Darren Pacione Oct 2018

From Law To Legal Studies And Beyond: 50 Years Of Law And Legal Studies At Carleton University, Vincent Kazmierski, Darren Pacione

Dalhousie Law Journal

This paper considers the evolution of Carleton University's Department of Law and Legal Studies and its approach to the study of law and the legal within the context of the continuing growth of legal studies programs across the country. It starts by outlining the historical development of the Department and the evolution of its perspective of its role and purpose. Part II examines a number of aspects of the architecture of fourteen undergraduate legal studies programs across the country and the ways in which the roles of these programs are described. Part III provides a brief outline of the current …


Doctoral Studies In Law: From The Inside Out, Dia Dabby, Bethany Hastie, Jocelyn Stacey Apr 2016

Doctoral Studies In Law: From The Inside Out, Dia Dabby, Bethany Hastie, Jocelyn Stacey

Dalhousie Law Journal

This article explores the purpose, structure and experience of doctoral studies in Canadian law schools. Relying on an auto-ethnographic methodology where we draw on our personal experience as doctoral students, we identify three tensions in doctoral studies in law. We explore how these tensions-between practice/theory structure/space, and supervisory/other relationships-emerge from the structure of doctoral studies in law and how they manifest themselves in the lived experience of doctoral students. We detail how these tensions are a product of the ambiguous and underexplored nature ofdoctoral studies in law. By making these tensions explicit, we encourage doctoral students, law professors and administrators …


Not Ideas Of The Thing But The Thing Itself: Imagining A Support Group For Separated And Divorced Fathers As A Site Of Legal Education, Thomas Mcmorrow Apr 2016

Not Ideas Of The Thing But The Thing Itself: Imagining A Support Group For Separated And Divorced Fathers As A Site Of Legal Education, Thomas Mcmorrow

Dalhousie Law Journal

Legal education is not just about attaining an abstract knowledge of formal institutions, norms, and processes; it is also about developing insight into oneself and ones relationships. Therefore, understanding and developing the personal and social conditions that make governance through law possible are crucial elements of legal education. This article highlights legal education's potential role in fostering every person's sense of implication in-and responsibility forbuilding a just society In order to illustrate this concept, this article looks at the ways in which DADs, a support group for separated and divorced fathers, constitutes a site of legal education.


Queering Indigenous Legal Studies, Emily Snyder Oct 2015

Queering Indigenous Legal Studies, Emily Snyder

Dalhousie Law Journal

A handful of scholars have examined sex, gender, and sexuality in relation to Indigenous laws; yet their work is infrequently taken up in the field, and there is a broader need for conversations about what it means to "queer" Indigenous legal studies. In this paper, I centre and examine work that contributes to this queering so as to promote inclusive critical legal education and engagement. I also discuss the implications of not attending to sexuality and develop preliminary propositions for queering Indigenous legal studies.


Guilty Displeasures: White Resistance In The Social Justice Classroom, Rakhi Ruparelia Oct 2014

Guilty Displeasures: White Resistance In The Social Justice Classroom, Rakhi Ruparelia

Dalhousie Law Journal

In this article, the author reflects on the challenges of teaching white law students about racism and whiteprivilege asa racializedprofessor To situateher experiences and to better understand the obstacles that professors who teach critically about race and racism confront, she draws from theories of racial identity development and research on student evaluations to contextualize student responses to antiracist pedagogy Grappling with racism in a meaningful way leaves many white students feeling distraught, angry and guilty, among other unpleasant emotions. Professors who initiate these discussions become the natural targets of criticism and blame as students struggle with their discomfort. The hostility …


Troubling Feelings: Moral Anger And Clinical Legal Education, Sarah Buhler Apr 2014

Troubling Feelings: Moral Anger And Clinical Legal Education, Sarah Buhler

Dalhousie Law Journal

Many law students experience strong and sometimes difficult emotions during their time in clinical lawprograms: sadness at clients'stories of trauma, excitement about a victory in court, or anger at the injustices faced by clients. In this article, I focus on the emotion of "moral anger,"or "moral outrage" experienced by lawyers and students in clinicalcontexts, and consider how educators and students might address manifestations of moral anger in clinical law contexts in ways that ignite a critical and social-justice oriented approach to legal practice. By drawing on theoretical insights from the emerging field of critical emotion studies, I argue that a …


The World Needs More Rod Macdonald: The Potential Of Big Ideas, Kim Brooks Jan 2014

The World Needs More Rod Macdonald: The Potential Of Big Ideas, Kim Brooks

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

In this article, the author makes the case for thinking boldly and experimentally about the possibilities for legal education and law schools and urges us to embrace the potential for big ideas. She illustrates this approach through the lens of admissions, curriculum, and research. Within each of those aspects of legal education, the article suggests some guidelines that might be used to evaluate reform proposals and proposes one major change to spur reflection.


A Community Of Procedure Scholars: Teaching Procedure And The Legal Academy, Elizabeth Thornburg, Erik S. Knutsen, Carla Crifo', Camille Cameron Jan 2013

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

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

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 …


Hugh M. Kindred: A Tribute, Robert J. Currie, Phillip Saunders Oct 2012

Hugh M. Kindred: A Tribute, Robert J. Currie, Phillip Saunders

Dalhousie Law Journal

We are pleased to introduce this special issue of the Dalhousie Law Journal, which is essentially a mini-festschriftin honour of Professor Hugh Kindred. Hugh began teaching at what was then Dalhousie Law School in 1971 and retired from full-time teaching in 2008, with a well-deserved Professor Emeritus status bestowed on him in 2010. In between Hugh provided wisdom, quiet counsel and gracious generosity to generations of students and faculty at what is now called the Schulich School of Law, and became a pillar of the Canadian legal academic community. His legacy is enormous and ongoing, as Hugh has continued to …


Hugh Kindred And The Teaching Of International Law In Canada, Don Mcrae Oct 2012

Hugh Kindred And The Teaching Of International Law In Canada, Don Mcrae

Dalhousie Law Journal

The casebook, International Law, Chiefly as Interpreted and Applied in Canada under the general editorship of Hugh Kindred, which first appeared in 1987, was a milestone in the teaching of international law in Canada. It was an important teaching tool that made international law accessible to students. Seeing international law through the eyes of Canadian practice, Canadian materials and Canadian experience, the book was an introduction to the fundamentals of the field and to the developments and debates of contemporary international law Engaging on the editorial board Canadian academics from different law schools, Hugh Kindred has been able to provide …


No Longer "Naked And Shivering Outside Her Gates": Establishing Law As A Full-Time On-Campus Academic Discipline At Mcgill University Inthe Nineteenth Century, A J. Hobbins Oct 2011

No Longer "Naked And Shivering Outside Her Gates": Establishing Law As A Full-Time On-Campus Academic Discipline At Mcgill University Inthe Nineteenth Century, A J. Hobbins

Dalhousie Law Journal

Although Canada was a single province (1763-1791), subsequently divided into Upper and Lower Canada, legal education developed very differently in the two components. The Law Society of Upper Canada controlled legal education in Ontario until the second half of the twentieth century, while in Quebec, where the legal system was based on both civil and common law, university-based legal education began in the first half of the nineteenth century. This study examines how legal education developed at McGill University, moving from part-time teaching by professionals off-campus to an on-campus faculty taught by full-time academics by the end of the century …


Journeys To 20th Street: The Inner City As Critical Pedagogical Space For Legal Education, Sarah Buhler Oct 2009

Journeys To 20th Street: The Inner City As Critical Pedagogical Space For Legal Education, Sarah Buhler

Dalhousie Law Journal

This essay draws on critical geographical theories to propose that the location of clinical legal education programs in inner city space can affect the production of professional identities and ideologies oflaw students. It anchors its analysis in an examination of the clinical law program at the University of Saskatchewan College of Law, where students work at a poverty law clinic in Saskatoon's inner city. The paper first turns to a critical examination of law school space, which can function to promote dominant notions about law and legal practice. The author cautions that ifnot navigated attentively, thejourney to inner city space …


Cravath By The Sea: Recruitment In The Large Halifax Law Firm, 1900-1955, Jeffrey Haylock Oct 2008

Cravath By The Sea: Recruitment In The Large Halifax Law Firm, 1900-1955, Jeffrey Haylock

Dalhousie Law Journal

The traditional view is that regularized, meritocratic hiring in Canadian law firms had to wait until the 1960s, with the rise in importance of Ontario university law schools. There was, however, more regional variation than this view allows. After an overview of the rise of large firms in the U.S. and Canada, and of the modern hiring strategies (the "Cravath system") that developed in New York in the early twentieth century, the author considers whether Halifax firms were employing these strategies between 1900 and 1955. Nepotistic hiring continued unabated; however, the three large firms of the period recruited young students …


Acouple Of Generations Ahead Of Popular Demand': The First National Law Program At Mcgill University, 1918-1924, John Hobbins Apr 2008

Acouple Of Generations Ahead Of Popular Demand': The First National Law Program At Mcgill University, 1918-1924, John Hobbins

Dalhousie Law Journal

Following the First World War, Dean Robert Warden Lee introduced some radical changes to the curriculum at the McGill Law Faculty Three-year courses were instituted leading to either a civil law degree or a common law degree, and a four-year course in which both degrees could be obtained. The program was extremely controversial, running into opposition within the part-time faculty the Montreal legal community and the bar societies of several provinces. Difficulties in obtaining professional accreditation for the common law graduates led to a decline in enrollment, and the common law option was discontinued in 1926. Lee's vision of a …


Colonialism And The Process Of Defining Aboriginal People, D'Arcy Vermette Apr 2008

Colonialism And The Process Of Defining Aboriginal People, D'Arcy Vermette

Dalhousie Law Journal

It is not uncommon for Aboriginal law students to experience discomfort in studying the law The discomfort is not unique to legal studies, but the law provides a venue where the effects of the imposition of colonial norms are starkly revealed. In law school the author had to confront how Canadian law has attempted to control Aboriginal identity, at first through legislation and then through the courts. While the locus and style of controlling Aboriginal identity has changed over time, the practice of controlling Aboriginal identity is ever present. This process of control dehumanizes individualsand peoples and continues into the …


A.R.Buck, The Making Ofaustralian Property Law, Margaret Mccallum Apr 2007

A.R.Buck, The Making Ofaustralian Property Law, Margaret Mccallum

Dalhousie Law Journal

Students in first year law in English-speaking common law schools in Canada follow a fairly standard curficulum, heavily weighted in favour of private law subjects such as torts, contracts and property, with criminal law, constitutional law, and perhaps a methods, theories or skills course rounding out their required courses. Most students find the content to be as they expected in courses in torts, contracts, criminal and constitutional law. These areas of law, after all, provide the law-related stories that are an increasing part ofnational and even international news. But many students find first year property a puzzle. They expect the …


Counting Outsiders: A Critical Exploration Of Outsider Course Enrollment In Canadian Legal Education, Natasha Bakht, Kim Brooks, Gillian Calder, Jennifer Koshan, Sonia Lawrence, Carissima Mathen, Debra Parkes Jan 2007

Counting Outsiders: A Critical Exploration Of Outsider Course Enrollment In Canadian Legal Education, Natasha Bakht, Kim Brooks, Gillian Calder, Jennifer Koshan, Sonia Lawrence, Carissima Mathen, Debra Parkes

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

In response to anecdotal concerns that student enrollment in outsider courses, and in particular feminist courses, is on the decline in Canadian law schools, the authors explore patterns of course enrollment at seven Canadian law schools. Articulating a definition of outsider that describes those who are members of groups historically lacking power in society, or traditionally outside the realms of fashioning, teaching, and adjudicating the law, the authors document the results of quantitative and qualitative surveys conducted at their respective schools to argue that outsider pedagogy remains a critical component of legal education. The article situates the numerical survey results …


Building On Strong Foundations: Rethinking Legal Education With A View To Improving Curricular Quality, Veronica Henderson Oct 2006

Building On Strong Foundations: Rethinking Legal Education With A View To Improving Curricular Quality, Veronica Henderson

Dalhousie Law Journal

Recent increases in law school tuition provide an occasion for criticalreflection on precisely what law students are being offered in their formal education. The aim of this article is to help catalyze discussion of what quality legal education entails. It begins by outlining the current underpinnings of Canadian legal education, especially the foundation of issue identification. Newer developments in legal education are also canvassed.A foundational critique is then applied to elucidate the main weakness of thepresent curricular structure: students are graduating with a flat understanding of the law Employing Dr Oliver Sacks's critique of medical education as a starting point, …


Canadian Graduate Legal Education: Past, Present And Future, Sanjeev S. Anand Apr 2004

Canadian Graduate Legal Education: Past, Present And Future, Sanjeev S. Anand

Dalhousie Law Journal

Canadian graduate legal education has seldom been the subject of scholarly inquiry This article seeks to fill the vacuum by describing and evaluating various features associated with master s and doctoral programs offered by the nation s /ao schools. A number of criteria are used in this analysis, some of which have been garnered from the broader literature on higher education The article concludes with a series of specific programmatic and policy reform proposals aimed at strengthening the state of graduate legal education in this country


Canadian Law Teachers In The 1930s: "When The World Was Turned Upside Down", Richard Risk Apr 2004

Canadian Law Teachers In The 1930s: "When The World Was Turned Upside Down", Richard Risk

Dalhousie Law Journal

During the 1930s. scholars in the Canadian common law schools introduced fundamental changes in ways of thinking about law, changes that made one of them. John Willis, say 'the world was turned upside down." These scholars rejected the past, especially the English legal thought of the late nineteenth century Instead, they were influenced by changes in the United States, which began early in the century, and by the emerging regulatory and welfare state. In private law subjects, Caesar Wright was central, using American ideas to challenge the dominant English authority, especially in his writing about torts. In public law subjects, …


Designating The Dean Of Law: Legal Education At Mcgill University And The Montreal Corporate And Professional Elite, 1946-1950., A J. Hobbins Apr 2004

Designating The Dean Of Law: Legal Education At Mcgill University And The Montreal Corporate And Professional Elite, 1946-1950., A J. Hobbins

Dalhousie Law Journal

The nature of legal education has been the subject of an ongoing debate in all Canadian jurisdictions. A central theme of this debate for much of the twentieth century was whether legal education should be restricted to training for the local Bar as opposed to studying law as an academic discipline in addition to such professional training A decanal vacancy at McGill University brought this question to the fore in 1946 when the anglophone members of the Montreal Bar exerted a great deal of influence on the selection process. The matter was complicated by the opposition of the corporate elite …


Queering Legal Education: A Project Of Theoretical Discovery, Kim Brooks, Debra Parkes Jan 2004

Queering Legal Education: A Project Of Theoretical Discovery, Kim Brooks, Debra Parkes

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The article has two parts. Part II discusses the materials we reviewed to inform the development of a queer legal pedagogy. In particular, it examines the categories of queer legal scholarship and highlights the contributions of other outsider scholars to legal education debates. Early in our research, we found limited material on queer legal pedagogy, and we discovered nothing that posited a theoretical approach. We did, however, find rich resources written by other outsiders to law from which some design principles for queer legal pedagogy might be drawn. We should note at the outset that our goal in this Part …


Competition, Cooperation Or Cartel: A National Law School Accreditation Process For Canada?, Alvin Esau Apr 2000

Competition, Cooperation Or Cartel: A National Law School Accreditation Process For Canada?, Alvin Esau

Dalhousie Law Journal

Law schools in Canada are engaged in increased competition with one another and significant disparities in resources and reputations have developed. The author argues that this competitive context may be a threat to the maintenance in some schools of the broader mission of the law school to teach and produce contextual and critical perspectives on law. It is suggested that Canadian law schools should cooperate with each other and that various initiatives could be taken which would help all schools. Beyond cooperation on specific projects, the authorraises the question of whetherlawschools should set up theirown national accreditation scheme. He suggests …


A Computer-Assisted Legal Research And Writing Course, Jocelyn Downie, Michael Deturbide, Laura Fraser Oct 1998

A Computer-Assisted Legal Research And Writing Course, Jocelyn Downie, Michael Deturbide, Laura Fraser

Dalhousie Law Journal

In this paper, the authors describe and assess their experience with the use of WebCT (a computer program that facilitates the creation and management of courses using the Internet) in the Dalhousie Legal Research and Writing Program. They explain what WebCT is, why they decided to use it, and how they used it. They assess its inaugural use and conclude that, despite some difficulties, the pilot project was a success and WebCT can be a useful tool for other teachers of legal research and writing.


A Case For Compulsory Legal Ethics Education In Canadian Law Schools, Jocelyn Downie Apr 1997

A Case For Compulsory Legal Ethics Education In Canadian Law Schools, Jocelyn Downie

Dalhousie Law Journal

The author presents principled arguments, consequentialist arguments, arguments by analogy and arguments by authority in support of her conclusion that Canadian law schools should have compulsory legal ethics education. Among other things, she argues that legal ethics education is an imperfect but essential way to meet the obligations that arise from the public trust placed in the legal profession. She also explores a number of benefits that can accrue to students, law schools, the legal profession and society in general when ethics is a compulsory component of legal education.