Let's ditch the battle of experts in court, and just get the facts

Technical expertise should not come with a viewpoint

James Morton, Freelance

Published: Friday, February 08

TORONTO - Expert witnesses seem a lot less expert these days.

Last week in Ontario we were reminded daily of the miscarriages of justice caused by forensic pathologist Charles Smith -- the many parents and caregivers charged and some found guilty of murdering children, the scores of lives ruined, and families destroyed.

And in August, the Ontario Court of Appeal said that one of its main reasons for acquitting Steven Truscott had to do with the testimony of John Penistan, the pathologist in that long-ago case of rape and murder. Dr. Penistan's official autopsy report stated that 12-year-old Lynne Harper had died soon after Steven Truscott had been seen giving her a ride on his bike, at a time when he would have been by far the most likely killer.

An interesting little editorial on some pertinent law. What do you think about what Mr. Morton has said?

University of British Columbia set to begin construction on Faculty of Law building in 2009

Here's some exciting law school news:

PATRICIA WILLIAMS
Feb. 15, 2008

Construction is expected to get under way in 2009 on a new Faculty of Law building on the Vancouver campus of the University of British Columbia.

Designed by the Toronto-based firm of Diamond + Schmitt Architects, the 13,500-square-metre facility is intended to meet the needs of a new generation of law students and legal researchers.

Situated adjacent to the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts and framing one of two principal gates into the campus, the building will replace the existing school, currently housed in two aging structures...

The new building provides space for more than 50 faculty members, 600 undergraduate and 100 graduate students. It includes contemporary classroom designs, more student service spaces, a moot court, a larger Law Library and new research spaces...

Read more here.

QUICK TO FIGHT QUICKLAW

The Law Page

BAR TALK

February 13, 2008

Canada's law schools are rebelling against a demand by QuickLaw that law students pay $50 each next fall, or an estimated $500,000 annually across Canada, for access to its digital repository of case law, statutes and other legal research. In a letter to QuickLaw, an association of Canadian law librarians estimated the charges would be devastating to annual library budgets.

Patrick Monahan, dean of Osgoode Hall Law School, said he is steaming mad about the fee and will move to another digital service if QuickLaw doesn't back down. He said the fee "violates the spirit of partnership of QuickLaw," which was founded in 1973 by a Queens University law professor in collaboration with students and law faculties. QuickLaw was purchased by U.S.-based LexisNexis Canada in 2002.

Hasselback: the merits of JD over LLB

Posted: February 13, 2008, 3:17 PM by Drew Hasselback Legal News, Drew Hasselback, Law schools

The law school of the University of Western Ontario has written alumni to solicit their views on whether they support changing the designation of the university's law degree to J.D. from LL.B...

Read Hasselback's reasons for switching here. His reasons are really funny. It's great to keep this debate alive. I am personally waiting for the day that U of A writes me to offer me the option of trading my LL.B. degree in for a J.D.

What do you think?

Law students bring black youth together with role models

Aim to increase minority law school enrolment
Feb 11/08
by Maria Saros Leung (email)

In the corridor of the Faculty of Law’s Flavelle House hangs a photo of Ivy Lawrence Maynier, the first woman of colour to graduate from the faculty in 1945.

With few black students and lawyers to look up to, the trail Maynier blazed would have been a lonely one. Today, Moya Teklu and Renee Smith, co-chairs of the U of T chapter of the Black Law Students’ Association (BLSA), are making black youth feel empowered to choose law as a career path by connecting them with black lawyers and judges.

See Yourself Here was born out of a lunchtime brainstorming session between Teklu and Smith. The one-day open house held Jan. 19 brought together young black high school and undergraduate students with black legal professionals as a way of encouraging black youth to pursue professional studies at the Faculty of Law.

Read more.

Law society report pushes for end to licensing course

By Thomas Claridge
Toronto
February 15 2008

A “consultation report” by a Law Society of Upper Canada (LSUC) task force has recommended scrapping a four-week licensing course that two years ago replaced the law society’s four-month-long Bar Admission Course (BAC).

The Licensing and Accreditation Task Force was appointed last spring with a mandate to make recommendations in three areas: the most effective means by which competency requirements for call to the Bar of Ontario could be achieved; the criteria for approving law degrees, and the impact of rising numbers of law graduates on the viability of the current licensing process.

The report was submitted to the law society’s January Convocation, which approved its dissemination to the profession, law schools and legal organizations to obtain feedback on its findings concerning the licensing process and the related articling process.

Headed by former LSUC treasurer Vern Krishna, the four-member task force noted in its report that the current Skills and Professional Responsibility Program began as a five-week instructional program but was reduced by Convocation to a four-week instructional program in 2007 “after the candidate evaluations indicated a perceived repetitiveness within the learning modules.”

At present, the candidates get 3.5 hours of instruction per day, for four weeks, for a total of 12 instructional days, six assessment days and one reassessment day for those who require it. Attendance is mandatory, and the law society has set aside two full days to conduct each of three assessments during the program.

The task force found that with 1,400 candidates in the process last year, assessments were limited to 15 or 20 minutes plus five to 10 minutes of performance feedback on each activity. The total time spent in and out of class on program requirements was 60 hours.

The report warned that present trends indicate that by 2009 the number of law students wanting to enter the profession will reach 1,730 — an increase of about 30 per cent from last year...

Read the whole article at The Lawyer's Weekly.

University of Alberta Faculty of Law Graduate Buys Edmonton Oilers

I had forgotten that Daryl Katz was a graduate of the University of Alberta Faculty of Law. This little article from TSN.ca gives a brief bio. It was announced today that he bought the Edmonton Oilers for $200 million.

"Katz, who grew up in Edmonton, attended law school at the University of Alberta and built his family's local business into a multi-billion dollar empire in less than a decade.

"As for his reasons for wanting to buy the Oilers, Katz says... 'I was born in Edmonton, I live in Edmonton and I grew up here with the Oilers during the glory years. I want to own the Oilers because they are Edmonton's hockey team and because I think there is an opportunity, through the Oilers, to do great things for the city.'"

That's pretty cool. I wonder if he really is a "wonderful Edmontonian," as Gretzky is quoted as saying. Gretzky goes on to say, "I know he cares about the city and I think he would be a tremendous owner for the Edmonton Oilers."

He has also committed to contributing $100 million for the building of a new stadium, which should be a good thing for that city.

Canadian lawyers at an advantage in overseas firms

Awareness of cultures leads to success on global legal stage
Margaret McCaffery, Financial Post Published: Wednesday, February 06, 2008

With London surpassing New York in the number of IPOs in 2007, it's no surprise that U.K.-based law firms are hunting for legal talent beyond their shores.

U.K. recruitment of Canadians began in earnest in 1994. Conventional wisdom had it that the chosen lawyers didn't stand a chance of making partner in the massive U.K.-based international firms, where high leverage between partners and associates makes it tough for lawyers to achieve partner status.

Nonetheless, a number of Canadian recruits are bucking the odds and not only achieving partnership status, but playing a prominent role in the success of international law firms.

Great article (continued here). I have three Canadian colleagues who have pursued work outside of Canada and are really enjoying their experience. Perhaps this is another answer to my recent post about the huge influx of law graduates. How's that for a solution? Import lawyers from other jurisdictions, and export our own law graduates. Balance is good, eh?

Bond University - from yesterday's post

Yesterday's post included information that an Australian University accepts 70 Canadian law students each year. The university is Bond University. They have an FAQ for Canadian students. I am hoping that they don't mind that I copy that FAQ here (if they do, they can feel free to write me), but I think it would be very beneficial for those applicants who either cannot get accepted, or choose not to apply to Canadian Law Schools:

Faculty of Law - International Perspective

FAQ'S for Students from Canada

What is the difference between the LLB and the JD?

The LLB and the JD are both professionally recognised degrees. The JD is restricted to graduate entrants; the LLB has no such restriction.
Law has traditionally been taken as a first degree in Australia and ‘LLB’ is the traditional label for that degree. However a number of universities have recently introduced 'JD' degrees for graduate students.

The compulsory law units for the two Bond degrees are the same and students in these units are taught together.

The LLB comprises 32 subjects in total, 19 compulsory law units and 4 compulsory non-law units.

The JD comprises 24 subjects in total, all being law units , with 19 of the units being compulsory. Electives for the JD are taken from the LLM list rather than the LLB list.

Canadians who possess a first degree generally enrol for the JD. It is easy to switch between the degrees in the early semesters.

How much does it cost?

Fees are currently about AU$3,000 per subject (24 subjects). They are adjusted each year.
Residence fees vary depending on the level of accommodation.

Shared accommodation in the vicinity of the University is readily available.
Email: student_residences@bond.edu.au if you have questions.

What are the admission requirements and are there deadlines?

Bond does not operate with fixed cut-offs. That is partly due to its international character, with students coming from many different areas of the world and with different kinds of qualifications.

We seek to maintain the total numbers in the Faculty of Law within the range 600-700. Admission decisions are made on an overall assessment of the application, with prior academic performance being the primary consideration.

In common with other Australian universities, we do not use the LSAT.

There are no fixed deadlines for admission applications. We make our decisions on a ‘rolling’ basis, issuing offers to qualified applicants until all available spaces have been filled. You can apply up to one year in advance.

After I graduate, what do I have to do in order to be eligible to practice law in Canada?

To practice law in Canada, you will need to complete a Canadian bar admission course. To be eligible for a bar admission course in any of the common law provinces (ie excluding Quebec), you will need a Certificate of Qualification from the National Committee on Accreditation (the ‘NCA’) of the Federation of Law Societies of Canada.

The certificate will state that you have education and training equivalent to that of a Canadian law graduate. Application is made to the NCA at the end of your degree at Bond.
The NCA will review your record and prescribe a number of examinations in Canadian law. View the NCA's guidelines.

The NCA makes its decisions on an individual basis, taking account of academic performance. Decisions are made following submission of a final transcript of studies : the NCA will not issue advance rulings.

The major variables affecting NCA rulings include the amount of any pre-law undergraduate studies, the length of the law degree, the amount of any studies undertaken in a Canadian law school, and the marks obtained in the law degree.

Our experience has been that graduates with respectable academic records are commonly required to complete 8 examinations if they have four-year pre-law degrees; 10 examinations if they have three-year pre-law degrees; and 12 examinations if first degree programs have not been undertaken or have been partially completed.

However, many graduates have been required to complete fewer examinations.

How can I take the examinations in Canadian law?

There are two ways of taking these examinations.

You may seek admission to a Canadian law school for this purpose. Places are limited. However, the University of Manitoba Faculty of Law has agreed to try to accommodate Bond applicants.
Alternatively you may take ‘challenge exams’ set by the NCA.

At present the most popular route is the challenge exams. Constitutional Law, which is regularly prescribed by the NCA, can present a difficulty with proceeding via a Canadian law school: openings are mainly in the upper years but Constitutional Law is a first year course in most schools.

In order to overcome this problem, Bond has periodically offered Canadian Constitutional Law, taught by visiting professors from the University of Manitoba and with the course credited by both universities.

How much difference is there between Australian and Canadian law?

The principles and methodology of Australian and Canadian law are similar. The details of statutory provisions and case-law obviously differ but an Australian law degree provides a good basis for taking examinations in Canadian law.

Can I take some of the examinations by going on exchange to a Canadian law school?

Our Canadian students are permitted to credit one semester at a Canadian law school toward their Bond degrees (usually the elective component).

Some students apply directly to Canadian schools for admission as visiting ‘letter-of-permission’ students. In addition, we have a formal exchange program with the University of British Columbia..

Our experience has been that the NCA may make some reduction in its requirements for graduates who have undertaken exchange programs. However, the amount any reduction varies.

Can I transfer from Bond to a Canadian law school?

Some of our students have transferred to Canadian law schools in order to take Canadian degrees, receiving some credit for their studies at Bond.

Several have also managed to complete the requirements for their Bond degrees, receiving some credit for their studies in Canada, so that they have both Canadian and Australian degrees.
Admission to Canadian law schools as a transfer student is competitive. The most common destinations have been University of Toronto and Queen’s University.

Will I be able to stay in Australia and practice law there?

Australian immigration operates on a ‘points’ system. Some points are awarded for having an Australian degree but additional points are required. Several of our graduates have qualified and are working in Australia.

Inquiries about immigration should be directed to Australian Consulates in Canada.

How can I apply?

Students may apply on-line or through one of our Canadian agents:

KOM Consultants
905 3188200
info@komconsultants.com

AustraLearn Canada
1 888 637 4412
studyabroad@australearncanada.org

OzTREKK
1866 698 7355
info@oztrekk.com

This is HUGE! Abolishment of articling eyed

‘Freight train’ of law grads on horizon
Abolishment of articling eyed
By Robert Todd Publication Date: Monday, 04 February 2008

An amended version of a Jan. 24 motion from LSUC’s licensing and accreditation task force was approved following a lively discussion from benchers, after the release of a report expressing concern that the province’s firms will soon be unable to accommodate hundreds of lawyers seeking articling placements.

The combined pressure of increased intake at Ontario law schools, an influx of foreign-trained lawyers, and the prospect of up to three new law schools in the province could leave many students with nowhere to go following their third year of law school.

“This is a freight train coming down the track and we have to be thoughtful, creative, and mindful of the size of this train,” task force member and Bencher Laurie Pawlitza told Convocation. Pawlitza noted the task force’s findings that the current demand for approximately 1,300 articling spots is estimated to rise to 1,730 by 2009 — a 30 per cent increase.

“I urge Convocation to think about the difference between being unable now to place about 50 students, and being unable to place about 300 students, 400 students,” she said.

This article (read the whole article here) has all kinds of really cool information that I had no idea about...such as an Australian law school that accepts up to 70 Canadian law students each year...had I only known!!

Please, provide your comments on this very interesting issue. Imagine...abolishing the articling year for Canadian law school graduates.

Hillary Clinton’s years at Yale Law School shaped her

By MATT STEARNS

McClatchy Newspapers

NEW HAVEN, Conn. | All that Hillary Rodham Clinton would become — all that still inspires her allies and enemies — emerged during her years roaming the Gothic buildings of Yale Law School.

She helped edit a journal that included cartoon police-pigs and that published a self-aggrandizing essay by a Black Panther who had been convicted of murder. Yet she also helped calm a politically inflamed campus.

She nurtured an interest in using the law to aid the needy — especially children — that remains integral to her politics, but which opponents use to pummel her values.

She projected an intelligence that impressed many but that could be cool and intimidating.

She met fellow student Bill Clinton and developed the first stirrings of a unique partnership that has already made American history — and that she hopes will make more.

Read more.

Landry does it again at Montrealer's constitutional law conference

By P.A. Sévigny, The Suburban

With some overblown rhetoric worthy of his now infamous description of the Canadian flag as a “red rag”, former provincial premier and PQ leader Bernard Landry did it again during a recent Quebec City constitutional law conference.

During a heated and sometimes emotional debate about the 1982 repatriation of the British North America Act, Landry paralleled former Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau’s description of Canada’s new constitution to Adolf Hitler’s description of the “1,000-year Reich!” During a speech delivered to law students at the conference, Landry began the quarrel when he quotedthe late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau as having said “This constitution will last 1,000 years.”

Read the whole article here.

Obama the Law Student

Here's a cool photo of Barack Obama in 1990 when he led the Harvard Law Review.

AMBRIDGE, Mass., Jan. 23 —

By JODI KANTOR

Published: January 28, 2007

The peers who elected Barack Obama as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review say he was a natural leader, an impressive student, a nice guy. But in the 1990 Revue — the graduating editors’ gleeful parody of their elite publication — they said quite a bit more.

“I was born in Oslo, Norway, the son of a Volvo factory worker and part-time ice fisherman,” a mock self-tribute begins. “My mother was a backup singer for Abba. They were good folks.” In Chicago, “I discovered I was black, and I have remained so ever since.”

After his election, the Faux-bama says, he united warring students into “a happy, cohesive folk,” while “empowering all the folks out there in America who didn’t know about me by giving a series of articulate and startlingly mature interviews to all the folks in the media.”

Read the whole interesting article here.

The Average Law Student...After Law School

I am amazed at how many lateral moves amongst former classmates that I have witnessed since graduating from law school. There seem to be very few of them who have remained at their original summer or articling firm. A few have gone overseas. Others have gone in-house. Many others have switched firms, or even gone solo. This after only 3 years! I had expected that many of them would have remained stuck in their articling firm, climbing the partnership ladder. This was the line that we were fed throughout law school, and this was the prevailing attitude during bar admission courses.

I think we are seeing a breakthrough in those prevailing attitudes, with new expectations. I'm not talking about the cliche Generation X or Generation Y attitudes. I am talking about expectations attached to opportunity. Opportunities about, and nobody seems to want to be left behind. A Canadian Law School degree is more than just a road towards a partnership at a major Canadian law firm. The borders are opening up, the 0pportunities to use a legal education in business, government, non-profit, military, and elsewhere are abundant.

Most of my friends are becoming their own man/woman. Law can be a pretty solitary career. There's lots of time to brood about greener pastures. I am letting go of that old addage that says that you should chew your cudd in one field until you can tell whether you like the cudd. That's not to say that I am ready to jump ship. For me, it's about focussing my practice areas, and broadening my skillset to include such things as mediation and arbitration. I am also remembering how much I love to build businesses, and am enjoying those amazing opportunities in running a law firm, a publishing business and an alternate dispute resolution business. It's really fun to grow.

What are you doing with your law degree?

Toronto lawyer fined in cheating scandal

Paid ‘thousands of dollars’ for papers By Robert Todd | Publication Date: Monday, 28 January 2008

A Toronto lawyer was recently fined $10,000 by the Law Society of Upper Canada for selling course work to a York University MBA student for “thousands of dollars.”

Shane Smith was reprimanded by a law society hearing panel last month for conduct unbecoming a student licensee. He was given one year to pay the fine and an additional $1,000 in costs.

According to an agreed statement of facts, Smith acted contrary to parts of the Law Society Act when, while he was an articling student, he “provided and sold papers, which he and another student member had researched and written, to M, who was then a student in the MBA program at York University’s graduate school of business, with the knowledge that the papers would be submitted to the graduate school of business as M’s work.”

The student who received the course work is not named in the statement of facts.
Smith, 31, who currently works for IBM Canada Ltd., was called to the bar in July 2004.

But while the LSUC decision pertains to Smith’s activities while he was articling and M was an MBA student, documents obtained by Law Times show the scandal reached back to their law school days...

Read the whole article here. It never ceases to amaze me what people will risk...their entire career sometimes.

Among the abortionists

Jonathan Kay: Among the abortionists Posted: January 28, 2008, 11:39 AM by Jonathan Kay
National Post: Full Comment

Abortion is the one subject on which otherwise tolerant, open-minded people cannot agree to disagree. If you truly believe that life begins at conception, then what happens in Canada’s abortion clinics and wards approximately 100,000 times every year is, quite literally, a species of genocide. If you take the opposite view — that a fetus is a component of its female host without legal rights or human identity — then your opponents will strike you as nothing but ignorant misogynists. That is why we have precious little “debate” on the subject of abortion. Instead, we have sloganeering by two distinct and mutually hostile ideological tribes.

On Friday, Canada’s pro-choice movement convened what could best be described as a convention of tribal elders — middle-aged and elderly champions of the movement, including Henry Morgentaler, whose victory in the Supreme Court of Canada served to dismantle the entire criminal-law regime surrounding abortion 20 years ago today.

The University of Toronto Law School’s “Symposium to Mark the 20th Anniversary of R. v. Morgentaler” was an odd event. On one hand, it was organized by, and sponsored by, the law school’s own faculty — and so took on the superficial trappings of a normal academic symposium. But since not one of the 15 abortion doctors, scholars, writers and politicians who spoke took a pro-life stand, or even dealt in any serious way with pro-life arguments, the event was actually more of a pro-choice pep rally. On the few occasions when the existence of a pro-life camp was even acknowledged, it was invariably dismissed as a cadre of retrograde zealots plotting to undermine the Charter of Rights and Freedoms...

Read the whole article here, and leave your comments. This is a really interesting topic.

More on the Macleans Rankings

The McGill student newspaper has a good commentary on the Macleans rankings, although they question not only the elements that went into those rankings but the merits of rankings themselves where there are so few law schools.

Most of the criticism that I have read focusses on two considerations: the ranking of faculty by Canadian citations only, and the ranking of students by Lexpert-ranked "elite" firm hiring. Both are, I think, valid criticisms that probably speak to an unfamiliarity with Canadian legal (and Canadian legal academic) culture.

Posted by Russ Brown on October 11, 2007 at 05:17 AM in Law School Issues | Read the entire post here

Faculty of Law | University of Alberta | Faculty Blog

Faculty of Law PhD Program Approved - University of Alberta Faculty of Law

http://www.law.ualberta.ca/News--Events/News.php?news_id=118

The University of Alberta Faculty of Law’s proposal to establish a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Law program was recently approved by Minister of Advanced Education and Technology Doug Horner, further enhancing the Faculty’s reputation as a top-tier national law school.

Prior to approval, the program proposal went through a rigorous process including an internal review where the program received overwhelming approval from the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research Council, the Academic Standards Committee, and the Academic Planning Committee. The Campus Alberta Quality Council—an arms-length quality assurance agency that makes recommendations on applications from post-secondary institutions seeking to offer new degree programs in Alberta—then reviewed the proposal and made the recommendation to Minister Horner.

The PhD program will give candidates a unique opportunity to study select areas of law in considerable detail. Involved in a wide range of leading legal research, faculty members can supervise graduate students in many subject areas including the Faculty’s well-known strengths in health law, corporate/commercial law, public international law, aboriginal law, criminal law, and legal theory.

More information on the program will be released shortly.

Answer expected next month on LU's law school proposal

Tb News Source
Web Posted: 1/24/2008 7:32:10 PM

Lakehead University has moved one step closer to establishing what could be the seventh law school in the province if their proposal for the former Port Arthur Collegiate Institute is successful.

LU has re-submitted its proposal to the Law Society of Upper Canada hoping to get approval for a new school that would house 150 students once it was fully operational.

Lakehead University President Fred Gilbert said Thursday the re-submission was requested by the Law Society which asked for more details on proposed course information. Gilbert says he expects the new proposal will be up for consideration in February.

An audit shows that close to $4 million worth of renovations is required at the PACI and if approval is granted, the school could be operational by fall of 2009.

David Asper founds Centre for Constitutional Rights with $7.5 million gift

Recent alumnus David Asper (LLM '07) has made a $7.5 million gift to the law school to establish the David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights. David's gift is the largest contribution ever made by an individual to a law school in Canada. It will have a transformative effect on educational opportunities for students at our law school, and will play a vital role in articulating Canada's constitutional vision to the broader world.

Read the press release (PDF)

Read a brief biography of David Asper (PDF)

Watch the announcement of the gift at a special event held at the law school

This guy is amazing!