Alberta Law Review (ALR)
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Training Lawyers, Cultivating Citizens, and Re-Enchanting the Legal Professional
Get PDFLaw schools ought to have a vision for how they contribute to the public good. This article identifies two views of how public value might fit into the mission of the law school. The additive view holds that pursuing public value (cultivating “citizens”) and training “lawyers” are distinct objectives. This view underlies traditional claims that the law school should be housed in the university, and also accounts for the historic tension between academic law schools and the profession.By contrast, the integrative view holds that training lawyers and cultivating citizens are mutually reinforcing. This view inheres in the desire to ennoble the concept of professionalism, an old tendency that is presently in ascendance. A law school that embraces professionalism can place public value at the core of its mission, deploying its internal incentive structures in the service of the public good. However, the concept is at risk of becoming diluted or being imperfectly translated into practice. Furthermore, a sole focus on professionalism may marginalize or exclude certain conceptions of citizenship.To optimize its public value, the law school that embraces professionalism should take pains to ensure it retains its robust meaning. It can do so by locating discussions about public purpose in the privileged parts of the law school, and by investing in pedagogical innovations that truly integrate conceptions of “citizen” and “lawyer.” These efforts should be supplemented by innovations that promote diverse conceptions of the citizen that do not fit cleanly into the rubric of professionalism
Wigs, Skeletons, Bibs, Bands, and Bundles: An Albertan Barrister Deciphers the English Court of Appeal (Criminal Division)
Get PDFThere are a number of features of British criminal appeals which differ from the Canadian justice system. This article explores these differences by reviewing the changes and customs adopted by the English Court of Appeal (Criminal Division)
Direct Payment Clauses and the Fraud Upon the Bankruptcy Law Principle: Re Horizon Earthworks Ltd. (Bankrupt)
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The Future of Law School: Three Visions and a Prediction
Get PDFIn 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 participation as citizens in the broader economy and polity. Although the future of law schools is contested and uncertain, the author predicts, law schools will be celebrated in the long term for their distinguished scholarship, their contributions to the public good, and their role as agents of change rather than for skills training, their influence on day-to-day legal practice, and their purveying of conventional wisdom
Forgotten? The Role of Graduate Legal Education in the Future of the Law Faculty
Get PDFIn this article, the authors argue that the longstanding trend of excluding graduate studies in law from the discourse on legal education has detrimental effects on both the discourse and the future of the law faculty. More specifically, disregarding graduate legal education is at odds with the reality of graduate studies in Canadian law faculties today, ignores the challenges of graduate programs in law, and perpetuates inaccurate distinctions about both the career aspirations of law students and the relationship between undergraduate and graduate legal studies. In the authors’ view, these concerns can be overcome by reframing the discourse. Once the purpose of legal education is understood to be the cultivation of jurists and the law faculty is seen as an integrated whole of people, place, and program, graduate legal education moves easily into the discussion on the future of the law faculty. Including graduate studies in the discourse is an opportunity to explore, and be hopeful about, the institutional missions of law faculties and their place in the university, the optimization of legal education at all levels, and the methods by which participants in graduate studies should fulfill their responsibilities to the future of the discipline
Experience the Future of Legal Education
Get PDFThis 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 shift for the future of legal education, and the blurring lines between law school and transitional professional education in law such as articling and Practical/Professional Legal Training Courses (PLTCs). Finally, a number of perspectives and research initiatives are presented to suggest that the benefits of an effectively designed experiential model are far reaching, from a learning environment that caters most effectively to the way in which students learn and access information, to increasing engagement with community needs, to the positive impacts on student wellness. Therefore, the article illustrates the significance of the experiential shift in legal education in the Canadian context as a critical driver in the evolution of the law school and professional legal education
Misguided Inferences? The Use of Expressio Unius to Interpret Tax Law
Get PDFThis article explores how the interpretive canon of expressio unius has been used by the courts when interpreting the Income Tax Act, and discusses the canon’s place within the landscape of statutory interpretation of income tax law. The article reviews the existing literature to describe the canon, the assumptions on which the canon relies, and the reasons in favour of and against the canon’s use. The ultimate conclusion is there is some value in the interpretive tool, but it should be used only to prompt interpreters to ask questions instead of prompting them to draw conclusions. While canons of interpretation are generally considered textualist in nature, expressio unius type reasoning is often used as a way of taking into account the context of a particular provision. Another problem apparent in the case law is that the canon, also called implied exclusion, is often confused with the canon of implied exception. The article also examines court decisions that apply or reject the use of expressio unius when interpreting the Income Tax Act. Finally, the article proposes factors that should be considered when determining whether expressio unius should be used in a particular tax case
Underground Coal Gasification: A Regulatory Framework for Alberta
Get PDFUnderground Coal Gasification (UCG) is a new emerging clean coal technology. It holds promise for reaching and making use of very deep coal seams that technically could not otherwise have been mined at these depths. UCG technology and knowledge developed significantly during the 20th century. Countries around the world with large coal deposits sustain and promote UCG research and launch projects with the intention to commercially deploy UCG. Alberta currently hosts two UCG projects, and a third project is under consideration. The development of these projects suggested the need for a UCG specific regulatory approval process. In 2011, Alberta enacted specific UCG legislation. This article deals with recent developments in UCG technology and its regulations. The aim of this article is to present Alberta’s current UCG regulatory framework as a model for other jurisdictions
History of Factums
Get PDFThe history of the factum in Canada is little known but greatly significant in the development of written argument. Written argument grew alongside the oral legal tradition. The factum developed in Canada in an unorthodox way. Unlike most Canadian laws and procedures, which find their roots in common law England, the factum originated in Quebec’s civil jurisdiction before being adopted in the NorthwestTerritories. This article explores the evolution of written argument and the historical use of the factum in the United Kingdom and Canada and details the practice of factum use in Alberta particularly
Practical Legal Research
Get PDFKeeping current with changes in the law is fundamental for law students, lawyers, and judges. Effective skills in legal research are necessary to accomplish this goal. Unfortunately, most guidance on legal research tends towards either overly laborioustechniques or the use of shortcuts. This article addresses this issue by providing a practical, realistic, balanced, reliable, and flexible approach to the research that is critical in the legal profession