PROGRAM REVIEW

(Draft for discussion prepared by Dr. Julian Hermida)

GENERAL COMMENTS ABOUT THE DIRECTION OF THE LAW AND JUSTICE PROGRAMS

• The Law and Justice programs should be conceived as a broadly based liberal arts education with a focus on law.

• The general aim of the Law and Justice programs should be the same as that of liberal arts education: to foster a general understanding of culture, history, society, sciences, and social organization. This can be achieved by considering law as a social phenomenon and as a social institution, by seeing its connections with culture and society in all aspects and dimensions, and by connecting legal theory with the Humanities and Social Sciences.

• Specifically, the goal of the programs should be a critical assessment of the law in different legal traditions and cultures, taking into account multiple theoretical perspectives.

• The study of law should be broad both in its historical and spatial dimensions. It should not be limited to the here and now, as occurs in Law Schools, which implies restricting the study of the law to the current law of the jurisdiction where the Law School is situated.

• The programs should consider law in different legal traditions and cultures, e.g., Aboriginal legal tradition, Common Law, Civil Law, Islamic Law, Hindu Law, Talmudic Law. This will be in consonance with Algoma University’s vision to serve its distinctive student population.

• The programs should also recognize that law is understood as a broad social phenomenon, which emanates from different sources and which is negotiated, followed, and interpreted by a myriad of social actors.

• The programs should approach Law and legal scholarship as an autonomous discipline, but they should also give ample room to the interdisciplinary perspectives on Law that come from the Social Sciences.

· The programs should provide students with a broad liberal education different from professional legal education taught in Law Schools. Thus, they should move away from professional issues and should not focus on law as a professional tool. Law should not be treated as a subject for professionals and practitioners who must understand the law to use it to serve the interests of their clients. The teaching of Law should not be reduced to the analysis of rules as applied to facts by dissecting predominantly contemporaneous edited appellate decisions of the jurisdiction where the school is located. Instead, law should be conceived as a social institution, and the teaching of Law should include a historical and contemporary analysis of different legal traditions and legal cultures through a myriad of theoretical legal perspectives and by profiting from the contributions of other Social Science disciplines.

· The Law and Justice program should focus on the following areas: (i) legal theories, (ii) law across legal traditions and legal cultures, and (iii) the contribution of other disciplines to the study of law. Students should have to take courses from each of these areas.

· These three broad areas could include some of the following courses or a combination of these or similar courses:

Legal Theory

• Legal theory
• Method of legal reasoning
• Postmodern and Feminist legal theories
• Critical Legal Studies
• Legal pluralism
• Justice theories
• Legal research methods
• Special topics for faculty to teach specific courses related to their interests and research.
• Thesis and research seminar (for 4^th year students)

Legal Traditions and Legal Cultures

• Aboriginal Law
• Canadian common law (and a few courses on, for example, Canadian Criminal Law, Canadian Constitutional and Charter Law, and Canadian commercial law)
• Civil Law (Quebec, Europe, Latin America)
• Islamic Law
• Talmudic Law
• Comparative Law
• Global Law and Justice (a critical approach to International Law and Justice, including International Development topics from a Global South perspective).
• Courses on specific legal problems, such as crime, protection of the environment, family, and commerce, analyzed across different legal traditions and cultures.
• Special topics for faculty to teach specific courses related to their interests and research.

Interdisciplinary study of Law

• Law and Politics
• Sociology of Law
• Law and Popular culture (Cultural Studies of Law)
• Law and Literature
• Legal ethics
• Philosophy of Law
• History of Law
• Legal Anthropology
• Special topics for faculty to teach specific courses related to their interests and research.

Proposed learning outcomes of the Law and Justice programs

First year

General learning outcomes to be taught by faculty outside Law and Justice

• Strong mathematical skills.

• Strong academic reading and writing skills in English.

• Working knowledge of at least a second language.

• Computer skills

• General knowledge of sciences, Social Sciences, Humanities, and Arts.

Specific learning outcomes to be taught by Law and Justice faculty

• Understanding of law as a social institution.

• Appreciation of the existence of different legal traditions and cultures.

• Familiarity with the history of the legal discipline.

• Value of the contributions of other Social Science disciplines to Law.

2^nd and 3^rd years

• Reading skills:

• Students should be able to read, interpret, and critique a broad array of legal texts from different legal traditions and cultures, including journal articles, law books, Social Science texts on Law and Justice, governmental reports, and non mainstream representations of law. Students should also be able to read and interpret media texts, such as documentaries on Law and Justice topics, legal films, and other texts representing or depicting law and legal problems.

• Writing skills:

• Students should be able to write effective texts on Law and Justice (but not legal documents used for legal practice). Students should also be able to produce media texts on Law and Justice topics, such as documentaries, news programs, videotaped interviews, etc.

• Analysis of legal problems from multitude theoretical perspectives.

• Familiarity with different legal traditions and cultures.

4^th year

• Acquisition of research skills and knowledge of different research methodologies (quantitative, qualitative, legal).

• Completion of thesis.

• Possibility of deepening the knowledge in one or more areas of the Law and Justice programs through research and courses.

Other recommendations

• Adopt strong international exchange programs with foreign universities so as to provide students with the possibility of acquiring a unique insight of different cultures, including aboriginal cultures in other countries.
• Join the Consortium for Undergraduate Law and Justice Programs, an organization for colleges and universities that have interdisciplinary programs geared toward undergraduate education about law and justice.