Class of 2019 on Orientation Day (L); participating in the KAIROS blanket exercise (R).
Just as medical students don't wake up suddenly able to perform open heart surgery, law students don't magically wake up with the skills to argue a case in front of the Supreme Court, or guide a client through a corporate merger. As with any profession, training takes time, and it has to begin somewhere. So where do law students begin?
First-year law students at the University of Alberta take a course called Foundations of Law, designed to introduce them to the law and the basic legal concepts - how to read, think about, and understand a case, for example - they will need to know to be successful in law school. The curriculum includes the common law legal process, sources of law in Canada, and explains why English Canada follows common law and Quebec the civil code. Students also learn how legislative, regulatory, and administrative agencies work, and are taught the history and structure of the courts and judicial appointments.
Students usually take Foundations for the entirety of their first year of law school, but this year the Faculty piloted a new approach: condensing the course into the first two weeks.
"We condensed Foundations for two main reasons," said Vice Dean Moin Yahya, the lead professor for the course. "One, we felt that it was important for the entire first-year class to be together as a group for a concentrated period of time just as they arrived at law school; and two, so that students can learn the foundational knowledge they need to be successful in law school at the beginning of their academic journey, before they begin their other core courses."
For the Class of 2019, the scheduling of Foundations was not the only thing changed from previous years; the curriculum was also expanded to include a concentrated unit and dialogue on sexual assault, and an examination of Aboriginal and Indigenous legal traditions in Canada.
"Including an examination of these issues in the Foundations course was incredibly important - not just for students' legal competency, but also because of our shared responsibility as officers of the court and our role as leaders in Canadian society," said Dean Paul Paton. "Our students will be learning about sexual assault and Aboriginal and Indigenous legal traditions in law school - and they will be encountering these issues in whichever aspect of the law they choose to practice - so it made sense to us that the Foundations curriculum be revised so that students learn about and understand these issues at the beginning of law school."
Professor Tamara Buckwold led the unit on sexual assault awareness, which included a presentation from the University's Sexual Assault Centre on a number of issues, including the importance of consent, misconceptions around sexual assault, and an overview of the Centre's services; and a panel discussion with two lawyers - one a Crown prosecutor and the other defense counsel - about how each handle with respect issues of sexual assault in their legal practice.
"We added units to the Foundations course designed to highlight the lived experience of the people who are involved in legal practice," said Prof. Buckwold. "We want our students to think about and develop some mature understandings about the difficult issues - the human issues - that they're going to be addressing in their lives as law students and as lawyers."
During the Other Sources of Law component of the Foundations curriculum, students were introduced to Aboriginal and Indigenous legal traditions and had classroom discussions around issues raised in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) report.
"The Faculty of Law is committed to ensuring that our law students enter the legal profession with knowledge of Indigenous laws and legal traditions, a firm understanding of the application of Canadian law to Indigenous peoples, and the skills to interact with respect and understanding with people from a variety of Indigenous societies," said Dean Paton.
To reinforce the classroom curriculum, students participated in the KAIROS blanket exercise - a first for the Faculty of Law - an interactive exercise designed to walk participants through hundreds of years of Indigenous and Canadian history in less than three hours.
Led by emcee Jodi Stonehouse from the Office of the Provost and the Faculty of Native Studies, the blanket exercise was facilitated by Dr. Tracy Bear of the Faculty of Native Studies, and Ms. Koren Lightning-Earle, a Faculty of Law alumna and president of the Indigenous Bar Association. Dr. Hadley Friedland, Visiting Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Law, was instrumental in including the blanket exercise in the Foundations curriculum and adapting it to include Indigenous legal issues.
"The purpose of including the blanket exercise in the Foundations curriculum was to highlight the effects of law, legislation, and policy on the lives of Indigenous peoples in Canada," said Dr. Friedland. "The TRC calls on law schools to ensure that our students learn about Indigenous laws, Crown-Aboriginal relations, and the devastating consequences of colonialism and intergenerational injustice. Law has played a huge role in bringing us to where we are today, so the legal profession has an important role to play in reconciliation. Having an exercise that focuses on this as part of our Foundations curriculum sends a strong message to our students that for this generation of future lawyers, Indigenous laws and legal issues are not peripheral, but rather of central importance to their legal education and ethical practice."
Dean Paton added that including the blanket exercise in the Foundations course was an important aspect of the Faculty's response to the call in the University of Alberta's Institutional Strategic Plan For the Public Good to develop, in consultation and collaboration with internal and external community stakeholders, a thoughtful, respectful, meaningful, and sustainable response to the TRC report.
"By piloting the blanket exercise, our students have helped us to explore how we might thoughtfully approach these issues of importance and concern," he said.
Want to step into a first-year law student's shoes and learn more about the Foundations course? Click here to view our short video.