Forgotten? The Role of Graduate Legal Education in the Future of the Law Faculty

Abstract

In 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.

The Distinctive Nature of Academic Integrity in Graduate Legal Education

“…Canadian graduate legal education is typically absent from discussions about legal education (Jukier & Glover, 2014), although Law and Learning, the 1983 Report to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada by the Consultative Group on Research and Education in Law was an exception. Graduate education in law has also very rarely been the sole focus of scholarly inquiry (Anand, 2004).…”

Disciplinary differences in doctoral student engagement in generic skills learning

“…Missing in the literature are studies of the disciplinary trends in students’ generic skills learning experience. Many doctoral students will take leading roles in societies (Jukier and Glover, 2014). Understanding how doctoral education is implemented in disciplines is important to envision how future leaders are trained (McAlpine and Norton, 2006; Posselt, 2015).…”