Legal theory as an underpinning of legal scholarship extends beyond questions of policy to theoretical and methodological approaches, such as law and philosophy, law and economics, legal history, law and society, and many others. Graduate students at the Faculty of Law are already exposed to legal theory through our mandatory LLM seminar. The Legal Theory concentration is designed to enable students to deepen and broaden their engagement with legal theory. Students pursuing the concentration will obtain a nuanced understanding of the main theoretical and methodological approaches to law and will have the opportunity to focus their studies on one or more of these approaches.
Elements of the Legal Theory Concentration
The Legal Theory concentration within the Master of Laws (LLM) program enables students to pursue a specific number of course credits (for the coursework-only option), or a combination of credits from a thesis and coursework (for the short or longer thesis options) in the area of Legal Theory. Students in the Legal Theory concentration will also take the mandatory 3-credit seminar for students in the concentrations, Foundations of Legal Theory, as well as the mandatory LLM Seminar. Entry into the concentration is on a competitive basis and participation in the concentration will be limited to a relatively small group of students in the LLM program.
Aside from the mandatory Foundations of Legal Theory seminar, studies within the concentration can be based either on coursework in legal theory or, for those writing a thesis, a on combination of both coursework and a thesis related to legal theory.
Click below for a list of our Faculty’s courses in the Legal Theory area during the 2023-2024 academic year.
Upon acceptance into the concentration, each student’s course selection will be reviewed in order to ensure that an appropriate number of credits are devoted to legal theory.
Students in the legal theory concentration will likely be particularly interested in attending our regular and highly-regarded Legal Theory Workshops, which bring leading legal and political philosophers from around the world to present their work in progress, providing a forum for both faculty and students to discuss central topics in Legal Theory. The Legal Theory Workshop can be taken on a for credit-basis or can be attended on a non-credit basis.
Why the University of Toronto?
The Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto is one of the strongest faculties internationally in the field of Legal Theory. One indication of this strength is the number of our faculty members who hold joint appointments with the University’s equally renowned Department of Philosophy. But our Legal Theory strength is not confined to the study of philosophy of law in the traditional way. Indeed, what makes the Faculty of Law’s approach to Legal Theory distinctive, even unique, is that engagement with a wide variety of theoretical approaches occurs for the most part in the context of inquires into legal doctrine and concrete legal problems. At the Faculty, one is less likely to encounter Legal Theory in a course devoted to the likes of Hart, Fuller or Dworkin than in a course on property law, contract law, criminal law, or constitutional law. Moreover, this distinctive characteristic means that scholars whose inquiries are informed by a law and economics perspective, or by enquiries that are more empirical in nature, are fully engaged in the same debates as their colleagues who might take their inspiration from, for example, Hobbes, Kant, Hegel, Arendt, Kelsen, Hart, Fuller, Dworkin, or Foucault. The LLM concentration in Legal Theory offers a flexible way to experience the rich offerings of the highly pluralistic Toronto ‘School’ of Legal Theory.
Who Should Pursue the Legal Theory Concentration?
Students who are interested in careers in legal academia are traditionally particularly attracted to Legal Theory programs, as legal scholars today are commonly engaged in a range of doctrinal, policy and theoretical debates. In addition, students wishing to broaden their thinking on the law will find that the concentration offers them a high-level, demanding, and rewarding approach to graduate studies in law.
