"Can Legal Ethics be Taught?"

Friday, April 4, 2008

Centre for Professionalism, Ethics and Public Service

University of Toronto
Faculty of Law

Flavelle House,
78 Queen's Park Crescent
Classroom A

The one-day Symposium "Can Legal Ethics be Taught?" was organized by the Faculty of Law's new Centre for Professionalism, Ethics and Public Service.  The Centre has been established to foster research, education, outreach, advocacy and dialogue related to the fields of professionalism, ethics and public service.

The Centre's inaugural symposium examined the future of legal ethics in legal education. Can legal ethics be taught in the classroom, or is an experiential learning environment required?  Should a course on ethics be a mandatory feature of the law school curriculum, and if so, what ought it to cover, and how ought it to be taught? Is there a shared understanding of what is included under the umbrella of legal ethics and does a diversity of approaches enhance or undermine the goals of legal education? Is there a role for legal regulators, law firms and legal organizations in teaching legal ethics, and if so, how should this dovetail with how legal ethics are taught in law school?

We are very grateful to the Law Foundation of Ontario for their generous support, which made this conference possible.

Speakers and moderators included: Janine Benedet (UBC), Richard Devlin (Dalhousie), Adam Dodek (Toronto), Jocelyn Downie (Dalhousie), Trevor Farrow (Osgoode), Randal Graham (Western), Allan Hutchinson (Osgoode), Janet Leiper (Osgoode), Janet Mosher (Osgoode), Paul Paton (Queen's), Stephen Pitel (Western), Robert Wai (Osgoode) & Alice Woolley (Calgary).

• Program (PDF)
• Speaker and moderator biographies (PDF)
• Conference poster (PDF)
• Centre for Professionalism, Ethics and Public Service

Symposium Report

• "Can Legal Ethics be Taught?" Report (PDF)

Resources

• Ethical Lawyering in a Global Community course outline: Part I and Part II (PDFs)
• Task force on accreditation of Canadian common law degrees (PDF)
• Licensing and accreditation task force consultation report (PDF)
• Comparison of Professional Responsibility Training Across Canada (2008) (PDF)  
• Osgoode Experiment
  • First Year Curriculum Reform Proposals (PDF)
  • First Year Curriculum Reform Proposals - Appendix (PDF) ("Incorporating Professional Responsibility and Legal Ethics into the First Year Curriculum" - Janet Mosher)
• Janet Leiper presentation (Powerpoint)