24 F a l l 2 0 1 4 C A N A D I A N L a w y e r 4 s t u d e n t s
H
arry Arthurs knows a thing
or two about legal education.
e 79-year-old has been
a fi xture of Canada's legal
community for more than 50
years. He has served as dean
of Osgoode Hall Law School, president
of York University, and was the author
of "Law and Learning," a 1983 report
that was the fi rst comprehensive ex-
amination of Canadian legal education.
When asked to assess how important
McGill University's introduction of a
"transsystemic" law program in 1999
was, Arthurs is defi nitive. "I think it's
one of the most dramatic changes in
English-language legal education in 100
years," he says.
Arthurs isn't alone in that assess-
ment. Peter L. Strauss, the Betts Pro-
fessor of Law at Columbia University,
calls it the "new Langdellian moment,"
referring to Christopher Columbus
Langdell, the Harvard Law School dean
The
law school law school
future
—
today
of the
McGill's experiment in legal education has
become settled fact. Now it's just waiting for
the rest of the world to catch up.
BY ARSHY MANN
*
CLAUDIO
CALLIGARIS
