New Integrated Practice and Problem-Based Learning Courses Give Students a Chance to Use Knowledge and Develop Skills in a Canadian Context

Ten years in, the Canadian Common Law specialization continues to grow and innovate. Among the long list of courses, such as The Law of Obligations, Legal Drafting, and Civil & Administrative Procedure, students can take advantage of an increasing number of problem-based learning (PBL) courses and a new suite of integrated practice courses. These courses introduce new ways of learning law and have been especially designed for Professional LLM students, who already have a law degree from another jurisdiction along with law-related work experience. The courses, which are offered fully online, introduce students to course content through a problem or series of problems that provide them with an opportunity to learn and use law at the same time and to develop a wide range of skills in the Canadian context.

This spring and summer, OsgoodePD offered two new PBL courses that garnered enthusiastic feedback from students. In Canadian Administrative Law, taught by Brydie Bethell and Ben Kates, students worked through a pair of administrative law problems, focusing both on substantive legal questions and how they would advise a client to proceed given a number of options with different likelihoods of success and different remedies. In Canadian Contract Law, taught by Jonathan Mackenzie, students not only learn the fundamentals of contract law but also engage in drafting and analysis of contracts, activities that are often absent from traditional contract law courses. These new courses join a number of other problem-based learning offerings, including Canadian Constitutional Law, Canadian Criminal Law, Canadian Tort Law, and Canadian Professional Responsibility.

This academic year, students will be offered the chance to participate in a new trio of integrated practice courses that were expressly designed by Shelley Kierstead and Germán Morales Farah to give students a chance to develop practice skills in a Canadian context while using their growing knowledge of Canadian common law. Students will begin in the fall with a two-term course on Canadian Legal Strategy, Research, and Writing (LSRW). The course focuses on a litigation case file, along with a handful of other scenarios, and goes beyond the traditional LRW curriculum to include client interviews and consultation meetings using simulated clients, opportunities to provide strategic advice, and experience drafting practice documents, opinion letters, and memoranda of law. In the winter, Canadian Business Transactions will follow a problem-based learning format that also includes planning due diligence and reviewing regulatory searches, along with a simulated negotiation. In the summer term, students who have successfully completed both LSRW and Business Transactions will be able to take the capstone course, Canadian Law in Practice, which will put students into virtual firms to complete a litigation file and a transactional file with coaching from practitioners who act as partners in the firm. The courses build on each other, allowing students to deepen their knowledge and skills throughout the year.

Audrey Fried – Osgoode Professional Development
Director of Faculty & Curriculum Development