Canadian Official Guide

Ignat Kaneff Building, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario, M3J 1P3
Phone: 416.736.5712
Internet: www.osgoode.yorku.ca | E-mail: admissions@osgoode.yorku.ca

View Important Information for Applicants to Ontario Law Schools.

Introduction

Osgoode Hall Law School has a rigorous, diverse, and forward-looking curriculum that prepares students for the widest range of careers in law. We encourage critical thinking and attempt to provide a combination of theoretical perspectives along with practical, hands-on knowledge through our intensive and clinical programs. A degree from Osgoode Hall Law School is an internationally recognized credential that opens doors not only in the legal profession, but in government, public service, business, and nongovernmental organizations.

Osgoode is the oldest law school in Ontario and is among the largest common-law law schools in Canada. The Law School's size allows for an exceptionally diverse curriculum, which enables students to choose an academic program substantially tailored to their own academic interests and career aspirations. Osgoode has an internationally renowned faculty and a wonderful array of talented adjunct faculty members from the Toronto bench and bar. Few law schools in the Commonwealth can compare to Osgoode's faculty in terms of the quality of their research and the influence that research has had, and continues to have, on the directions taken by the law, by public policy, and by legal scholarship. Thoughtful, articulate, and scholarly in their approach to teaching, our full-time and adjunct faculty make the study of law a meaningful engagement with relevant and challenging issues, and they make the learning experience one of the great pleasures of attending Osgoode.

Osgoode Hall Law School is part of the 600-acre York University campus, located in the northwest area of metropolitan Toronto. In the fall of 2011, the Law School opened the doors of its newly renovated and expanded building—a building that complements the highest quality in legal education and student experience. A central part of the building project was the complete renovation and redesign of Osgoode Hall Law School Library. As one of the largest law libraries in Canada, Osgoode Hall Law School Library is a superior resource for students and faculty alike. Osgoode also houses a number of nationally and internationally recognized research centres: the Hennick Centre for Business and Law, IP Osgoode, the Law Commission of Ontario, the York University Centre for Public Law and Public Policy, the Institute for Feminist Legal Studies, the Jack and Mae Nathanson Centre on Transnational Human Rights, Crime and Security, the Critical Research Laboratory in Law and Society, and the Ontario Legal Philosophy Partnership.

School tours are available by contacting recruitment@osgoode.yorku.ca.

Enrollment/Student Body

• 3,136 applicants
• 571 first-year offers for 2012
• 299 enrolled first-year class 2012
• 53 percent women

Faculty

• 160 total
• 57 full time
• 103 part time or adjunct
• 5 visiting
• 44 percent full-time faculty are women
• 29 percent adjunct faculty are women

Curriculum

• Degrees available—JD, JD/MBA (Schulich School of Business), JD/MES (Faculty of Environmental Studies), JD/ MA in Philosophy (Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies), Common Law/Droit Civil Bachelor of Laws (with the Université de Montréal), LLM, PhD
• Numerous international summer and academic exchange opportunities
• The most extensive clinical education offerings in Canada (see "Special Programs" below)

Osgoode offers a rich academic curriculum taught by dynamic and renowned professors. There are numerous special programs and activities in which students can participate over and above the regular academic program.

The basic teaching unit for the first year is a group of 75 students. Students take five courses during each of two semesters. A number of first-year classes are offered in a combination of large lectures and smaller groups of about 25 students, which allows students to get to know classmates and faculty better. The second and third years of the program offer students an opportunity to design a course of study especially suited to their particular interests and career aspirations, including participation in an intensive or clinical program, an international exchange, or one of four optional curricular streams (international law, litigation, labour and employment law, and tax law). In designing their upper-year course of study, students must ensure that they take a minimum of 60 credits over the second and third year, satisfy the second- and third-year research and writing requirement, complete the new practicum/experiential learning requirement, and complete 40 hours of unpaid public interest legal work as part of Osgoode's innovative Public Interest Requirement.

Special Programs

Osgoode Hall Law School has continued to expand its innovative, intensive, and clinical teaching programs. Students are able to pursue intensive programs in Business Law; Intellectual Property Law; Disability Law; Antidiscrimination Law; Criminal Law; Immigration and Refugee Law; and Land, Resources, and First Nations Government. They may also study Poverty Law at Parkdale Community Legal Services and participate in the Community and Legal Aid Services Program (CLASP), an on-site, student-run legal clinic, or the Innocence Project, which involves working on cases of suspected wrongful conviction. Students interested in public interest work can also participate in the Ian Scott Public Interest Internship Program, the Summer Public Interest Advocacy Program, Pro Bono Students Canada, and LAWS (Law in Action in Schools).

Osgoode Hall Law School offers three four-year joint-degree programs—JD/MBA degree with York University's Schulich School of Business (an accelerated three-year JD/MBA is also available); JD/MES degree with the York's Faculty of Environmental Studies; and a JD/MA (Philosophy) degree with York's Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies.

Osgoode and the Université de Montréal, Faculté de Droit, have established a program for the granting of the Osgoode degree in common law and the Montréal degree in civil law for law graduates from either institution. An Osgoode JD graduate is given two years advanced standing toward the Montréal civil law degree and, on successful completion of one year of study in civil law at l'Université de Montréal, will be awarded the Montréal BCL degree.

International experience has become increasingly valuable for law students pursuing diverse career paths. Osgoode students have the benefit of participating in any number of Osgoode and York international-sponsored exchange programs during the academic year. Some places that our students study include Australia, India, Singapore, France, Ireland, Italy, England, the Netherlands, Finland, Germany, Scotland, and Japan, as well as the Université de Montréal, Canada.

Osgoode Public Interest Requirement (OPIR)

In 2007, Osgoode became the first Canadian law school to adopt an innovative law-related public interest service requirement as a condition for graduation for all Osgoode students. Through OPIR, students have an opportunity to observe law in action in an expansive range of practice settings. OPIR engages students in active reflection on the obligation of the legal profession to foster the public interest and contribute to access to justice.

Library

The Osgoode Hall Law School Library is a leader in the innovative provision of information and services on Canadian law and law in context. It is the largest law library in Canada, with extensive holdings in all areas of law. The purpose-built Canada Law Book Rare Book Room contains the world's largest collection of historical (pre-1900) Canadian legal texts and primary sources and a significant collection of early English and American law books. These outstanding print collections, of international calibre, are supplemented by a growing range of online and digital resources, including Bloomberg Law, LexisNexis, Quicklaw, and Westlaw Canada, to which all members of the Osgoode community have access. There are many country and topic-specific resources that provide researchers with in-depth access to the laws of Australia, India, the Caribbean, International commercial arbitration and United Nations treaties and documents. With a full complement of professional law librarians, the library offers a full range of services to students and researchers to match the quality of its outstanding resources.

• New library opened in September 2011
• Over 500,000 bound volumes and volume equivalents—largest in Canada
• 5 full-time professional law librarians, 12 other support staff
• Open 81 hours per week, with extended hours before and during exams
• Seats over 400, with 12 group-study rooms
• Wireless Internet throughout, with ready access to all major legal databases
• Training for online legal research

Osgoode Technology

Osgoode is committed to being the leading Canadian law school in the use of information technology and boasts a technology infrastructure that supports the traditional classroom and collaborative social spaces. Osgoode has a comprehensive E-Exam program, permitting students to use their laptop or school desktop computers to write their exams. Faculty and students are invited to pilot emerging technologies to address the rapid pace of change in digital learning tools.

Osgoode Chambers—Student Residence

Osgoode Chambers provides law students with the opportunity to live among both first-year and upper-year law students, as well as graduate students. Located across the street from the Law School in the award-winning Passy Gardens housing complex, Osgoode Chambers offers furnished bachelor and one-bedroom townhouse suites in a courtyard setting. Every suite is self-contained with a kitchen and bathroom, and wireless Internet access is provided. Laundry facilities are centrally located. The York University campus has 24-hour security as well as the "Go Safe" escort program and public transit direct to the subway.

Incoming first-year Osgoode students, who firmly accept Osgoode's offer of admission, are guaranteed accommodation at Osgoode Chambers for the full three years of study as long as they hold a continuous 12-month lease. Suites are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.

Student Activities

Osgoode Hall Law School provides students with a wide variety of extracurricular activities. Osgoode is particularly proud of its students' many international and national successes in mooting and lawyering competitions. The Law School enters many competitive appellate moot and trial advocacy mooting competitions every year, as well as client counselling and mediation competitions. They involve issues of civil and criminal constitutional litigation, international law, federal administrative law, and corporate-securities law. Participation in the mooting program gives students the opportunity to gain invaluable research and advocacy skills.

The Osgoode Hall Law Journal, overseen by the student and faculty Board of Directors, is published four times a year and the Obiter Dicta is a weekly student newspaper published throughout the year. These, along with the many other cocurricular and extracurricular activities, are primarily driven by enthusiastic and dedicated Osgoode students who share common interests in any number of social, cultural, political, and athletic clubs.

Osgoode students make key contributions to the operational and administrative policies of the Law School. The Legal and Literary Society (founded in 1876) is the official student government of Osgoode Hall Law School and is responsible for coordinating and funding the numerous professional, athletic, social, and extracurricular activities at Osgoode. The Student Caucus represents and promotes student welfare and interests on Osgoode's Faculty Council.

Expenses and Financial Aid

• Approximate tuition and fees—full-time tuition $21,454 (2012–2013 incoming students) plus approximately $890 ancillary fees; fees for 2013–2014 will be confirmed in the spring of 2013
• Estimated cost for books—$1,000
• Scholarships available—entrance and upper year, performance, and need based
• Financial aid assistance available

For additional information, go to www.osgoode.yorku.ca/financial_services.

Osgoode attracts the best and brightest students and strives to ensure that people from diverse backgrounds have access to our programs throughout their years of study. In 2013–2014, Osgoode anticipates awarding upwards of $3 million in bursaries alone to students who apply and demonstrate documented financial need. In addition, Osgoode has a wealth of scholarships and awards available to first-year and upper-year students on the basis of academic excellence and financial need. The Law School's financial assistance program also includes on-site financial support, advice, programming, and an innovative student loan arrangement with the Royal Bank. As well, Osgoode students have the advantage and the convenience of numerous on-campus housing units, particularly Osgoode Chambers, located adjacent to the Law School and reserved specifically for law and graduate students.

Career Development

Osgoode Hall Law School graduates are practising across Canada and the United States, as well as following in a variety of nontraditional career paths. The Career Development Office is staffed by four full-time professionals, as well as part-time student coordinators. The office provides individual career coaching, résumé review, mock interviews, job postings, programs and workshops, and extensive resources and reference materials, in addition to hosting events to bring together students and prospective employers. The office provides assistance to students in their search for both summer and articling positions, annually hosting summer and articling job fairs, public interest law information fairs, and on-campus interview programs for employers from Toronto, New York, and Eastern and Western Canadian law firms.

Experiential Education

In 2012, Osgoode Hall Law School became the first Canadian law school to open an Office of Experiential Education. The function of this office is to provide high-quality and diverse experiential opportunities for students throughout their time at Osgoode. Beginning with the class of 2015, every student who graduates from Osgoode Hall Law School is required to have completed a minimum of one experiential opportunity. This new requirement ensures that all Osgoode graduates have a solid foundation of professional skills required to practice law and a keen appreciation of how the theory of law applies in practice.

Fourteen different clinical and intensive programs are available for students to choose from. These programs are varied in terms of both subject matter and program models, offering students a great deal of flexibility in how they structure their Osgoode experience. The programs currently offered include:

• Aboriginal Lands, Resources & Governments Intensive
• Advanced Business Law Workshop—Corporate Finance
• Advanced Business Law Workshop—Mergers and Acquisitions
• Anti-Discrimination Intensive
• Business Law Intensive
• Community and Legal Aid Services Programme (CLASP)
• Criminal Law Intensive
• Disability Law Intensive
• Immigration & Refugee Law Intensive
• Innocence Project
• IP Law & Technology Intensive
• Mediation Intensive Clinic
• Osgoode Business Clinic
• Poverty Law Intensive at Parkdale Community Legal Aid Clinic

Osgoode also has an extensive mooting and lawyer skills competition program. Osgoode participates in over 15 different competitions, across Canada and internationally, each year. Students receive academic credit for their participation in these programs.

In addition to programs available for academic credit, the Office of Experiential Education also facilitates a variety of extracurricular programs where students have the opportunity to gain lawyering skills outside the classroom. These include Osgoode’s chapter of Pro Bono Students Canada and the Family Law Project, Law in Action within Schools (LAWS), the Innovation Clinic, and the Justice and Corporate Accountability Project.

Students can use these (and many other) extracurricular experiences towards the Osgoode Public Interest Requirement (OPIR). OPIR requires students to complete 40 hours of unpaid legal work in the public interest throughout their three years at Osgoode. As part of this program students are engaged in active reflection on the obligation of the legal profession to foster the public interest and contribute to access to justice. Introduced by Osgoode in 2007, it remains the only such requirement in Canada.

Finally, the Office of Experiential Education operates various summer internship and fellowship programs. These programs provide students with the opportunity to put their legal knowledge into action, through paid summer employment. The offerings vary from the Ian Scott Public Interest Fellowships to the McCarthy Tétrault Business Law Internships, providing a variety of opportunities that correspond with the diverse interests of our student body.

Student Success and Wellness

At Osgoode, we understand the important relationship between academic success and personal wellness. The Student Success and Wellness Program, the first of its kind at a Canadian law school, is designed to be an accessible, safe, and confidential support service for Osgoode students navigating challenges or wanting to further develop their personal and academic potential while at law school.

Our Student Success and Wellness Counsellor is an experienced professional in both counselling and law is available to help students by providing individual advising and counselling, group workshops, resources, referrals, and crisis intervention services.

Admission—An Overview

• Three years (15 full-course credits; 90 credit hours) of a bachelor's degree program at a recognized university
• Application deadline—November 1
• Applications available in August
• LSAT required
• Treatment of multiple LSAT scores—highest score used
• Oldest LSAT score accepted—June 2009
• Median GPA—3.93 (4.33 scale)
• Median LSAT score—163
• Application fee—$90

Osgoode Hall Law School's admission policy and procedures stress excellence and equity. We admit an outstanding class of students whose academic abilities, varied experiences, and sustained engagement make a continuing social and intellectual contribution to the law school, the legal profession, and the community.

Our admission policy identifies a diverse and exceptional group of students with a commitment to excellence, demonstrated through academic and other contributions to society. Together with our renowned faculty and dedicated staff, these students form a vibrant intellectual community that contributes to Osgoode's international reputation for leadership in legal education, thoughtful and creative scholarship, the promotion of social justice, and leadership in all aspects of the legal profession. We encourage our students, as part of their education, to be critically aware of, and intimately involved in, access to justice and the advancement of the public interest. Through diverse career paths, our students develop into leaders in all areas of professional and public life.

Osgoode's historical and contemporary leadership role in diversifying and reshaping the legal profession is second to none. Our admission policy recognizes, fosters, and celebrates excellence and equity. We consider academic and LSAT results, significant achievements, and the ways in which barriers created by social inequality can stand between students with a demonstrated intellectual capacity and a legal education. Our admission policy encourages students to identify any barriers that they face in seeking to enter the legal profession. In creating each class, we look for those who can demonstrate not only intellectual achievement, but also a passion for learning and service. We welcome applications from individuals who have demonstrated, through the length and quality of their nonacademic experience, an ability to successfully complete the JD program.

Osgoode is concerned that members of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis do not have substantial representation in the legal profession and, accordingly, strongly encourages applications from these groups. The committee's decision to admit a candidate ultimately depends on its judgment of the candidate's ability to successfully complete law school. The Admissions Committee strongly recommends the Program of Legal Studies for Native People at the University of Saskatchewan prior to entering the Law School.

Applicant Profile

Approved by Faculty Council in 2007, Osgoode’s holistic admission policy and review process was designed with the goal of developing and implementing a comprehensive approach to admissions that

• balances individual and collective considerations;
• establishes a definition of best which incorporates both academic excellence and social diversity;
• maintains open and transparent procedures; and
• broadens the criteria of assessment. 

Our policy moves away from the traditional process of selecting a class based on a number-crunching exercise. Each applicant’s file is scrutinized and measured against the same set of admissions criteria, resulting in a process that enables Osgoode to administer an admission policy that is fair, efficient, and results in a more diverse and academically talented class of entering students. Factors that may be considered include

• the applicant’s university program of study and performance,
• work experience,
• extracurricular activities,
• community involvement,
• personal accomplishments,
• career objectives,
• personal considerations,
• Law School Admission Test score(s), and
• English language proficiency.

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