Canadian Lawyer

28 F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 6 w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m In early January, Lakehead University named Steusser's successor, Angelique EagleWoman. The former law professor from the University of Idaho College of Law will become the first indigenous law dean of a Canadian university. She is con- fident of the future, saying Lakehead's law school is "destined for success" because it responds directly to the profession's con- cerns about legal education through its experiential learning component. "The fact of deans transitioning isn't new; perhaps what's unusual is the num- ber [of transitions] that are happening simultaneously in Canada right now," says Paul Paton, dean of the University of Alberta's law school. "When you think of the number of law schools, it's a pretty hefty proportion, and maybe that points to some institutional challenges that frankly make a deanship a real challenge." Others wondered if the clustered moves are anything more than a coincidence. "If you see a number of departures in any given short period of time, is it meaning- ful beyond the reasons for each of the particular departures?" says Kim Brooks, former Dalhousie law dean. "Law firms deal with this issue all the time. There will be a rush of associates leaving and you ask yourself if there is a cultural issue in terms of the experience the associates are having at the firm or is it that Suzanne needed to work at her family firm and John needed to relocate to Calgary?" Traditionally, law deans served a four- or five-year term and went through a renewal process, says Paton, and many are long-serving. Ian Holloway is entering his sixth year and second term as law dean at the University of Calgary, he previously served as law dean at Western University. Queen's University law dean Bill Flanagan was reappointed for a third term in 2013, and Mary Anne Bobinski left the law dean's office at UBC last year after 12 years of service. But their stories are becoming more unusual as "part of the trend in both Canada and the U.S. has been one-term deans," says Paton. Jim Rosenblatt, dean emeritus and pro- fessor of law at Mississippi College School of Law in the United States, has been tracking the comings and goings of law deans south of the border. "It is my con- clusion that in the last three to four years the deans at American law schools have turned over at a faster rate than before," says Rosenblatt. The average tenure of current serving deans in the U.S. is 4.32 years and the median current tenure is 3.11 years, according to Rosenblatt. He says current deans will, of course, add to that length of tenure as they continue to serve, but even his data for former deans of "more recent vintage" shows a shorter tenure than what some might assume. A database of 186 former deans shows the average tenure was 5.21 years and the median tenure was 4.78 years. In the face of growing challenges and rising pressure for law deans these days, some American law schools have taken to employing co- deans, says Rosenblatt. Whereas for decades Canadian law schools outside of Quebec focused on homogenizing legal education, Holloway says a changing profession is forcing them to offer more diversified programs. Law deans now have the additional pressure of having to situate their schools somewhere on a spectrum that has, on one end, a deeply theoretical curriculum and, on the other end, integrated practical training as a significant component of education. Students, and the profession they aspire to join, now expect more hands-on training in law school. "Legal education is in a period of transformation, chal- lenge, and scrutiny," says Douglas Jud- son, an articling student at McCarthy Tétrault LLP who founded an Ontario law students association while in law school. "It's clear that the old chalk-and- talk, conveyor-belt degree is a thing of the past, and that law deans are called upon to develop strategies to make their JD programs more financially accessible and responsive to the job market, and to be thought leaders in not just the law but in what the supply chain of new lawyers ought to look like." High expectations from virtually all actors in the justice system is the mark of modern law deanship, and as the legal industry faces major and continuous dis- ruptions, those chosen for the job are under pressure to become innovative in training the next generation of lawyers. There is a lot of vested interest in their suc- cess, but "success" means different things to the different parties who are counting on them. "You have your academic obli- gations to the provost or the president of the university, you have your faculty members, you have the judiciary, you have the legal profession — all of whom have a very vested interest in the law school," says Paton. "So you're managing multi- stakeholder constituencies of an order and complexity, as well as magnitude, that I think are different from other faculties." "It's not an easy job at all," Holloway agrees. "Everything you do is potentially the wrong thing in someone's mind." Money matters Law deans past and present say it's at least "noteworthy" that a couple of their coun- terparts who had short-lived tenures were tasked with building the country's newest law schools. "There are some explana- tions for that, and I say that without hav- ing conversations with any of those deans who have left about why they left," says Brooks. "But my guess would be that the challenges of being a dean would be more significant in the inaugural years of a law school than they are once the law school is more established. I have to imagine that it is a more complex set of circumstances that you're negotiating than would be the case for a dean serving at a law school that's been around for a hundred years." Her remarks come as Ryerson Uni- versity in Toronto mulls over the idea of launching what would be the newest Canadian law school. Already the home of the English Law Practice Program and the recently launched Legal Innovation Zone, a law school is "entirely consistent with Ryerson's determination to lead," accord- ing to former attorney general Chris Bent- ley, the executive director of Ryerson's LPP. But with no senior alumni to turn to for donations and without an established reputation to rely on, deans at newer law schools carry greater resource-relat- ed pressures. "I think it can be surpris- ing how expensive a law school is," says Brooks. "There's sort of word on the street that a law school can be self-sustaining and that the tuition levels can now be set high enough that it doesn't actually require much of an infusion of cash from the rest [of the] university to be able to run. I think universities quickly and unexpectedly find that that's not true." But the changing expectations for the role of the law dean are being felt across the board, and the issue of resources is

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