Canadian Lawyer

w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m J U N E 2 0 1 6 45 W W hen discussing the future of education and intellectual property with law professors, administrators, lawyers, and clients, the concept that comes up most often is "experiential learning" — sometimes discussed with pride and excitement, at other times with skepticism. And that is not the only thing these varied sources agree on. The consensus among those working in IP, whether in academia or in the real world, seems to be that how Canadian universities teach IP today, and the plans they have to teach it in the future, are more progressive and innovative than the legal professional itself. There is even a feeling that tomorrow's IP law- yers will be more in tune with what society expects from professionals than many law firms are. As one university executive remarked, there is a "momentum of inertia" in the legal profession, and the best way to address that resistance to change is to train students to innovate. James McGill Professor Richard Gold describes the teaching of IP at Montreal's McGill University as fairly comprehensive. "We have the most diverse faculty in terms of areas and depth of expertise in Canada. We look at all aspects of IP." McGill law is continuing its push towards offering more experien- tial learning, which is cryptically defined as "learning through reflection on doing," but it is often referred to as a "hands-on approach" to education. Beginning with the 2016-2017 year, for example, McGill law students will spend a week per semester outside of the classroom to learn real-life skills, ideally related to law. "What these offerings will be, I don't know," says Gold, but he is pretty sure students will not be taught "how to go around a cocktail party." Regarding the hands-on approach to education, Gold says: "There is an overall trend in all law faculties to do experiential learning, although we've been doing it since the 1990s — we just didn't call it that. Suddenly, it got a name and a movement behind it." Gold sees the future of IP education at his faculty in much the same way as he sees it today, except people will be smarter, hopefully. "The future of teaching intellectual property will be about the realization that context matters. IP in isolation doesn't work. The old school way of teaching IP, one that was quickly abandoned, was about black letter law: 'Every- thing you want to know about patents, everything future future preparing ip for the With legal education in intellectual property, the keywords are 'experiential learning.' By Ava Chisling CARL WIENS, I2I ART intellectual property special report

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