Canadian Lawyer

24 M A R C H 2 0 1 8 w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m or Lorne Sossin, the outgo- ing dean of Osgoode Hall Law School, one of the big- gest changes he has noticed about Osgoode over the years is its openness. He recalls that when he studied for his LLB in the early '90s, the law school was "a fortress of mid-'60s brick facades," which he likened to "being in a casi- no" where "you didn't know if it was day or night." Sossin's vision as a dean was a law school that should be outwardly focused, with physical manifestations such as the "floor- to-ceiling" windows in its new building that opened in 2011, a year into his tenure as dean, as well as many initiatives that encouraged law students to engage with their community. He says that when many of the older law school buildings were built in the mid- '60s, the university life and law school were "meant to be this kind of oasis from the world around you [to] come and engage with the big ideas and look inward . . . My vision for it is the exact opposite." And while this vision may be high- minded, a list of Sossin's accomplishments over his time as dean is very much ground- ed in the real world. He speaks with enthu- siasm about how the law school is engaging with the local community most recently through, for example, a partnership with the Duke Heights BIA. This partnership has the law school working with its local community through "social procurement and engaging with the social enterprises and businesses in the area, creating a hub where law students at Osgoode are con- tributing to creating startups, employment opportunities and . . . addressing social marginalization [and] immigration chal- lenges for community members." Sossin again cites the architecture of the law school when it moved to its current location in northwest Toronto, which dis- couraged engagement with the local com- munity, since it "was really built with these moats, big fields and hydro rights-of-way and things to keep . . . the separation from all of the vibrant communities." The Duke Heights BIA project was just one way to counteract that approach. "See- ing all that come together is [a] reuniting of the idea that law schools are in particular places in communities or that universities can play this role to benefit those around them rather than being kind of cut off in time and place from any particular space," he says. Sossin's academic pursuits also illustrate an idealism grounded in reality. While he readily concedes that many of the courses he teaches, such as administrative law and civil procedure, have not been in the areas of law where students "come with their favourite movie characters in mind," for Sossin, those are areas that "affect almost everyone's life almost every day." "I've always been attracted to the ques- tions coming out of law or politics that have really big principles attached to them, big ideas animating them, but have very prac- tical effects on people on a regular basis." C R O S S E X A M I N E D Opening the academy The changing architecture at Osgoode Hall exemplifies Lorne Sossin's vision of a more outwardly focused law school By Tim Wilbur F

• Cover