The Faculty of Law’s new Leadership Skills Program offers a series of innovative workshops to help you develop the key leadership skills required for professional success. Facilitated by industry experts, and developed in consultation with students, alumni and numerous members of the legal profession, the Leadership Skills Program will prepare you to transition from a stellar law student to a highly-regarded and successful summer student, articling student and lawyer.

Managing your social media presence

Tuesday February 14, 2017
12:30 – 2:00 pm
Presenter: Lina Duque

Having a sophisticated and thoughtful presence on multiple social media platforms is now a requirement for professional leaders. This 90-minute seminar will lead you through how to engage social media tools to significantly enhance your professional reputation and network.

To register, click here   . 

“Lawyers Doing Cool Things With Their Law Degrees” is a new series of conversations with alumni about their cool jobs, the important issues they are tackling, and how their law degrees got them there. We are intentionally focusing on alumni who are earlier in their careers and moving the dial on important issues.

The format is casual and intimate—each “Cool Things” alumni speaker will host up to 20 students in one of the law school’s gorgeous new spaces. The law school will supply the refreshments. Alumni speakers will be announced via Headnotes and sign up is by registration on a first-come-first-served basis.

For more information, and to register for a "Cool Things" lunch, click here. 

2017 Grafstein Lecture in Communications 

The Attention Merchants

Professor Tim Wu

Columbia Law School

Moot Court Room, Jackman Law Building

Thursday, March 23, 2017

4:15 pm - 6:00 pm

Join us as Professor Tim Wu of Columbia Law School speaks about his latest book, 'The Attention Merchants', which chronicles the long rise of industries that 'feed on human attention'.

Some press coverage of the book: The Atlantic; New York Times; National Post.

Reception to follow. Book will be available for purchase onsite.

Register today! https://grafstein2017.eventbrite.ca

The Grafstein Annual Lecture in Communications was established by Senator Jerry S. Grafstein, Q.C., Class of 1958, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of his graduation from the Faculty of Law and the 10th anniversary of the graduation of his son, Laurence Grafstein and daughter-in-law, Rebecca Grafstein (nee Weatherhead), both from the Class of 1988.

LAW & ECONOMICS WORKSHOP SERIES
presents 

Paul G. Mahoney
University of Virginia School of Law 

The Regulation of Trading Markets: A Survey and Evaluation
(co-authored with Gabriel Rauterberg, University of Michigan Law School) 

Tuesday, February 7, 2017
4:10 – 5.45
Solarium (room FA2) - Falconer Hall
84 Queen's Park  

The U.S. equity markets have undergone profound changes since the late 20^th century. Electronic order books have almost entirely replaced manual floor- and telephone-based trading. New trading venues and order types have proliferated. Technology made these developments possible, but regulation has also had an important impact on the market’s structural features. This paper surveys market structure regulation and the issues it has raised, including high-frequency trading, non-displayed liquidity, and market centers’ fee structures, each of which has attracted criticism in the popular press and proposals or requests for comment by the Securities and Exchange Commission. We also discuss proposals for alternative market structures. 

Paul G. Mahoney is a David and Mary Harrison Distinguished Professor and served as dean of the Law School from 2008-16. Mahoney's teaching and research areas are securities regulation, law and economic development, corporate finance, financial derivatives and contracts. He has published widely in law reviews and peer-reviewed finance and law and economics journals. His book, "Wasting a Crisis: Why Securities Regulation Fails," was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2015. Mahoney joined the Law School faculty in 1990 after practicing law with the New York firm of Sullivan & Cromwell and clerking for Judge Ralph K. Winter, Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court. He served as academic associate dean at the Law School from 1999 to 2004 and has held the Albert C. BeVier Research Chair and the Brokaw Chair in Corporate Law. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Chicago Law School, the University of Southern California Law School and the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. He has also worked on legal reform projects in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia and Nepal.  Mahoney is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He served as an associate editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives from 2004 to 2007 and as a director of the American Law and Economics Association from 2002 to 2004. He is a past recipient of the All-University Outstanding Teacher Award and the Law School's Traynor Award for excellence in faculty scholarship.

For more workshop information, please contact Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca

ASPER CENTRE CONSTITUTIONAL ROUNDTABLE

presents 

Hugo Cyr
Dean and Professor of Public Law and Legal Theory at the
Université du Québec à Montréal

Normalizing the Exception in Canada 

Thursday, February 9, 2017
12:30 – 2:00
Room J-140, Jackman Law Building
78 Queen's Park 

Extraordinary measures may sometimes be justified as being necessary to deal with exceptional events. Those measures may become normalized when the taboo against taking them is broken and their initial justifications are detached from their repeated uses. In this article, I want to highlight the process of normalization of the exception in the Canadian constitutional context. In particular, I wilI show how a situation of extreme necessity may have pushed the Supreme Court to develop an extraordinary constitutional remedy - the suspension of a judgment of unconstitutionality - and how such remedy was later normalized. In 1985, the Supreme Court of Canada temporarily suspended the effectiveness of its opinion that all the laws adopted by the Province of Manitoba between 1890 and 1985 were unconstitutional. The Supreme Court, ironically, attempted to justify the suspension as being necessary to protect the rule of law. Following that opinion, the Supreme Court gradually went on to use that suspension mechanism in several different contexts. Now, detached from its original justification, this mechanism is used on a purely discretionary basis by judges to suspend the effect of their decisions that certain statutes are unconstitutional. In short, the possibility for Courts to suspend the effectiveness of the Constitution has been normalized, despite the fact that Canada, according to the preamble of the Constitution Act, 1982, is supposedly "founded upon principles that recognize (...) the rule of law".  

Hugo Cyr, LL.B., B.C.L. (McGill), LL.M. (Yale), LL.D. (U. de Montréal), is Dean and Professor of Public Law and Legal Theory at the Université du Québec à Montréal and a member of the Québec Bar. He is a member of the Centre de recherche interdisciplinaire sur la diversité et la démocratie (CRIDAQ). He has been a Boulton Fellow at McGill University, a Schell Fellow at Yale Law School, a law clerk to the Honourable Justice Ian C. Binnie of the Supreme Court of Canada, and a Visiting Researcher at the European Academy of Legal Theory and Visiting Professor at McGill University. He is frequently consulted by governments, media and private parties for his expertise in constitutional law. 

A light lunch will be provided. 

For more workshop information, please contact Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca

THE JAMES HAUSMAN TAX LAW & POLICY WORKSHOP 

presents 

Zachary Liscow
Yale Law School 

Innovation and Climate Law 

Wednesday, February 8, 2017

12:30 - 1:45
Solarium (Room FA2), Falconer Hall
84 Queen's Park 

A common view in environmental law is that the government should not pick certain technologies over others. Rather, in the context of climate policy, this view suggests that the government should impose a carbon tax and let that induce innovation in private sector through the patent system. We offer a qualified defense of the government “picking winners”: directly encouraging innovation in cleantech over dirtytech and even within cleantech. Our argument is largely based on recent research in economics showing “path dependence” in the development of energy technology, suggesting that a big push in cleantech innovation can lead to a permanent reorientation of the energy sector and lead to more emissions reductions at lower cost. This divergence from conventional economic thinking has far-reaching consequences for domestic and international environmental and innovation policy. 

Zachary Liscow is an Associate Professor of Law at Yale Law School. His teaching and research interests focus on tax law, tax policy, empirical legal studies, and law and economics. Liscow earned his Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2012 and graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College in 2005 with degrees in Economics and in Environmental Science and Public Policy. He has been a Staff Economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers and worked for the World Bank's inspector general. Liscow clerked for the Honorable Stephen F. Williams on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

For more workshop information, please contact Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca.

The Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity (MPI-MMG) in collaboration with the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, are offering a unique research opportunity for UofT law students to spend 4 to 6 weeks in Germany conducting supervised research assistance during the summer months, under the guidance of Prof. Ayelet Shachar and Prof. Ran Hirschl. The research projects will focus on topics of citizenship and immigration; law and religion; and comparative constitutionalism. In exceptional cases, the research fellowship may be extended to 8 weeks in total.

The Max Planck Summer Research Fellowship will cover a return (economy) flight ticket from Toronto to Frankfurt, accommodation for the duration of the fellowship, and compensation for 25 hours of research assistance per week. The research fellow will receive an office and library privileges at the Max Planck Institute, located in the scenic university town of Göttingen, which holds the world’s highest ratio of Nobel Prize laureates to residents, and served as home to renowned figures such as Carl Friedrich Gauss, the Grimm Brothers, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Robert Oppenheimer, Max Weber, and Jürgen Habermas, among others.  

Excellent research, writing, and communication skills are required. Previous editorial experience in student run journals or other professional domains is a plus. Communication will be in English; no mastery of German is required. The fellowship may be combined with a German language training course (costs not covered by the fellowship), and/or with time spent on students’ own research projects or intellectual endeavors. The research fellowship may be held anytime between May 15, 2017 and July 31, 2017.

Please send your CV, cover letter, a copy of your transcripts, and a brief academic writing sample (not a case note) to nancy.bueler@utoronto.ca by Feb. 15, 2017.

Almost a year later, the trial and acquittal of Jian Ghomeshi in March 2016 continues to stir controversy about the Canadian criminal justice system’s handling of sexual assault cases. The question which ethical norms should govern defence counsel in these cases is among the many still contentious issues, as evidenced by the recent controversy surrounding an invitation extended to Ghomeshi’s defence lawyer, Marie Henein, to give a university lecture.

This Centre for Ethics event aims to stimulate thoughtful public debate about the important and complex ethical issues raised by sexual assault cases in the criminal process, including not only the role of defence attorneys, but also that of other systems participants, notably prosecutors and judges.

This event is free.

Participants:

Elaine Craig, Associate Professor, Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University, Author of “The Ethical Obligations of Defence Counsel in Sexual Assault Cases” (2014) & “The Ethical Identity of Sexual Assault Lawyers” (2016)

Alison Craig, Partner, Lockyer Campbell Posner, Toronto (Discussant)

Ethics at Noon with Samantha Brennan

Ethics and Our Early Years:

Making Decisions for Children as if Childhood Really Mattered

Samantha Brennan

Professor, Department of Women's Studies and Feminist Research
Member, Rotman Institute of Philosophy
Western University

Samantha Brennan is professor in the Department of Women’s Studies and Feminist Research at Western University. She is also a member of the Rotman Institute of Philosophy and a member of the graduate faculty of the departments of Philosophy and Political Science. Her main research interests lie in the area of contemporary normative ethics, particularly at the intersection of deontological and consequentialist moral theories. She also has active research interests in feminist ethics.

Wednesday, February 1, 2017

12:00 PM - 2:00 PM

Room 200, Larkin Building
15 Devonshire Place

Abstract:

What would ethics look like if we took childhood seriously? Philosophy hasn’t always paid much attention to children. Even when children are mentioned, they are often considered simply as the property of their parents. Another, contemporary, way of thinking about children regards them not as property but rather as projects of their parents. But what if children aren’t property or projects? What if they are persons whose moral status matters independently? We can still get it wrong if we only value children on the basis of the adults they’ll become, for this leaves out the moral significance of childhood. It’s an error to include children and evaluate their treatment solely on the basis of the adults they become, by focusing purely on prospective goods. I argue instead that childhood well-being and childhood matters for their own sake.

The University of Toronto Student Engagement in the Arts Awards (SEAA) provides a special opportunity to recognize the incredible contributions made by U of T students to our creative and performing arts communities on all three campuses.

The SEAAs were introduced in 2010 to celebrate the outstanding co-curricular leadership roles and volunteer activities undertaken by students in all ranges of creative endeavours. If you know a student who has developed a community arts program; curated an art show, film festival or open mic night; someone who’s edited a magazine or book of poetry; produced a musical, play, dance program, speaker series – you get the idea! - we hope you will consider nominating them for a U of T Student Engagement in the Arts Award. 

Nominations are open until February 10, 2017

Learn more and access the new online nomination form at http://www.arts.utoronto.ca/engagementawards.htm.

Award poster

Abstract Deadline: February 17, 2017

The Anti-Racism & Cultural Diversity Office (ARCDO) in partnership with the Women and Gender Studies Institute (WGSI) and the Department of Sociology, UTM will convene an anti-racism conference as part of the 2017 U of T IDERD Campaign which will be held over two days (March 20-21, 2017). The theme for this year’s IDERD Campaign is “What’s Anti-Racism Good for Now?”.

The two days will consist of a one day thought provoking Conference that will convene on March 20th followed by the Recognition Award Ceremony on March 21st. Both events will be held at the University of Toronto St. George campus.

We invite abstracts for papers, workshops, video and poetry performances, and other artistic forms of activism, which will be selected for presentation at a workshop or poster session which will convene during the annual U of T IDERD Campaign.

Abstract Deadline: February 17, 2017.

IDERD Conference: March 20, 2017.

Further information on the Call for Abstracts, can be found on the ARCDO website at the following URL:  http://www.antiracism.utoronto.ca/iderd/callforabstracts.html.