The Architecture of Legal Education (literally)
When I started graduate school in law, I took a seminar on legal education. Our first assignment was to reflect on the relationship between space and learning – how, for example, a lecture hall feels different than a seminar room, how chairs in rows give rise to a different learning experience than chairs in a circle. It was an eye-opening experience as each student shared her or his own take on the question. One woman who had gone to law school at Yale discussed the importance of the women’s washroom as a place of solidarity for those feeling alienated by how male the law school felt (the washroom itself still had urinals since it dated from the era when Yale Law School admitted no women). Another student spoke futuristically about what a class might look like if it all took place via email (this was 1992 when email was still something of a novelty and AOL seemed far more significant to the future of the world than the internet)!
My own paper, predictably, dealt with my experience as a law student at Osgoode in the late 1980s. With Osgoode’s building now undergoing a transformative $50 million renovation scheduled to be completed later this year, this seemed a good time to reflect on how architecture can reshape legal education. For example, in Osgoode’s old building (dating from the late 1960s when Osgoode moved from the Law Society’s premises to York University – a transformation of the architecture of legal education as well as the architecture of a law school), the faculty wing was separated from the student wing. Faculty and staff had a separate entrance to the four-storey tower housing faculty offices and the faculty lounge, while students entered the building in the classroom wing, which also housed the basement cafeteria, the library (whose main entrance, puzzlingly, was also in the basement), student lockers and the (then) smoke-filled Junior Common Room (JCR). This separation tended to reinforce distance and hierarchy. At Columbia Law School, where I was then studying, the contrast was clear. Columbia was an integrated and vertical environment where students, staff and faculty all rode the elevator together to get to a seminar or a talk.
With the Osgoode renovation taking shape, I’ve been giving thought to the various ways in which a new space can transform legal education. Here are just some examples:
The role of light – Osgoode’s previous building represented an inward looking “red brick” approach to learning. Once inside, you rarely saw out (and, in the winter, you rarely went out). The focus of the amphitheatre classrooms was the lecturer at the front. Now, windows have been cut into every classroom. The effect is profound. The first time I spoke to a class in one of the new rooms (the classroom wing of the new Osgoode building opened in August, 2010), my peripheral vision kept straying to some students outside sitting under a swaying tree. This is a simple image, but one reflecting, in my view, a rejuvenated, outward focus of legal education, and its engagement with its surrounding community. Outside the classrooms, the renovated building is defined by soaring atriums and floor to ceiling windows in the new bistro and student lounge. Air, light, and transparency will define the law school in the future in the way that bricks, concrete and stone did in the past.
The role of technology – Architecture no longer just speaks to walls and windows and ceilings – but also to what can’t be seen. A set of newly wired (and wireless) classrooms allow not just the integration of electronic materials, clickers and smartboards, but also video or audio-taping of lectures, or linking a class in Toronto with a group of law students halfway across the world.
The role of sustainability – A law school’s architecture is not just a reflection of its educational aspirations, but also of its values. Whether aiming for a LEED rating or looking for opportunities to reduce the law school community’s carbon footprint, architecture can demonstrate a community’s leadership and innovation. In Osgoode’s case, revisiting its physical space also represented a chance to redress poor choices in the past, such as the widespread use of asbestos, which has now fully been removed from the building.
The role of accessibility - Students are exposed to access to justice issues from their first week of law school, but it would be ironic if students with disabilities could not physically get into the classroom to hear that message, or did not have access to it if they cannot hear. A major aspect of Osgoode’s renovations has involved ensuring that every space and experience in the law school is accessible to all.
The role of history – What does architecture have to do with history? A building does not just house classrooms and offices. It also safeguards and celebrates a law school’s legacy, and the memories of every student, staff and faculty member who graces its halls. In Osgoode’s renovated building, history will be a living part of every student’s encounter with the law school. Osgoode’s History and Archives Project, the result of a generous gift from Joseph Sorbara, will create a variety of spaces for physical, digital and interactive exhibits. Whether showcasing a day in the life of Osgoode students over the past 12 decades, commemorating Parkdale Community Legal Clinic’s 40th anniversary, or exploring the history of legal education in Canada, these exhibits will engage, inform, and stimulate.
In all of these ways, architecture and legal education are (and should be) intertwined. My hope is that Osgoode’s new building opens new windows on justice, and a bright, new chapter for legal education.