¹ Consultative Group on Research and Education in Law, Law and Learning: Report to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services, 1983).

² Aside from the Chair, Harry Arthurs (Law - York), the other members were John Courteney (Political Science - Saskatchewan), Murray Fraser (Law - Victoria), Constance Hunt (Law – Calgary), Andrée Lajoie (Law - Montreal), P.J. O'Hearn (Judge - Halifax), E.A. Tollefson (Justice Canada - Ottawa), Pierre Verge (Law - Laval), Audrey Forster (Secretary to the SSHRC - Ottawa), and John McKinnirey (Research Director and Executive Secretary to the Consultative Group).

³ In celebrating both Harry Arthurs and Andrée Lajoie, let me confess that I am not free from interest. I count both as close friends and colleagues with whom I have collaborated for twenty years on the Macdonald Royal Commission in the 1980s, in the CIAR Law and Society Programme during the 1990s, and on an FCAR funded interdisciplinary-interuniversity research team for the past decade.

⁴ Smyth, J.E., Soberman, D.A., and Easson, A.E., The Law and Business Administration in Canada, 8th ed. (Scarborough: Prentice-Hall Canada, 1998).Google Scholar

⁵ I take this distinction, although I modify its shape considerably, from Fletcher, George, “Two Modes of Legal Thought” (1981) 90 Yale L. J. 970.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶ I owe this point to my colleague Nicholas Kasirer, whose thought led me back to the extraordinary one-age piece written by Arthur Leff shortly before he died: Leff, A.A., “Afterword” (1981) 30 Yale L.J. 1296.Google Scholar

⁷ Arthurs, H. W., Without the Law (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985).Google Scholar

⁸ I am making two separate points here. First, the kind of non-instrumental work reflected in the magnificent series of studies by the now-defunct Law Reform Commission of Canada in the late 1970s - the National Energy Board, the Parole Process, the CRTC, the Canadian Transportation Commission, the Pension Appeals Board, the Canada Labour Relations Board, and so on, is no longer being undertaken. Second, even where work is being done on these topics it is doctrinal and neither process oriented, nor empirical. Even the revival of interest in “instrument choice” questions has been driven by instrumental considerations and is not particularly empirical. See, for example, the papers prepared for the conference Instrument Choice and Global Democracies, sponsored by the Policy Research Initiative and the Faculty of Law at McGill University, and held on September 26–28, 2002.

⁹ See, for example, McGuire, S.C. and Macdonald, R.A., “Tales of Wows and Woes From the Masters and the Muddled: Navigating Small Claims Court Narratives” (1998) 16 Windsor Y.B. Access Just. 48–89Google Scholar; “Small Claims Courts Cant” (1996) 34 Osgoode Hall L.J. 509–51; “Judicial Scripts in the Dramaturgy of Montreal's Small Claims Court” (1996) 11 C.J.L.S. 63–98; “For Whom the Court Toils” (unpublished manuscript dated June 1999). Upon reflection I realize that I should have also tried to compare the process and outcomes in the small claims court with those obtained through newspaper consumer ombudsman columns or through better business bureaux. For a similar empirical study of the Régie du logement, see Paquin, J., “Avengers, Avoiders and Lumpers: The Incidence of Disputing Style on Litigiousness” (2001) 19 Windsor Y.B. Access Just. 3.Google Scholar

¹⁰ A similar experience occurred in the collaborative research projects that the Law Commission undertook with the SSHRC. Despite large amounts of money available to imagine and develop empirical socio-legal research, not many scholars applied for funding under the “Relationships in Transition” programme. My service for two years in the mid-1990s on Adjudication Panel #11 of the SSHRC was of a like nature - very few law professors applied for research grants to sustain empirical projects.

¹¹ The programme was developed because of the energy and enthusiasm of then-Dean Robert Prichard of the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto, who shepherded it through its initial phases. The initial director of the programme was Martin Friedland, during whose tenure two important collections were published: Sanctions and Rewards in the Legal System: A Multidisciplinary Approach (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989) and Securing compliance: Seven Case Studies (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990).

¹² For several detailed reflections on the character of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research, see Somerville, M. & Rapport, D., eds., Transdisciplinarity: recreating integrated Knowledge (Oxford: EOLSSS, 2000).Google Scholar

¹³ I do not underestimate the difficulties. To take such an approach requires a strong sense of collegiality among professors. Too often in the past we have seen courageous and committed professors who have attempted to teach, say, property law from a Marxist perspective, or tax law from a feminist perspective, or civil procedure from a critical race theory perspective, or administrative law from a legal pluralist perspective, pilloried by students, and left to twist in the wind by colleagues. Unless a law faculty corporately, and its professors individually, goes out of their way to celebrate this intellectual liberation and its diverse manifestations, the successful incorporation of a personal research agenda into a first-year course in unlikely.

¹⁴ For a discussion of the new McGill curriculum see, Kasirer, N., “Bijuralism in Law's Empire and Law's Cosmos” (2002) 52 J. Legal Educ. 29Google Scholar; Bédard, J., “Transsystemic Teaching of Law at McGill: Radical Changes, Old and New Hats” (2001) 27 Queen's L.J. 237Google Scholar; Morissette, Y.-M., “McGill's Integrated Civil and Common Law Programme” (2002) 52 J. Legal Educ. 12Google Scholar; Jutras, D., “Two Arguments for Cross-Cultural Legal Education” in Asseman, H.D. et al. , eds, Grundlagen und Schwerpunkte des Privatrechts in euopäischer Perspektive, vol. 3, at 75Google Scholar; “Énoncer l'indicible: le droit entre langues et traditions” (2000) R.I.D.C. 781.

¹⁵ I draw the conclusions of this part from a number of evaluation exercises in which I have participated over the past few years: (1) a review of the graduate programmes at Osgoode Hall for the Ontario Council of Universities; (2) a review of the graduate programmes of the Institute of Comparative Law and the Institute of Air and Space Law at McGill; (3) a review of the M.A. programme in law at Carleton University for the Ontario Council of Universities; (4) a review of the proposed L.L.M. at the Université de Moncton for the Maritime Council of Higher Education; and (5) a review of the graduate programmes at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law for the Ontario Council of Universities.

¹⁶ See Manderson, D., “Asking Better Questions: Approaching the Process of Thesis Supervision” (1996) 46 J. Legal Educ. 407Google Scholar; a revised and updated version of this article also appeared as “FAQ: Initial Questions About Thesis Supervision in Law” (1997) 8 Legal Educ. Rev. 121.

¹⁷ The prognosis is not entirely bleak. Graduate students at Osgoode Hall Law School have been running a conference for graduate students for a number of years. The Canadian Law and Society Association makes a great effort to attract graduate students to its Annual Meeting and to provide opportunities for them to present papers. And in July 2003, the Faculty of Law at McGill hosted the first of what is advertised as an annual conference for graduate students seeking to pursue a teaching career: Professing to educate … and educating to profess: a Symposium on Graduate Legal Education for Academics (present and future). For further reflection see Macdonald, R.A., “Academic Questions” (1992) 3 Legal Educ. Rev. 61Google Scholar, also published in a revised form as “Les exigences de la charge de travail des professeurs de droit: réflexions sous forme épistolaire” (1995) 26 R.G.D. 339.

¹⁸ For a much more optimistic assessment of the possibilities in Australia, see D. Manderson, “Postgraduate Research Education in Law” [unpublished] - a study prepared for the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia as part of an ongoing study of postgraduate education in the Social Sciences in Australia.

¹⁹ “Symposium on Canadian Legal Scholarship” (1985) 29 Osgoode Hall L.J. 391–808.

²⁰ A description of this strategy may be found in Macdonald, R.A., “Socio-Legal Perspectives on Institutional Renovation” (1993) 42 U.N.B.L.J. 391.Google Scholar

²¹ Broekman, Joan, Gender in the Legal Profession: Fitting or Breaking the Mould (2001), Action Plan for Equality (Canadian Bar Association: Toronto, 2000)Google Scholar; Lewis, Joanne St., Virtual Justice: Systemic Racism and the Canadian Legal Profession (Report of the Canadian Bar Association Co-Chair of the Working Group on Racial Equality in the Legal Profession, 1999)Google Scholar; Kay, Fiona M. & Broekman, Joan, “Barriers to Gender Equality in the Canadian Legal Establishment” (2000) 8 Fern. Legal Stud. 169CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Canadian Bar Association, Standing Committee on Equality, Action Plan for Equality (August 2001); Canadian Bar Association, Working Group on Racial Equality in the Legal Profession, The Challenge of Racial Equality: Putting Principles Into Practice (1999); Menkel-Meadow, Carrie, “The Comparative Sociology of Women Lawyers: The ‘Feminization’ of the Legal Profession” (1986) 24 Osgoode Hall L.J. 897.Google Scholar

²² An exception is the “Symposium on Legal Education” (2002) 20 Windsor Y.B. Access Just. See, in particular, Backhouse, C., “The Changing Landscape of Canadian Legal Education” (2001) 20 Windsor Y.B. Access Just. 25Google Scholar; Chartrand, L.et al, “Law Students, Law Schools and their Graduates” (2001) 20 Windsor Y.B. Access Just. 211Google Scholar; Macfarlane, J., “What Does the Changing Culture of Legal Practice Mean for Legal Education?” (2001) 20 Windsor Y.B. Access Just. 191.Google Scholar See also the article by Bédard, J., “Transsystemic Teaching of Law at McGill: Radical Changes, Old and New Hats” (2001) 27 Queen's L.J. 237Google Scholar; and the studies by Valcke, Catherine, “Legal Education in a ‘Mixed Jurisdiction’: The Quebec Experience” (1995) 10 Tulane European and Civil Law Forum 61Google Scholar; “Quebec Civil Law and Canadian Federalism” (1996) 21 Yale J. Int'l L. 67.

²³ See, for example, Blonde, D.J.et al., “The Impact of Law School Admission Criteria: Evaluating the Broad-Based Admission Policy at the University of Windsor Faculty of Law” (1998) 61 Sask. L. Rev. 529Google Scholar; Tong, D., & Pue, W.W., “The Best and the Brightest ?: Canadian Law School Admissions” (1999) 37 Osgoode Hall L.J. 843.Google Scholar

²⁴ I have attempted to assess these trends in Macdonald, R.A. “Recommissioning Law Reform” (1996) 42 Alb. L. Rev. 735.Google Scholar For a more recent analysis focused directly on legal education, see Arthurs, H.W., “The State We're In: Legal Education in Canada's New Political Economy” (2001) 20 Windsor Y.B. Access Just. 35.Google Scholar

²⁵ See Shuck, Peter, “Why Don't Law Professors Do More Empirical Research?” (1989) 39 J. Legal Educ. 322.Google Scholar

²⁶ There is one encouraging sign about the manner in which at least some law professors appear to conceive their fundamental intellectual and institutional affiliations. Since the time of Law and Learning /Le droit et le savoir, many law teachers have entered the ranks of senior University administration, and not just in the Universities where they were professors. The roster of those who have become university Presidents is both long and impressive: it includes David Johnston, Ron Ianni, Murray Fraser, Harry Arthurs himself, Andy Mackay, Rob Prichard, Peter MacKinnon, Wade MacLaughlan, and Wayne Mackay. In Quebec, many law professors have also become Vice-presidents: André Côté, Jacques Auger, Patrick Molinari to name a few.

²⁷ See Weisberg, M., “On the Relationship of Law and Learning to Law and Learning” (1983) 29 McGill L. J. 155.Google Scholar The other two reviews are by Moull, W.D., “Law and the Social Sciences in Canadian Legal Education: Some Perspectives on the Arthurs Report” (1984) 34 J. Legal Educ. 515Google Scholar, and Slayton, P., “Book Review of Law and Learning” (1983) 33 U.T.L.J. 348.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁸ Arthurs, H.W., “Woe Unto You Judges: or How Reading Frankfurter and Greene, The Labor Injunction, Ruined Me as a Labour Lawyer and Made Me as an Academic” (2002) 29 J.L. & Soc'y 657.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁹ One still derives much stimulation from Willis' touchstone article, “Lawyers Values and Civil Servants Values” U.T.L.J. 218.

³⁰ Arthurs, H. W., “Protection Against Judicial Review” (1983) 43 R. du B. 277.Google Scholar Much better known, of course, is his essay “Rethinking Administrative Law: A Slightly Dicey Business” (1979) 18 Osgoode Hall L.J. 1.

³¹ The standard account is Kyer, I. & Bickenbach, J., The Fiercest Debate: Cecil A. Wright, the Benchers and Legal Education in Ontario 1923–1957 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987)Google Scholar which lionizes Cecil Wright and implies that the agreement of 1958 was the central event in the liberation of law teaching in Ontario. In my view, the defining moment (especially when viewed in the light of Law and Learning / Le droit et le savoir) was rather 1968, with the affiliation of Osgoode Hall Law School and York University. On this agreement, see Arthurs, H.W., “The Affiliation of Osgoode Hall Law School with York University” (1967) 17 U.T.L.J. 194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³² The Table is set out on page 67 of the Arthurs Report. A caveat is in order. I acknowledge that the typology was meant as a Weberian ideal-type characterization of research meant to highlight certain features while backgrounding others. Certainly the Consultative Group was entitled to choose the vectors of analysis it thought most appropriate. Moreover, I acknowledge that the typology was meant not to distinguish four distinct and separate types of research. The very presentation of the table, with its off-centred dimensional lines, and the use of nine lines in a band rather than a single line of separation, signals the spectral, rather than essentialist, objective. My point is simply to show what choices were made and what values were implicit in the way those choices were presented.

³³ See the studies collected in The Harmonisation of Federal Legislation with Quebec Civil Law and Canadian Bijuralism (Ottawa: Department of Justice, 1997).

³⁴ Recall the Terms of Reference for the Consultative Group as reproduced in Appendix I, page 165, of the Arthurs Report. To examine and advise upon legal research and education in Canada, especially in relation to (and I paraphrase): (1) how law faculties are discharging their academic and professional responsibilities; (2) the purpose, nature and quality of research in law; (3) the extent and quality of graduate education; (4) the means by which all those interested can improve scholarship, research and education in law; and (5) any other relevant matters.