Hey there,

I would like to point out that the system as it has been since the reform of 1985 already pursues quite a comparative approach- at least, more comparative than any other law school! The direction we are heading now has therefore been clear for quite some time already and when choosing McGill, you must have known about this affiliation! If anything, the currently discussed reform of introducing a transsystemic McGill program will improve life and atmosphere at the faculty, it will be an improved version of our current system. Professor Macdonald holds in his book The National Law Programme at McGill: Origins, Establishment, Prospects that “neither the initial curriculum established in 1968, nor its second generation model put into place in the early 1970s, nor even its third generation model of the 1980s, was a fully bilingual and intellectually integrated, polyjural four-year tuition rooted in a universalist model of legal education".

Albeit having common law and civil law students and teachers so close together, we are indeed still far from being “fully (…) intellectually integrated”; Professor Daniel Jutras pointed out that “One of the key problems with the National Program was that there was labeling and branding. Students who entered in one stream would become attached to that tradition and reject the other tradition.” and he is right with this observation. We really are like two separate law faculties in one and I applaud Professor Jutras´ conclusion that “one single admissions pool with one single stream" is needed! Just imagine how enrichissant this will be: two languages, two legal systems, one legal education and students from all over the world, since this form of education will be useful in so many countries! 

Moreover, I am convinced that the curriculum would have a better structure. The way law is taught now, all students have to do first year courses again in their second year in order to get to know the other system; they basically have to start over again and we all have experienced how annoying that is! Under the new program, I imagine, both systems will be better integrated! I already am absolutely convinced of this new approach.

Anne-Sophie G.

PS: Maurice, really?!