Skip to content

It's official -- Lakehead University getting its law school

Lakehead University has its law school, the first approved in Ontario in 42 years. “Now the university is complete,” said LU president Brian Stevenson.
153242_634454721224904059
Lakehead University president Brian Stevenson. (Jodi Lundmark, tbnewswatch.com)
Lakehead University has its law school, the first approved in Ontario in 42 years.

“Now the university is complete,” said LU president Brian Stevenson. “It’s a fully comprehensive university with everything from a medical school and engineering and health sciences and education and all of the faculties you would want to have … the law school tops it off.”

Lakehead University’s faculty of law received final approval from the province Tuesday. It will be fully funded by the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities and an additional $1.5 million to complete capital improvements was announced at the former Port Arthur Collegiate Institute, which will house the law school.

Northern Ontario’s first law school will open in 2013 with a first class of 55 students; there will be 170 students in the school when it’s fully operational. The curriculum – approved by the Law Society of Upper Canada in April of this year – will focus on Aboriginal and natural resource-based law and sole-and-small-firm practice law.

Not only will the faculty of law attract people throughout the province, across the country and around the world, Stevenson said it will allow the university to train lawyers how to best serve northern communities.

“There is a tremendous need for lawyers in the north,” he said. “Most importantly, we need to develop a legal culture in the north that we don’t have. A faculty of law does more than just train lawyers. It creates a legal environment for people to educate themselves and protect their rights.”

Nishnawbe-Aski Nation has been working with Lakehead since the beginning of the approval process in late 2005.

Deputy Grand Chief Terry Waboose said it was nice to see the final steps of the process accomplished Tuesday.

He added the school will help NAN achieve their objective of educating their youth and seeing them contribute to the region’s communities.

“It will give them more opportunity for education,” Waboose said. “It will open more avenues for them to pursue post-secondary education, higher learning. A law school gives them another choice.”

Waboose acknowledged the hard work of many people and organizations, specifically former university president Fred Gilbert.

Gilbert was in attendance at Tuesday’s news conference and said they school spent five years putting together the proposal for the school and herding it through the various law societies.

MPP Bill Mauro (Lib., Thunder Bay-Atikokan) said the law school is another piece in the evolution of Thunder Bay.

“We’re creating a very significant knowledge-based economy here,” he said. “(The law school) provides opportunity for young people to live and learn at home.”

Mauro said the timing of the event, just a little more than three months away from a provincial election, is merely coincidental.

“The only thing people have to think about is it’s only been about two months ago when the faculties of the law societies of Canada gave their final approval for this particular law school to go forward,” he said. “It was at that point it more specifically lands at our feet as political representatives, both Michael Gravelle (Lib., Thunder Bay-Superior North) and I.”
 
 
 




push icon
Be the first to read breaking stories. Enable push notifications on your device. Disable anytime.
No thanks