Faculty of Law: "One of the very best law schools in the world"

A Message from Dean, Jutta Brunnee:

Our faculty members are leaders in their fields as well as dedicated teachers; our students bring excellence and commitment to their studies and to a wide range of causes. In this unique learning environment the University of Toronto Faculty of Law offers, I believe, the best legal education in the country.  With the Jackman Law Building under construction, we are also looking forward to moving into a spectacular new physical home for the Faculty of Law and its many programs and centres. It is a privilege to serve as Interim Dean of this great law school at this exciting juncture.

This Faculty’s stature as one of the very best law schools in the world rests on the excellence and diversity of our teaching faculty and students. Our faculty members hail from around the globe and pursue diverse research agendas, ranging from Law and Development, International Law or Islamic Law to Criminal Law, Law and Economics, or Securities Law. They publish their work in the leading scholarly journals, regularly win major research awards, participate in national and international policy debates, and advise decision-makers in Canada and around the world on the most important issues of the day. Our faculty bring this rich expertise and experience into their classrooms, whether in the first-year curriculum or in the upper-year courses and seminars of the J.D. program.

Offering students the best possible learning experience – challenging yet supportive, stimulating yet rigorous, eclectic yet comprehensive, analytical yet applied – is our first priority at the Faculty of Law. We work continuously to stay at the forefront of national and international developments in legal education. Recent innovations in the Faculty’s first-year curriculum will see our students immersed from the very beginning in legal methods and legal research and writing, and undertake intensive studies in Legal Professionalism and Legal Ethics.  The Faculty’s rich upper-year curriculum allows students to choose from a wealth of courses, seminars and workshops relating to virtually any area of interest in the law. Students can also take advantage of a wide array of experiential learning opportunities to complement their classroom experiences. The panoply of options includes spending a term at the Center for Transnational Legal Studies in London, England or on exchange at prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing, embarking on a transformative human rights internship abroad, or participating in a path-breaking litigation project through our specialized legal clinics or through Pro Bono Students Canada projects.

The Faculty’s commitment to cutting-edge legal education is manifest also at the graduate level. The new Global Professional Master of Laws program, the first of its kind in North America, provides practising lawyers and executives without a law degree an understanding of the legal environment that affects today’s transnational business ventures. Within our LL.M. program, exceptional law graduates from around the globe can study with some of the world’s leading scholars, either in a general curriculum or in one of the recently introduced program concentrations (Business Law; Criminal Law; Health Law & Policy; Legal Theory). The Faculty’s S.J.D. program is established as a premier training ground for aspiring academics. It consistently produces scholars of the highest calibre, and its graduates are teaching at our own school, and at other schools in Canada and around the world.

Whether as an incoming student in one of our programs, through participation in one of our many public lectures and events, or as a participant in one of our summer or youth programs – there are many ways to get involved with the Faculty of Law. We look forward to seeing you here!

To learn more about the Faculty of Law's focus on international law and policy, click here.