The LSA's Plan towards the change to J.D./B.C.L.

I apologize for the delay. Here's what has happened and what's going to:

The issue has been addressed at the LSA meeting. The LSA President has confirmed that more progress will take place in the Winter semester. The proposal to change the degree name to J.D./B.C.L., however, might be officially reported to the the LSA Council before the end of this semester if time permits.

The LSA plans to set up a research group by February 2009 in order to study relevant impacts and approaches undertaken by other schools. The LSA President explained that the research is necessary and information collected from the research will facilitate the process, especially after the referendum is held and the issue is raised before the Dean. Without concrete backup information, the LSA is concerned that the Faculty might hesitate to accept the proposal in a timely manner despite student's approval through referendum.

The LSA estimated that a referendum be held within the Winter semester. Because holding a referendum is quite costly (approximately $600-$700), the LSA wants to take a bit of time to make sure that students are familiar with the issue, and that the referendum meets a quorum.

In short, the steps that should be taken from this point on are:
1) The proposal for the change is reported the LSA Council,
2) A research group is set up by Feb 2009,
3) A referendum is held within the next semester
4) If a sufficient number of students approve the proposal in the referendum, the proposal will be reported to the Faculty

The whole process will take some time but I think that it's important to let the LSA does its job so that the change happens in a legitimate and meaningful way. A student like me also has a right to collect names through a petition and demand a referendum but the involvement of the LSA will reflect a greater consensus of the student community as a whole. What students have to do is to just come out and vote next semester.

Procedures for Change

Before going into procedural details, I'm looking for a few students who would like to join me at the LSA meeting on Monday Nov 17, 2008 (time TBA) to make a motion and discuss with the LSA exec and the Faculty Council regarding the progress on this issue. My voice alone may not be strong enough and if you care about the change, this is an opportunity. Please email s.manow@gmail.com if you are interested.

My last meeting with VP-Academic was in mid-October. The LSA proposed to form a research group to gather neutral information regarding the change to J.D. from various sources including other schools and alumni. No one really knows when this research group will be formed. Some students have suggested that the research project is irrelevant to the voting in a referendum. This should also be discussed in the meeting on Nov 17.

Voice from Alumni

If you're a McGill Law alum, we would like to hear your opinion/preference regarding to the change to J.D./B.C.L.

Please click "comment" to post you words.

Other Schools and Their J.D.

If you hear an interesting opinion from your friend who studies in a school that has recently changed its degree name to J.D., please share.

Here are pages that contain info regarding the change to J.D. of other schools:

Queen's

http://law.queensu.ca/alumni/jdConversionProcess.html

http://queenslaw.blogspot.com/2006/02/ubc-students-vote-for-jd.html


University of British Columbia

http://www.law.ubc.ca/news/2008/sept/09_02_2008_jd.html


Osgoode Hall
(My friend there confirmed that the 2009 graduates can pick either LL.B. or J.D. but Osgoode Hall's website does not seem to change the letters yet!)

http://osgoode.yorku.ca/media2.nsf/58912001c091cdc8852569300055bbf9/6fb85805a130278385257401006bbab2!OpenDocument


University of Western Ontario

http://www.law.uwo.ca/News/Sept_08/JD.html

(Dean Holloway at Western ON explained that "the timing now seems particularly ripe for change. The fact that Melbourne made the change – Melbourne, I think, is one of the best law schools in the common law world – gave me cause to rethink my own position...One of the things we’ve been working to do at Western, in recent years, is to internationalize ourselves. If a degree title will send a signal to the world that we’re part of a global community involved in legal education, then that’s a signal I wouldn’t mind sending.”

http://www.lawyersweekly.ca/index.php?section=article&articleid=635


Melbourne Law School
("The name Juris Doctor is widely used to signify a graduate degree in law. The degree is internationally recognised, and is highly regarded by law firms and other employers of law graduates.")
http://jd.law.unimelb.edu.au/go/about-us/about-the-melbourne-jd


Hong Kong
(The J.D. in Hong Kong is almost identical to the LL.B. and is reserved for graduates of non-law disciplines, but the J.D. is considered to be a graduate-level degree and requires a thesis or dissertation.)

Should McGill offer J.D./B.C.L. or LL.B./B.C.L.?

I create this discussion topic to see what the members of McGill Law think about out degree name...

My concern is that our degree name, LL.B./BCL, is incorrect, causing significant confusion and inconvenience. Instead, J.D./BCL is a more appropriate one. Here are reasons why:

Unlike LL.B. programs in other continents which is offered to students who just came out of high schools or A-levels, our program requires (most) students to have an undergrad degree upon applying. This would technically take most of us about 7-8 years to get a law degree while taking law students in other continents about 3-4 years only. Note also that McGill law students probably have larger workload than law students in other schools due to the transsystemic system. So our program should be placed in a graduate level, not an undergrad one. Oxford is the only place else that offers a silimar program and it recognizes its B.C.L. as a Master's degree, not a Bachelor one (see http://www.competition-law.ox.ac.uk/postgraduate/bcl.shtml.

Our LL.B. designation obviously causes confusion. It makes employers in other jurisdictions think that we're learning law with 18 year-old high school students. Although there's nothing wrong with taking classes with 18 year-old but employers tend to have a question regarding our employment history e.g. why we have not been employed and why we just start looking for a job when we're almost 30! I got really sick of explaining all this to other lawyers in the firms that I worked with this summer. In the end, I told them that I'm doing a J.D. and they seemed to understand right away why it takes me so long to learn law. It would be very convenient if I have "J.D." on my transcript instead of LL.B. so I don't have to lie.

A significant number of Canadian law schools has abolished their LL.B.designation and opted for J.D. University of Toronto has chaged its LL.B. to J.D. for a long time. Osgoode Hall and UBC have recently provided their 2nd- and 3rd-year students and alumni with a choice of having either LL.B. or J.D. in their diploma. First-year students at UBC, however, will graduate with a J.D. degree. Outside Canada, Australia and Japan are abandoning their undergraduate LL.B. program and instead adopting the J.D. one.

It is time for us to correct our degree designation to a term that is recognized internationally. Don't you agree?

[If some of you don't care, can you explain why you don't? Would the change to J.D. impact you negatively or you remain unaffected? Note that saying that it doesn't matter whether it's a J.D. or LL.B. does not help anyone. If the change to J.D. at least make it convenient to some students who need their degree recognized internationally, the change really does matter.]