The Future Is Bright

• Author: Karen Dyck
• Date: March 15, 2017

As I wrapped up my last class at Robson Hall last week, I remarked to that whip-smart group of 1Ls that I hoped they had learned at least half as much in their two terms of Legal Methods as I did in the teaching of the course. This was my first experience teaching in a law school setting and looking back, I know for certain that I learned more than I likely imparted.

You may recall that last fall, my stated intention as I went back to law school as a sessional instructor was to keep a record of my experience through this blog. If you’re a keen reader of Slaw, you may even have noted it’s been rather a long while since I last posted on this topic or any other. I could make excuses, but suffice to say that the experience was much more time and energy consuming than I expected, leaving little by way of “free time” for blogging.

In this post, I want to share a little of what I learned while teaching a keen group of first-year law students about legal research, writing and advocacy. While I did learn more about those subjects, the lessons that will stick with me are more about the future of law and the legal profession.

Lesson #1: Don’t judge a book by its cover. While at first glance, first-year law students appeared relatively homogenous, a closer look revealed an incredible variety of backgrounds and experiences. Over time, I learned from their comments and questions, assignments and worries that they brought a wide range of backgrounds, experiences, hopes and dreams into law school. Some had prior careers and were returning as mature students to the academic life, while others were fresh from their undergraduate work. Some were coming from “legal families” while others had no prior experience with lawyers. The sea of sameness I saw at the beginning of the year soon evaporated into a field of uniquely interesting individuals.

Lesson #2: Don’t believe everything you read about Millennials. Quite a number of my students were not born when I was in law school and are within the much-maligned cohort of the Millennials. Yet, I didn’t see much evidence, if any, of the negative traits most often referenced in articles about the enormous challenge of managing this generation. I noted that my students were kind, caring and considerate of one another. They showed me that they are hardworking and self-motivated. One might argue that the typical law student is the exception to the rule, but there is no typical law student (see Lesson #1.)

Lesson #3: Real life stories...