Assignments
Mini-Essay on Tort Law and Social Justice
Failure Resume
This is one of the most powerful and transformational assignments I’ve ever used. I started doing this exercise in Designing Legal Expert Systems because it was crucial to persuade students to try things out and make mistakes – overcoming their instinct to hide their work until they thought it was perfect (which it never would be) and losing the opportunity to develop and improve it through feedback and missteps.
The idea of a “CV of failures” that honestly sets out all the failures hidden behind an official CV of accomplishments and achievements comes from this article by Melanie Stefan.
A key part of the exercise is that I complete the assignment too, and I’m honest about my own failures, even the ones I don’t like talking about.
Students can go as deep on this as they want to, and they can share as much or as little as they like with the class. It has had an extraordinary effect in building our cohesion as a team, allowing us all to drop some layers of protection, and opening up opportunities to do better, more creative work. It is also very liberating to laugh at our selves and our screw-ups together.
Tort Law Settlement Exercise: Introduction Video
Animals and the Law 2020 – Public Legal Education and Advocacy Assignment
Corporate Governance: Memo to the Board of Directors
Showcasing student work
Corporate Governance Creative Assignment (website)
Sarah Ewart, a student in Corporate Governance in 2021, created this website to fulfil the creative assignment requirement in the course. It’s a brilliant combination of design, fun, and outstanding knowledge of corporate governance issues.
Gladue submissions assistant
A group of students in Designing Legal Expert Systems created this application to make Gladue sentencing and bail submissions easier, faster and more accessible. Gladue factors are individual and systemic facts that may have played a role in bringing and Indigenous defendant into the justice system, and should be considered by courts as part of sentencing and determining bail. The student team won the 2021 Battle of the Apps competition, and went on to incorporate as a society called Four Justice Services and continue working on developing and improving their application.
The Dog Files
Assignments by students in Animals and the Law
Click here to visit site
Corporate Governance Board Game
Inspired by the Globe and Mail’s “Board Games” annual ranking of companies on the quality of their corporate governance.
Click here to see the game. Click the “i” icon for instructions to play.
Corporate Governance creative assignment (animated slides)
Corporate Governance Cartoon Strip
