Every law course has a "data dump".  In this course, on successful completion of this subject, you should:

A few months after this course, you will remember relatively few of the many arcane legal details in the "data dump".  So I have bigger ambitions.  I want to affect your legal career in two significant ways.

Living and Breathing Public Law

First, I want to acculturate you -- that is, create new, almost subconscious instincts -- leading to a "public law way of thinking".  Years down the road, even as the details of the "data dump" fade from memory, this "instinct" will serve as a sort of compass that puts you on the path of resolving public law issues you encounter in your career correctly and efficiently.  More than that, it will help you to separate nonsence from substance in the public life of this country. 

So what are these "instincts"?

Doing Public Law

This is an "active learning" environment.  I employ an active learning approach for three principal reasons.  First, research suggests that you will learn more in an active learning environment -- that is, more of the "data dump" will stay with you over the long term, and you will also understand this material at a much deeper level than the "skin deep" learning from a passive learning class.  Second, anyone who thinks that the data dump will equip you to be a good lawyer has not spent much time examining what lawyers do, or how the profession is changing. You need to move up the "value chain" -- and active learning gives us an opportunity to develop "skills" that passive learning does not.  And third, active learning is just more fun -- it means you can't coast as much as you can in a passive learning setting, but it really is more interesting.

And so, in this course, we will work to "ground" the substantive learning you are doing in "practice" that put that knowledge to work in various ways, and also exposes you to tools and techniques that you will find useful once you leave law school.  I will say more about this in the section on course methodology.

But in terms of specific objectives, by successful completion of this course you will be better equipped to serve as "public citizen" lawyers.  Specifically, you will be able to:

This course may be very different from courses you have taken before.

The Fipped Classroom

My courses are "flipped".  If you want to know more about why I flip my classes, read my blog. 

But for our purposes, what do I mean by "flipping"?  It means I don't do the "talking head" thing -- I don't lecture.  Instead, all my lecture materials are placed online as podcasts.  You review these materials in advance of our classroom sessions -- and you may re-review them as many times as you like, where ever and whenever you want.  You can listen while running, riding a train, flying in a plane, driving in a car, cooking, cleaning, skipping (but please not while cycling).  You can listen at times and in places where your brain works best.

But a “flipped” classroom means more than simply displacing lecture-based instruction to non-classroom times through use of recorded and downloadable lectures. More critically, it also means the introduction of in class “active learning” strategies. These active learning activities would otherwise be impossible because of time consumed by (inefficient) passive learning (i.e., lectures).  Classes are, in our course, "practices".  We will experiment with a number of active learning techniques.  Some approaches will work, some will not.  We will try different things.  Some approaches will involve games that force you into the "legal weeds" in ways that are more entertaining than me just talking at you.  Other approaches will involve debating policies, proposing solutions in hypothetical problems and generally finding ways for you to take knowledge, spin it around and turn it into analysis.  You will be partners in that experiment, and you will be responsible for developing your own skills.  I will coach. 

Why do I use the flipped approach?  Because my experience -- and the more methodologically sound empirical studies -- suggest that you will learn more, and you will learn it more "deeply".  And also because I do not think that the "data dump" approach of conventional teaching helps you down the path to becoming good lawyers, at least not as quickly as does flipped teaching.

Will it be more work?  Yes and no.  The way I use flipped teaching, you will need to stay on top of your game.  In our "practices", I have high expectations of you.  You can't coast.  And so you will need to be primed. 

Flipped teaching and active learning may also be something you're not used to.  You have mostly become very efficient "passive" learners -- that is how you succeeded and got to law school in the first place.  In my courses, I am asking you to develop a new skill set.  And so that may take a little longer.

But the pay off is huge.

And more than that, I also will assign less reading than I would in a passive class.  More on that below.

My Job

I have a number of obligations.  First, I obviously need to give you work.  But just to be clear: my approach to legal education is not "I suffered for my law degree and now it's your turn".  And my rejection of this philosophy means two things:

Second, my most important job is to give you individualized feedback.  And not (just) feedback once you have written your exam.  I need to give you feedback so you can measure how well you are absorbing the course so that you know, and can adjust your strategies.  To do this successfully, I need your help -- more on that below.

Third, and on a related issue, my job is to teach.  That means that I do the things I've described above, but I will also do my best to resist the ever-present law school temptation to play "hide the ball" on you.  That's not to say that I spoon feed -- quite the contrary.  But it does mean that my job is to help you navigate the material, pull it together, draw connections and weave together patterns.  To be clear: I want you to do this yourself -- it is your job to learn how to do this because I will not be standing at your shoulder through your professional career.  But my job is to help teach you how to do this, as best I can.

You won't all get As.  (Under faculty guidelines, the average in this class will be a B.  Usually, it is a "natural" B -- I have never had to bring down marks to meet guidelines.)  But I want the grade you earn to be just that: earned.  I will be measuring you against high standards.  But bottom line, I want to make sure that, at least in principle, each of you is equipped to meet those high standards.  That is my job.

Your Job

I hold myself to very high standards -- no one feels worse than I do when I fail to meet them.  And I also ask that you impose similar expectations on yourself.  There will be a lot of you, and one of me.  I will be working very hard to give you individualized feedback throughout the term.  This is just one of several classes I teach.  And my teaching is only one part of my professional obligations.  

So I require your full and enthusiatic cooperation.  Which is to say I expect people to work earnestly, to prepare and come prepared, to work hard on the active learning projects, to meet deadlines and generally to perform as well as your natural aptitudes allow you to.  This is a serious profession for serious people confronting some of the most serious issues in our society, and while we can have fun along the way, I take seriously my obligation to certify to the world my view on your talents, through the grades I give you. 

I understand that things happen, that sometimes the wheels fall off because of matters beyond your control.  I am not hard hearted and this is not boot camp.  For formal extensions, avail yourself of our exam accomodation procedures, if life takes an unexpected turn.  On top of that, if in the course of the term, developments make it hard to stay apace our course, come see me.  Let me know and we will discuss options.

You also have another job: it is very important to me that I get to know each and every one of you by name.  But I have an awful memory for names.  (I've been known to pause in uncertainty when suddenly confronted by a close relative.)  I need you to help me with that. For instance, I ask that you prepare "tent cards" with your names that you place in front of you during class session.  I will also take wild guesses at your names as I meet you around the school, and will often be dead wrong.  So your job is to forgive me this social faux pas, and assist me in correcting my misapprehension of your identity.

Materials

Course materials will be more diverse than is typical. Using the Harvard Law School H20 platform, I have organized a "playlist" syllabus, segmented into "Practices".  Each of these Practices is associated with assigned readings and also relevant podcasts and in-class exercises.  Readings include electronic materials archived in the H20 platform and also pages assigned from Forcese & Dodek (Eds) Public Law: Cases, Commentary and Analysis, 3rd Edition (Emond, 2015).  Please note: you must use the 3rd Edition, as it contains many materials not found in the 2d Edition.

Where relevant, the H20 playlist links to the University of Ottawa's Blackboard Learn system.  We will be using this system for certain quizzes and exercises, and you should ensure that you are able to login to this sytem and access our course.  If you have problems with Blackboard Learn, be sure to contact Virtual Campus Support (CMTL), Tel.: 613-562-5800 ext. 6555, Assistance request form

If you have difficulties accessing other materials from the H20 playlist, contact me.

Evaluation

So how will I evaluate you?  There will be an exam at the end of this course.  It will be two hours, open book and "computerized".  (That is, you will be able to use the law school's ExamSoft system, with details to follow from Academic Office at some point in the term).

On paper, this exam will be worth 65% of your final grade.  But the way it will work in practice is more complicated -- this is just a nominal weighting.  That is because of the way the rest of course (35%) will be assessed through our "active learning" excercises, quizzes and practices.  Those exercises, quizes and practices are pass/fail.  But in order to earn a "pass" they must be B quality.  Anything less than a B, and you must repeat the exercise, quiz and practice until you achieve a B.  (You will have a maximum of 3 tries at this, although my experience is that you will probably succeed the second time). 

If you complete all of the excercises, quizzes and practices meeting this standard, I will assign you 25 points.  These 25 points are the marks toward your final grade that you will have accumulated going into the exam.  They are "marks in the bank" and represent the equivalent of a B level performance in 35% of the course.  If you score a grade lower than a B in the exam (worth 65%), these 25 points will end up lifting you higher than you would otherwise score if they didn't exist.  If you score higher than a B in the exam, then I will use the exam grade as your final grade.

This is a complicted way of saying that the pass/fail exercises, quizzes and practices are a "safety blanket", but they won't drag you down if you outperfom on the exam.  (Since this is law school full of aspiring lawyers who should read fine print, I must also add a proviso that to benefit from this system, you need to actually complete the exercises, quizzes and practices to the B standard.  If you don't then, you can't just turn up and hope that the exam will constitute your final mark.  It won't, and that final grade will weighted to take into account both the final exam grade and the other (incomplete) assignments.)

I am also obliged to add that the end results must meet the faculty's grading guidelines, which set a B as the average for this course (subject to reasonable deviations).  But based on past experience, my grading formula should naturally produce results that lie within the faculty's permissible range.  (If I go need to adjust grades, my methodology is to add/substract the same number of points (say 2 points) from every student, shifting the grading curve up or down so that the average meets faculty guidelines.  I do not impose a mathematial belling formula that treats students differently, according to a statistical expectation about mark distribution.)

Lectures for this course are delivered exclusively through podcasts.  Podcasts come in two forms.  A handful are available in both audio and video formats.  These are podcasts in which images and drawings are sometimes useful to help navigate concepts, and you are encouraged to take advantage of this feature.  Most podcasts are, however, audio only.

Video podcasts are housed on Vimeo, under Craig Forcese, and there are links in the Practice session descriptions in this syllabus to the relevant videos.  I also include links to the relevant audio podcasts.  Audio podcasts are housed on screencast.com and are feed through to iTunes, if you wish to access the full roster as they are posted.  The formal iTunes Store subscription link is here, allowing you to download directly to portable devices. 

You may download or stream audio podcasts.  Video podcasts are for streaming (video downloads are very memory intensive). 

If you stream audio podcasts directly from the screencast.com site rather than downloading or using iTunes, please be aware that there is a delay between when you press the play icon and the start of the podcast, as the file downloads.

For 2015-16, I will be posting podcasts as far in advance of the relevant pratice session as possible. 

Conventional office hours don't work very well.  I usually just sit there like the Maytag repair man, waiting for students who never come. Except suddenly around exams -- and then there are queues and mobs and you waste time waiting to see me.

I would like to avoid that, and so this is the way I work:

Most of you will prefer to contact me through email, at cforcese@uottawa.ca.  I am generally very good at responding to email -- but please use "CML XXXX" (with XXXX the course code for our class) as the preface in your subject line so I know the message comes from a student and I can prioritize it.

But I also hope to meet all of you in person over the course of the semester.  I have blocks of times where it is possible to automatically schedule one-on-one appointments with me.  Please use my automated scheduler app and follow all the instructions.  By doing this, appointments will be logged into our respective calendars, and we will avoid double-booking, line-ups and missed appointments.

Academic Fraud:

Students are reminded of the rules on academic fraud. All instances of fraud will be reported for investigation and sanction. Assignments submitted must be your own work. Please familiarize yourself with the University Academic Fraud Regulations and the University of Ottawa student integrity guide.

The university disciplinary process for fraud can result in penalties ranging from loss of credits for the course to expulsion. Academic fraud must also be reported to the Law Society of Upper Canada, which in turn may refuse you admission to practice law in the province.

Classroom Etiquette:

Laptops and electronic devices are to be used in practices -- I will be asking you to conduct "insta-research" exercises during practices, partnering with those who have devices if you do not. However, it is easy for your device to become a distraction to you and to those around you, and therefore you are to avoid using computers for entertainment or extraineous purposes during practices.  Research shows that using your laptop for other purposes means that you will score lower grades:

We found that participants who multitasked on a laptop during a lecture scored lower on a test compared to those who did not multitask, and participants who were in direct view of a multitasking peer scored lower on a test compared to those who were not. The results demonstrate that multitasking on a laptop poses a significant distraction to both users and fellow students and can be detrimental to comprehension of lecture content.

Faira Sana, Tina Weston, Nicholas Cepeda, "Laptop multitasking hinders classroom learning for both users and nearby peers," (2013) 62 Computers & Education 24.  See also the newspaper story on this issue. 

I am indifferent if you wish to sully your chances of good grades.  I am much more concerned if your activities are impairing the chances of those around you.  Accordingly, here are the classroom rules.

Accomodation:

For students in need of accommodation

To request an exam deferral, assignment extension, or other accommodation, please contact, clawaccess@uottawa.ca.

Circumstances that may warrant accommodation include but are not restricted to:

• a permanent state of affairs (e.g., a disability, a permanent medical condition),

• an ongoing situation (e.g., a personal crisis, pregnancy),

• reasons related to equity concerns (e.g., religious obligations, sole parenthood),

• a one-time event or circumstance (e.g., a short illness, a temporary injury, a day surgery), or

• compassionate grounds (e.g., a death in the family, a sick child or dependant).

Students should consult the Equity and Academic Success portion of the Common Law Student Centre website for complete details regarding accommodation procedures.

For students in need of learning supports

Students who require accommodation or academic support because of a physical or learning disability, or any ongoing condition which affects their ability to learn, are invited to register with SASS- ACADEMIC ACCOMMODATIONS:

Office: Desmarais Building, room 3172 (3rd floor)

Telephone: 613.562.5976

TTY: 613.562.5214 E-mail: adapt@uottawa.ca Web: www.sass.uottawa.ca/access/

As part of the registration process, students will meet with a Learning Specialist to identify their individual needs, discuss appropriate strategies, and establish adaptive measures. SASS – Academic Accommodations assesses, establishes, and implements appropriate academic accommodations for students who have a disability, while adhering to the University of Ottawa’s policies, procedures, and administrative regulations, as well as Human Rights legislation. SASS – Academic Accommodations works collaboratively with our faculty to facilitate the academic accommodation process.

Deadlines to request accommodation for final exams:

Fall Semester: before 15 November

January term: Before January 10

Winter Semester: before 15 March

For students in need of counselling and wellness resources · Member Assistance Program:

Law students are invited to use the free and confidential support and counselling services. This is a service funded by and fully independent of the Law Society of Ontario, available 24/7 at 1-855-403-8922: http://www.myassistplan.com/ · SASS – Counselling and Coaching:

The University of Ottawa’s Counselling & Coaching Service provides free and confidential counselling support to Common Law students. For a consultation, please call 613-562-5200 or visit their website at https://sass.uottawa.ca/en/personal. The Counselling & Coaching Service is located at 100 Marie-Curie (Health Services building), 4th floor. · University of Ottawa Health Services (UOHS) - Mental Health Unit:

The Family Health Team of the UOHS offers mental health services. The Family Health Team Psychiatrists and Mental Health Counsellors are available to patients enrolled with a family physician with the UOHS Family Health Team. Services are free. To register with UOHS, visit https://www.uottawa.ca/health/register. · Just Balance:

A support site aimed at promoting the well-being of law students in Canada: www.justbalance.ca · Emergency Services: http://sass.uottawa.ca/en/personal/emergency

Information regarding the prevention of sexual violence

The University of Ottawa does not tolerate any form of sexual violence. Sexual violence refers to any act of a sexual nature committed without consent, such as rape, sexual harassment or online harassment. To report an incident of sexual violence or to obtain confidential support in regard to an incident, the following resources are available to you.

Emergencies: In the case of an imminent threat of sexual violence or sexual violence in progress, a report can be made by calling 911 or by contacting Protection Services.

Other reporting mechanisms: In non-emergency situations, incidences of sexual violence can be reported to: · The Human Rights Office: (613) 562-5222 (www.uottawa.ca/respect/en) · Protection Services: (613) 562-5411 (www.uottawa.ca/protection/en)

· Student Academic Success Service (SASS) – Counselling and Coaching Unit (sass.uottawa.ca/en/personal) · University of Ottawa Health Services (www.uottawa.ca/health/)

Other forms of support: Some survivors of sexual harassment or sexual violence may want to speak with someone about their experience prior to deciding whether to file a formal report. Others may choose not to report, but will still want support from professionals who specialize in the area of sexual violence prevention and supporting survivors. If this is the type of support you are looking for, you can contact one of the following organizations to receive confidential services without judgement. These organizations will listen to you, direct you to other services you may need, and support you throughout the process you choose to pursue:

On-campus:

· Student Academic Success Service (SASS) – Counselling and Coaching Unit (sass.uottawa.ca/en/personal)

Off-campus: · Ottawa Rape Crisis Center (ORCC) (www.orcc.net). This organization provides English-language support for women. · Centre d’aide et de lutte contre les agressions à caractère sexuel (CALACS) (www.calacs.ca). This organization provides French-language support for women. · Law Society of Ontario Discrimination and Harassment Counsel (www.lsuc.on.ca). This is a free service available to the Ontario public, lawyers and paralegals. It provides confidential assistance to those who may have experienced discrimination or harassment by a lawyer or paralegal. The service is provided in both English and French.

Date (dd/mm): Session

11/9: Practice 1

15/9: Practice 2

18/9: Practice 3

22/9: Practice 4

25/9: Practice 5

29/9: Practice 6

Public Lawyering Project 1 (Access to Information) FILED by Sept 30

2/10: Practice 7

6/10: Practice 8

9/10: Practice 9

13/10: Practice 10

16/10: Practice 11 Public Lawyering Project 2 (Political Contributions) DUE

20/10: Practice 12 (Be prepared to discuss Public Lawyering Project 2 findings in Practice)

23/10: Practice 13

27/10: Practice 14 Public Lawyering Project 3 (Lobbying Profile) DUE

30/10: Practice 15

3/11: Practice 16 (Be prepared to discuss Public Lawyering Project 3 findings in Practice)

6/11: Practice 17

10/11: Practice 18 Public Lawyering Project 4 (Ethics Disclosure Profile) DUE

13/11: Practice 19 (Be prepared to discuss Public Lawyering Project 4 in Practice)

17/11: Practice 20  Public Lawyering Project 1 (Access to Information) DUE

20/11: Practice 21

24/11: Practice 22

27/11: Practice 23 Be prepared to discuss Public Lawyering Project 1 in Practice

1/12: Practice 24

4/12: Practice 25

8/12: Practice 26: Review  (By this date, you must have completed "Feedback Quizzes" 1, 2 and 3.  But I strongly recommend you complete these during the semester itself to benchmark your progress and allow you to receive early feedback.)

Every lawyer should know how to find information in the possession of government. And one key skill is knowing how to file effective access to information requests. And knowing comes from doing.

In Practice 5, we will spend 15 minutes discussing strategy. Our focus will be on requests that you yourself initiate.

In terms of filing a request, I will ask you either to initiate your own request or “piggyback” on a request that has already been completed.

Filing Your Own Request

If you choose to file your own request, there are several basic steps: 1. Decide what information you are seeking. We will discuss how best to describe this information in a request, but you need, first, to at least figure out your subject matter. 2. Decide which government department is most likely to have that information. The easiest way to review the list of government departments is to look at the list of bodies subject to the Access to Information Act (in the list of Access Coordinators at each such department). You may need to do a little additional work figuring out what each department does, which will require a little more internet research. 3. Prepare the request. There is no requirement that you follow a specific form, but the form is a very useful tool. With some departments, you may also file an electronic request. 4. File the request, with the accompanying $5 fee. 5. Track the request. Calculate the applicable deadline (and here, it is useful to consult the Access to Information Act), and make sure you set up a “tickler system” (some sort of warning system) in your calendar so you know when that deadline has passed. Monitor any correspondence from the access coordinator in the department affecting those deadlines, and keep your “tickler system” current. If delays are extenuated, contemplate your right to complain to the Access to Information Commissioner. 6. Consider the final response from the government, and again contemplate your right to complain to the Access to Information Commissioner.

Piggybacking on Another Request

Before initiating a request, it very good practice to see if the information you are seeking has already been released under another access request. Visit the appropriate site on data.gc.ca. Search for that information, using likely keywords. If there are existing information requests that cover the topic, you may informally request that information directly from that website. This will be a much faster process than initiating your own re   quest (and does not come with a fee).

General observation

With either request, ask for the information in electronic form – it will come as a pdf on a CD-Rom. This will avoid instances where the government requires payment for copying before releasing the information. The government, by the way, cannot bill you for anything (above the $5 fee to initiate a request) without first securing your consent. But it is useful to be careful in how you frame it so it does not produce endless search hours that the government will then ask for you to pay before releasing the information.

Follow Up

Please file your request by no later than Sept 30. You should them be prepared to report on the status of your access request to the class in Practice 23 on November 27. I require also a (maximum) one page report in writing on: 1. What you requested from whom; 2. What happened (e.g., the information came, there were delays, you were contacted about the request, etc.); 3. Your observations on whether you regard the request as “successful” and “lessons learned” on how you might approach an information request in the future. Please file this report with me over email by Practice 20 on November 17.

Further Reading and Resources for Developing this Skill

If you are interested in really developing your "ATIP" (Access to Information and Privacy) request skills, I strongly recommend picking up Jim Bronskill and David McKie's excellent little manual Your Right to Know: How to Use the Law to Get Government Secrects (Self-Counsel Press, 2014).  Messieurs Bronskill and McKie are veteran journalists and cutting edge users of ATIP laws.

In this project, we explore the Elections Canada political contributions disclosure data. By listening to the podcasts, you will learn a little bit about how elections law regulates contributions (that is, donations) to political actors in our system. In this project, you will “follow the thread” and prepare a (maxiumum) two page report (double or 1.5 spacing) on political donations by “Governor in Council” appointees in the period before their appointment.

That means you need to figure out what “Governor in Council appointees” are and find some examples. You need also to find some names of Governor in Council appointees, and then compare those names against the Elections Canada political contribution database. For this project, pick three such names and compare search for those names in the Elections Canada database. Play with the different databases. You will likely find that searching by “contributor” is the most useful approach.

In writing up your conclusions, I want to include details on what you searched for whom and observations on the following things: 1. Did you find any matches, and if so how sure are you about those matches? 2. What significance, if any, do you think political donations have in assessing the credentials of the appointee? 3. Did you notice any patterns between donations and appointment? 4. What changes would you make to the Elections Canada database to make it, in your view, more useful? 5. Any other observations.

The report is due no later than Practice 11 Oct 16 and should be delivered to me by email: cforcese@uottawa.ca.  Be prepared to discuss results in Practice 12.

In this project, we will examine how it is possible to track lobbying on particular federal law projects or policies. First, you will need to decide what you want to track. Here, we will focus on legislation, because it is one of the topics of this course. So pick a recent bill that has gone through the parliamentary process – visit LegisInfo on the Parliament of Canada website. There, find a bill that interests you – but try to pick one that has gone through more than first reading (and therefore has probably attracted more attention). Also try to pick one that you suspect might be the sort of things that some group or entity might have an interest in (that is, which might attract lobbying).

Now visit the Lobbyist Commissioner database. Figure out how to search that database so that you can track lobbying activity in relation to the bill you have selected. (Use those computer search skills).

Write up a maximum 2 page report (1.5 or double spaced) dealing with the following: 1. What was the bill you selected, and what did it deal with. 2. Was there lobbying activity on the bill, and how did you determine this (e.g., what searches did you run). 3. Who was lobbying and could you discern their position? 4. Did anything in your findings surprise you?

This report is due no later than Practice 14 (October 27) and must be sent to me by email at cforcese@uottawa.ca. Be prepared to discuss your findings in Practice 16.

In this project, we track disclosures made by public office holders and parliamentarians under various ethics rules. First, you need to figure out who is covered by the disclosure rules. Go to the public registry of the Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner.

At the top you will see that this commissioner has jurisdiction under two instruments (which we will discuss in class). The results of the disclosures under these instruments can be key word searched. But wait! As of October 2015, there do not appear to be any parliamentarians (who do not also hold ministerial offices) listed! (Why do you think that is?)

Chose how you want to proceed. You may do one of two things. First, you may simply find a public office holder by name and then write up a report. Find someone interesting, who actually has something to disclose.

Alternatively, you may find a keyword (say, “shares”) and do a report on the results that appear.

In your write-up (maximum 1 page, double or 1.5 spacing) describe what you found. So, for instance, who was the person you scrutinized? What sort of things did they disclose? Was there anything notable? Did anything surprise you?

Or if you do a report on a keyword search like “shares”, what did you find? Anything interesting? Were there any notable patterns?

Overall, in either case, did you find this database useful?

The report is due no later than Practice 18 (Nov 10) and must be emailed to cforcese@uottawa.ca. Be prepared to discuss your findings in in Practice 19.