Obiter Dicta Issue 11 - February 23, 2015 | Page 22

NEWS 22  Obiter Dicta Tuition ABS » continued from page 21 » continued from page 9 these initiatives would not even be needed if tuition was reasonably affordable in the first place. Conclusion The often heard refrain of Osgoode students: “With the amount of tuition I’m paying, you’d think I could get X,” and replace X with any number of student complaints. Understandably, students want high quality services and facilities given the amount paid, especially considering the steps it takes to even pay tuition: summer employment, applying for government loans, lines of credits. As a result, minor things like non-functioning electric sockets, fees to use Examsoft (currently being covered by funds from the Dean’s Office), slow internet, etc., are particularly enraging for students. However, while students are good at asking for more, if students want to get serious about lowering tuition, the discussion has to centre around getting less. Would students sacrifice the number and variety of available classes, replace full-time faculty with more adjunct professors, eliminate “localised” student services, such as transcript ordering and career counselling, if that meant lower tuition? This is the kind of discussion that Osgoode needs to have to be serious about reducing tuition. Of course, increased government funding, more third-party investments, or professors and staff agreeing to a pay-cut would allow for lower tuition without Osgoode needing to cutback; the likelihood of that happening is not especially high. The conversation around tuition has been going for years now, but are we ready to have the real discussion?  u Special thanks to Assistant Dean Mya Rimon, Manager of Admissions and Student Financial Services Christine Hunter, and Executive Officer Phyllis Lepore-Babcock for speaking with me and providing data for this article. ê Illustration by Benjamin Hognestad. affordability, billing certainty, and work efficiency. New lawyers can feel that they are expected to bide their time within the four walls of a precariously ascending box on an org chart, and that opportunities to apply themselves to the nuts and bolts of the workplace itself are few and far between. These factors stunt the profession’s ability to deliver on its duties to the public, and eliminate an available frontier for renewal. Resistance to ABS starts to look a lot like resistance to better ways of doing things. Renaissance and reform While some have asked how much weight the Law Society should give the ideas of students, we question the wisdom of lending excessive credence to a more timid, insular approach. An industry that wants to pat itself on the back for its fabled institutional and public service roles loses the luxury of such caution with each echelon of society that slips from its service coverage. In the face of Ontario’s access to justice stalemate, industry disruption – a wider exposure to Porter’s Five Forces – can be a source of positive change. Of course, the history of Canadian legal services is one guided by the knowledge, experience, and insight of senior members of the profession. Many great reforms have been pioneered or perfected by the Ontario bar. But seldom have those propositions put the business druthers of lawyers in their crosshairs. For obvious reasons, the ABS debate should never be concerned with defending the creature comforts of lawyers, propping up a singular, consultancy business model, or dragging along any baggage of lawyer exceptionalism. As relative outsiders, students might be well positioned to challenge the conventional wisdom. For our generation, ABS offers developments that are worth getting excited about. Its potential aligns with our aspirations for law as a calling and for legal practice as a modern enterprise - one that is responsive and accessible to the society it serves. Our views are informed as much in a spirit of legal service renaissance as one of legal industry reform. We are conscious of our novice station in the legal community. It is that same, often troubling vantage point that compels us to share our ideas about the future of law. Too often, that future has been determined by the interests of the past.  u Editorial Note: This article was originally published in the Canadian Bar Association National Magazine. See the original column here: http:// w w w.nationalmagazine.ca/A rticles/Februar y2 01 5-Web/Why-law-students-care-about-ABS. aspx?lang=EN. © 2012–2015 Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP. All rights reserved. | 416 869 5300 Cassels Brock 2014/2015 season Obiter Dicta student ad “Doodle - School Kid” 2015 4B Prestige, b&w Contact: Heather Murray [email protected] 416 869 5782 - fax [phone] Please PRINT a hard copy of the file and either FAX it or SCAN and EMAIL it back to me, thanks!