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One student’s tribute to the late Professor Michael Mandel
JAIME MOR
Contributor
I CA N ’ T T EL L you what Professor Michael Mandel meant to each of the
approximately 4000 students he had a hand
in educating over his lengthy 39-year academic career; I can, however, tell you what
he meant to me. Through this, those of you
who had the chance to learn from him might
remember something about the experience,
and those of you who didn’t might perhaps
be able to get some idea of what it was like
to be his student.
I met Professor Mandel on the day of my
first criminal law class. With his trademark
smile and sense of humour, he proceeded to
introduce us to the topic of law with a single,
simple statement: “Law is not a thing,” he
said, “but a way of arguing about things.”
The intellect of the man was such that,
frankly speaking, none of us could keep up
with him that first day. Heck, he navigated
through the complexities and abstractions of
criminal law with such speed and ease that
I’m not sure it’s entirely possible for anyone
to be equal to that task. Nevertheless, he
taught us what we needed to know, and he
was perennially humorous and approachable
(most delightfully peculiar was his use of
an illustrated chart full of cartoonish happy
and sad faces to teach us about the different
standards of mens rea).
While it is undoubtedly true that over the
years many have found his teaching style to
be a bit too complex for introductory classes,
his love for teaching us was abundantly
clear, and for this we loved him right back.
Always the consummate critic, we were far
more likely to hear a lecture on the logical fallacies and inconsistencies of a major
Supreme Court of Canada decision than we
were to learn its most practical applications.
This is a man who would unashamedly craft
exam questions like: “Which one of the following two major decisions was worse, and
why?”
For him, the point wasn’t to blindly teach
us what the law was; rather, it was to teach
us to critically think on the law, question it,
and decide for ourselves whether or not we
agreed with it. In hindsight, I can’t imagine a more useful class – law school is not as
much about teaching substantive law as it is
about teaching students a way of thinking.
After all, law is not a thing, but rather a way
of arguing about things.
The Obiter Dicta
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