Strategic Plan

Continue to attract academically outstanding and intellectually curious J.D. students who are committed to the highest ethical standards and to serving society and the legal profession.

• Conduct a review of the J. D. admissions process, including assessing the desirability and feasibility of broad-based admissions and what measures can be taken to ensure students are drawn from across society.

Ensure the graduate program continues to attract the best students.

• Secure financial support to attract and support top research-based graduate students, including Indigenous and international students.
• Support graduate students to obtain external funding.
• Develop a strategy to ensure graduate professional and certificate programs, including continuing legal education opportunities, are financially sustainable, meet student and faculty needs and respond to market opportunities.

Attract and retain exceptional scholars and teachers.

• Increase the complement of research-active faculty.
• Recruit and retain effective and innovative teachers, including by creating tenure-track Instructor positions within the law school

Partner with the university, government, donors and other groups to ensure student access to legal education, regardless of financial and societal barriers.

• Promote legal education as an achievable and appealing goal for a diverse range of students, particularly students from historically underrepresented socio-economic groups including Indigenous communities.
• Ensure that financial aid for J. D. students adequately addresses barriers to legal education and facilitates freedom of career choice after graduation.
• Develop comprehensive financial support to attract the most highly qualified students.
• Improve the administration of student financial aid and student awards for the needs of law students and prospective law students, so that an optimal level of financial aid and awards advising is provided.
• Work with the university, the province and students to ensure tuition is market-appropriate and sustainable and that any changes account for the financial accessibility of a legal education.
• Work with the university to enhance the accommodation of the needs of students, staff and faculty with disabilities through the provision of responsive forms of support that facilitate their access to the law school.

Enhance and promote the law school’s community engagement activities, including with our alumni and the legal profession more broadly.

• Build and deepen relationships with community stakeholders, professional organizations and the judiciary, including through improving effective communication.
• Develop strategies to implement the Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Indian Residential Schools in the law school’s relationship with all external communities, including our engagement with Indigenous communities.
• Enrich volunteer opportunities to ensure meaningful and positive experiences for volunteers and students.
• Recognize and celebrate our volunteers for their contributions to the law school.

Encourage alumni and other members of the local legal community to become active stakeholders who contribute to and benefit from the law school’s achievements.

• Promote the value of the law school alumni community to students and create opportunities for students to connect with alumni, both locally and internationally, and to develop future alumni networks.
• Actively engage recent alumni as they transition from accomplished students to distinguished alumni, including engagement as mentors for J. D. students.
• Provide opportunities for our diverse alumni community and other members of the legal profession to connect with the law school and one another through events and communications.
• Partner with alumni and other members of the legal community in building the law school’s reputation and presence in key communities in B. C., throughout Canada and around the world.

Identify and share opportunities for alumni and donors to help realize the law school’s goals.

• Provide exceptional stewardship to our past, current and future donors.
• Work with alumni, donors, government and other supporters to ensure that the law school has the resources necessary to achieve its strategic objectives.

Celebrate, support and promote the importance of diversity, equality, equity, Indigeneity and a respectful and inclusive community to a vibrant law school.

• Encourage the active reflection and celebration of diversity, equity and inclusiveness in all activities undertaken by the law school.
• Develop strategies to celebrate the Indigenous dimensions of our community.
• Develop cultural competency skills with particular reference to Indigeneity.
• Promote U. B. C.’s Statement on Respectful Environment amongst faculty, staff and students.
• Enhance the integration of people with disabilities into our community, including through the identification and removal of tangible and intangible barriers.
• Foster faculty and staff participation in important student milestones such as orientation and graduation.
• Recognize and celebrate faculty, student and staff contributions to professional leadership and civil society, including the contributions made by our legal clinics to access to justice in B. C.
• Foster broad engagement among graduate students and faculty members, so as to facilitate knowledge of each other and each other’s work.

Cultivate a workplace and learning environment that inspires excellence and well-being and is responsive to the varied needs of staff and faculty.

• Promote and support equitable access to learning opportunities and professional development for staff at all levels, for faculty and for those in leadership roles.
• Review, promote and support strategies to foster well-being and mental health among staff and faculty.
• Review flexible working arrangements to enhance staff satisfaction and retention and meet law school needs.
• Conduct a review of faculty and staff workloads.
• Encourage, support and celebrate individuals and teams whose work contributes to the success of the law school.
• Foster mutual understanding among staff and faculty about roles and responsibilities.

Establish annual opportunities to discuss and set specific priorities and directions for the following year.

• Schedule regular, annual faculty retreats in the spring where specific priorities for the following year can be established.
• Establish regular mechanisms whereby the dean, faculty, staff and students can identify and commit to key priorities and values for the near future, including an assessment of progress made with the Strategic Plan.

Design and implement policies and procedures to foster transparent and accountable governance and effective communication.

• Ensure people have opportunities for input into decision-making processes that affect them and communicate decisions in a timely manner to those affected.
• Build community and improve working relationships by fostering effective internal communications.
• Have research centres and research clusters develop strategic plans.

Deliver a broad and relevant program that prepares students for both private and public legal practice, service to the community and leadership locally, nationally and internationally.

• Ensure the law school implements the curricular and pedagogical Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Indian Residential Schools.    
• Review possibilities to support and strengthen clinical programs in a financially-sustainable way and with a particular focus on furthering access to justice for underserved communities.
• Review clinical and experiential learning offerings to ensure that opportunities are distributed appropriately among students and assessed appropriately.    
• Conduct a strategic review of how best to integrate exposure to international perspectives into legal education in a financially-sustainable way.    
• Review curricular opportunities for legal research and writing, with a view to enhancement of such opportunities.  
• Conduct a comprehensive review of the competitive moot program to consider optimal resource allocation.    
• Gather data on J. D. student workload.

Engage committed teachers and students in an active learning environment informed by research and effective approaches to pedagogy.

• Develop a program of teaching support for full-time and part-time faculty members.    
• Review the current system of teaching evaluations to encourage student feedback and to ensure fairness and useful assessment.

Assist students to meet their academic and career goals, including private practice, public service and non-traditional and academic career paths.

• Improve formal academic support programs, to ensure that J. D. students have the academic skills necessary to succeed in law school.    
• Enhance support for students and alumni of the law school to pursue public interest and non-traditional careers through the building of relationships with alumni and organizations in the local and international community.    
• Review existing policies, practices and procedures to develop and implement strategies to support students’ well-being and mental health, including strategies to help students manage stress arising from workload and assessment processes.

Ensure the graduate program provides an excellent education and training for academic and professional leadership.

• Review research-based graduate programs to ensure that they are meeting the needs of students and providing the best possible preparation for research careers.    
• Provide appropriate teaching development opportunities for Ph. D. students.    
• Evaluate and improve research-based graduate student opportunities for international engagement and interdisciplinary study.    
• Enhance academic and professional career services for course-based and research-based graduate students and graduate program alumni.

Improve the quality and increase the quantity of research and scholarship to strengthen the law school’s standing as a nationally and internationally recognized centre of outstanding legal research.

• Attract, support and retain outstanding faculty members and graduate students who are or have the potential to become leaders in their fields of research.    

Enhance the centrality of scholarly research in our law school consistent with our position as a law school located in a leading research university.

• Provide opportunities for researchers to collaborate on projects with other researchers both within and outside the faculty and to present work-in-progress and research ideas to each other.    
• Forge stronger links between law faculty researchers and researchers in other parts of the University.
• Build targeted research linkages beyond Allard Hall in areas of shared strength, including through international partnerships.
• Increase support for faculty applications for research grants.
• Increase the number and quality of external research grant applications to support leading research and provide graduate student support.
• Support and encourage integration of faculty research and teaching.
• Track and celebrate the research accomplishments of present and former students.
• Create opportunities for students to become involved in faculty research.
• Consistent with the collective agreement, encourage diverse forms of research, including community-based research and other non-traditional and interdisciplinary research methodologies.

Facilitate effective dissemination of outstanding research with the goal of influencing scholarly, professional and public policy debates and the development of the law, and improving people’s lives.

• Improve the distribution of scholarship, including publication in leading journals and presses and through effective on-line facilities, to establish faculty members as leaders in their fields.
• Develop a comprehensive communication plan for scholarship and engagement, including the identification of key audiences and strategies for enhancing the impact of diverse forms of research, and support faculty members to share their research through public speaking and other opportunities for public engagement.
• Encourage students and staff to participate in faculty events such as public research presentations.
• Develop strategies to communicate faculty research to alumni, the profession and members of other interested groups, including through continuing legal education endeavours.
• Recognize and celebrate professional contributions made by faculty members to the development and just administration of the law.

Support pre-tenured faculty as they develop and implement their research agendas.

• Assist pre-tenure faculty to establish their research agendas and encourage research collaboration between pre-tenure and tenured faculty.
• Provide tenure-track faculty with a gradual introduction to faculty service and leadership opportunities.
• Provide pre-tenure faculty with assistance in attracting research resources and in establishing links with leaders in their field.