by A. A.
Law Student, University of Toronto Law School

I'm a second year student at the faculty of law, University of Toronto. I'm writing from Bayfield, Ontario (trying! to relax at our cottage). I wanted to comment on the scandal at our law school, where, so far as I'm concerned, the atmosphere is now poisoned with a rather sordid mixture of avarice and desparation.

Rex, one thing we have to keep in mind is that relvant numbers are not 30 students out of a class of 170, but more like 30 out of 85-100 -- since it's not the entire class that applies for these 1st year summer positions. If you look at it, the situation is really worse than it seems, since close to 1/3 of those who applied for these jobs lied.

My other point is that you seem to place too much emphasis on the notion that law school is about learning morality and being able to tell right from wrong. There is in fact a lively scholarly debate on this, and the question is whether a legal education is more about clever rationalization and moral relativism than about moral absolutes. Certainly, one of the arguments that I've heard bandied about by my colleagues is that this incident speaks more to professional dishonesty than academic dishonesty, and that the whole thing should be settled between the employers and potential employees -- and not through disciplinary measures in the academy. What this bit of hair-splitting disregards is the fact that we are at a professional school, where the ties between the academy and the profession are especially close (e.g., these firms fund the school, in part -- and the entire system is, in turn, coordinated by the Law Society). So our situation doesn't compare to that, say, of a history or philosophy major lying about his grades to a merchant banking firm.

As for Prof. Reaume: I want to say that I was one of her students durning my first year, and I find the suggestion that she would have counselled students to lie (let alone lie to their own advantage!!) absolutely ludicrous. She srikes me as someone who comports herself with the highest of ethical/moral standards. Blaming her is, again, a clever bit of rationlization. (You're absolutely right Rex: if this was done as a form of protest, there are plenty of alternitve means of doing, e.g., a letter writing campaign, etc.)

Finally, it's important to keep in mind that while the pressures at law school are real (indeed, our student newspaper recently did a feature on the mental health of law students and found that a disproportionate number of use the psychiatric services at the University, compared to other faculties), this cannot in any way serve as an excuse for idiocy of this order. We are pretty much all guaranteed jobs once we're out of law school -- in fact, our dean makes a great deal of this and our employability is well advertized by a continuous and frenzied campaign of self-promotion. So, the only thing these students were desperate to get at were the most elite and coveted jobs. Aparently, they couldn't settle for less, which makes it all the more nauseating.