by Zachary Abella
Obiter Dicta, Osgoode Hall Law School
March 12, 2001

As it turns out, there is something worse than getting a first year summer job on the basis of first semester marks which count: getting a first summer job on the basis of first semester marks which DON’T count.

The University of Toronto Faculty of Law can be an intimidating place. Tucked next to the once-and-future Planetarium, and set back from Queen’s Park Circle, the main law school building has the enviable distinction of actually looking like a law school building. Imposing columns mark the front entrance, reminding one of the gateways to other august edifices, like the Parthenon, US Supreme Court, real Osgoode Hall, and the clock tower in “Back to the Future”. Beyond the main door, and down a dark hallway lined with the names of those who served on student government over the years, it’s hard not to feel as if this school not only has a proud tradition, but that it is one which each student carries on their back.

That Osgoode Hall Law School, which predates the University of Toronto’s legal program by over sixty years, is not burdened by its history isn’t such a bad thing. When Osgoode Law traveled north up the Tentanda Via in 1969, the trappings of its celebrated past remained downtown as the school started anew as an appendage to a suburban university. If Osgoode’s architecture is any indication, the marriage was a reluctant one. Library windows, on either side, face away from campus, and the external part of the school most of York sees is a long, majestic sheer brick wall. Surely, the school was sending the message that it was at York, but not of York.

For students who loved attending school at an old building near all the amenities of downtown, the move was a great letdown. For students whose only required amenity was space to fly kites, it was a superb change of scenery. For law students at the University of Toronto, it was the start of three straight decades of perceived superiority. While Osgoode leaped from crisis to crisis, scandal to strike, U of T’s law school expanded both physically and in reputation. By the time Maclean’s released its ranking of Canadian law programs in 1997 which was bookended by Toronto schools (U of T wasn’t last), the school could do no wrong. Then last month, it was tripped up by what some students may or may not have done, perhaps inspired by what a professor may or may not have said.

Waling past the hall of names, one reaches the new wing. Built in the early 1990s, it doesn’t quite blend in with the old building, but it’s pleasant all the same. Aside from the rare phenomenon of natural light, the new wing is home to the deceptively small Bora Laskin library and not one, but two mixing areas. Anyone who sauntered through this wing in late February would have recognized a sameness to the conversations. Everyone was talking about one thing and one thing only: the cheating scandal and its aftershocks. Had these people not even seen the Elton John/Eminem duet at the Grammy’s?

Were they that insular?

In mid-February, word emerged that thirty first year students (out of 170) were being investigated for lying about their first semester marks, in order to get what were once called “summer jobs”, but are now primarily known as “coveted summer positions.” Eleven law firms recruited at U of T this year, up from five last year, and all the firms needed a gauge to measure whether students were worthy of an interview. Since it goes without saying that first semester grades are the most reliable measure of the breadth of a legal mind, much as the LSAT is a completely unassailable determination of law school abilities, firms pay notice of those marks. Never mind the fact that they don’t count. Well, they didn’t count. At U of T Law, they have this crazy notion that after three months of law school, students might not be fully prepared to write a 100% final which could determine the course of their entire legal career. So before Christmas, students have no-downside risk practice tests – in all courses, as opposed to a Monday morning 40-minute quiz in one of them. Whereas not doing well in these December tests will deprive some students of a first year job, it will not prevent them from getting prime downtown employment after second year, as it would at other area law schools. This is because, as noted a mere paragraph ago, the marks do not count, and are for informational purposes only. As such, at Christmas of first year, while Osgoode students are thrust into the exam-writing Roman Colosseum armed with sharp, potentially deadly swords, U of T students are honing their abilities by dueling with fish sticks.

A print out of an e-mail was posted on the first year message board near Mixing Area #2. It informed students that the day before Reading Week, counselors would be available to calm the nerves of anxious students. It is likely that thirty students would have required the help more than others, but who is to say that the honest students in that class weren’t under a great deal of stress as well, fearing that law firms would treat them with increased suspicion. Any student who actually did receive straight A’s on their exams – the practice exams… which don’t count - would have every justification to be miffed at their dishonest classmates for tarnishing their prospects of summer employment. As well, students who did not do very well on the midterms are also entitled to be angry, as they too have been tarnished. After all, it is the rogue elements from that group who cheated.

On the other hand, let’s assume for a moment that at least some of those 30 students got the idea to be less than honest about their grades because the scam had worked in years previous. This means that there might be some firms in this city that unwittingly hired C students. One can only imagine the comedic possibilities that would ensue when a student with a low G.P.A. finds his or herself working at one of Toronto’s major law firms. The image of Chevy Chase, posing as a doctor in “Fletch,” springs to mind.

Some students at U of T and Osgoode, as well as the legal community as a whole, expressed shock that Examgate ever took place. It’s good to know that somebody did. To the rest of the public, where the concept of the dishonest lawyer is not completely beyond the realm of comprehension, the cheating law student story was a two-day phenomenon that faded from the headlines the moment an Edmonton baby wandered out of her house.

And just like the frozen baby, a similar question has emerged from the U of T incident: whom can we blame? Let’s start with television. When The Simpsons premiered eleven years ago, the average first year would have been in junior high, a time when students are at their most impressionable. In the very first episode, underachiever Bart switched his test with that of Martin, the resident nerd. Not only was Bart’s cheating undetected, but the school actually rewarded him by placing him in the gifted program. A decade on, that episode obviously still had resonance with at least thirty students.

And then there’s popular music. The week those thirty students submitted their applications, the number one song in America was a spirited dancehall number about doing something you know to be wrong, and gleefully denying culpability: Shaggy’s “It Wasn’t Me.” Infer from that what you will. It goes without saying that almost every incident that occurs at a school requires a scapegoat, because though blaming the student makes the most sense, it’s far too simple. Usually, the press likes to direct blame at a singular polarizing figure who is perceived to wield some influence over the student’s behaviour. In this scenario, Professor Denise Reaume has been thrust into the Marilyn Manson role.

Reaume allegedly exercised her academic freedom by suggesting that students might consider exercising their moronic freedom through erroneously informing the firms en masse that they had received straight A’s. Now the law school, exercising its administrative freedom, is investigating the students and, despite protests from faculty at Yale, the Sorbonne and Oxford (never underestimate the reach of the National Post), Professor Reaume is being investigated as well. A United Nations Resolution insisting that the administration leave the poor professor alone can’t be far behind.

Ultra Vires reported Reaume as saying that "we must have the courage of our convictions to say to Bay Street…that they don't need to know all the details of a student's progress—they are only entitled to the end result." She’s right, of course. It’s only a matter of time before law firms start recruiting students right after their first Grade Nine math quiz. The mess that the students got themselves into was the result of a hypercomeptitive atmosphere that’s more conducive to winning than learning.

If anything good comes out of this incident, aside from making Osgoode students feel smug for about two days, it is that there’s an infinitesimal possibility that the pendulum could swing every so slightly back from the cutthroat environment that has been nurtured.

Reaume told a newspaper that she wanted this whole incident to blow over, so she could return to her job, which she defined as “thinking important thoughts and [talking] about ideas.” Oooooookay. She’ll be able to put this incident behind her and return to her thinking, but what of the thirty students? Surely, nobody in this mess has been doing more mental headstands than them.

Last week, an Osgoode professor asked his Corporate Finance whether those students should be expelled. All but two people felt that they should. That sanction would be unduly harsh. There are many excuses for what those students did, but none that make it right. Those kids got greedy and embarrassed the school, but wrong as it may have been, everyone deserves a second chance. The prolonged psychological turmoil and unimaginable stress those students must be feeling at the moment is almost – almost - punishment enough.

Besides, those students wanted jobs far more than their peers, and could conceivably suffer the ironic penalty of failing to meet the requirements for being called to the Bar. Even if the school slaps them on the wrist, in the end, their LL.B. or trendy J.D. might be worthless.

No matter what the administration decides, those students might spend the rest of their lives ruing the day they potentially threw away their legal careers, because they cheated on marks – which don’t count.