Title: If It's Not Impossible, It's Not Worth Doing: Rod Macdonald's Vision of Legal Education
Abstract: This chapter appears in a book dedicated to the examination of the considerable influence of the vast scholarship of the late Roderick A. Macdonald, professor in the Faculty of Law, McGill University from 1979-2014 and Dean of the Faculty from 1984-1989. This chapter examines Professor Macdonald’s vision of legal education and his important scholarship on the theory of legal pedagogy. It focuses on the lessons he taught us through that scholarship, including the power of informal legal education that occurs outside the classroom and, indeed, outside the Faculty; the need to challenge the traditional dichotomy of practical versus theoretical legal education; the vision of the law faculty as a community of learners; and the need to focus the teaching of law not on what the law is but, rather, on the goals we seek to achieve through law. Proclaiming that teaching law is a way of being alive, Macdonald ultimately taught us that legal education is about self-discovery and the conception of the virtuous life.
Publication Year: 2016
Publication Date: 2016-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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