Hal Jackman (B.A. ’53 Vic., LL.B. ’56) is a pillar of the Toronto business and political community. Amongst his many accomplishments, he has served as Chancellor of U of T, Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario, and is currently Visitor of Massey College.
Most recently, he donated $11 million to the Faculty of Law in support of its new construction campaign. Only a few years back he also contributed $30 million to the new Jackman Humanities Building, Jackman Humanities Institute, and Massey College.
Sitting in his office overlooking University Avenue surrounded by oil paintings of Canada’s beautiful landscape, Jackman recalls his time at U of T.
“I enjoyed law and have a huge admiration for professors. The ones we had there, they were first class people. I took general arts before that. It was like night and day. I never really got a real education until I got into law school. Which is one of the reasons why I gave them a lot of money. I felt somehow an obligation to them. You cannot define that I succeeded in life because of some specific experience such as at law school. But you do know you are the sum total of what you did before.”
He explained that law school changed since his time there. At the time, Toronto Law School, which joined U of T, had broken off from Osgoode Hall Law School. Dean Caesar Wright was leading Toronto’s efforts to become an independent community of scholars, and this transition needed new people.
“It was different back then. To get into law school now, you need very high marks as I understand it. That was not the case when I was there. There was battle going on between the provincial law society and the provincial university. We had 17 in our graduating class of 1956 [at U of T], while the first year class at Osgoode [Hall] was about 150. The new U of T Law was struggling, in the sense that they had put together a first class faculty, but it was being heavily subsidized by the centre of the university. I think some of the other faculties were getting a bit annoyed. ‘You have to get more bodies into those seats.’ So it was relatively easy to get into U of T law school. I got in with I believe a ‘C’ average. Though a ‘C’ may be about a ‘A-‘ now based on how marks have been inflated [over the decades]. It was a good time and we had good students. Though, it is much more competitive nowadays.”
When it comes to the legal profession’s future, he sees a need for the law to serve the public, much like the other professions do.
“When I was chancellor of the University of Toronto, I sensed the other professional faculties such as medicine and engineering were more practical. For instance, medicine is interested in making people live longer and healthier for the most reasonable cost possible. Engineering is to build that structure and make it last and function for the lowest possible cost for humanity. The law does not have that as a mandate. They should service society. I do not like the hourly billing rate. They should bill not by how long it takes to write the paper but by what it says. In particular, in these family law cases – divorce and custody. The law should be able to help them out.”
Regarding money in the legal profession, he was not and is still not in favor of inflated tuition fees or hourly rates. “I think we paid around $300 or so back then for law school with about $150 per year for arts” Jackman said. “I spoke out against the law school tuition fee increase. Former Dean Daniels wanted to increase it one big hunk. But ultimately, I think, the government stepped in and did not allow him to do it. And the other law schools in the province were very much against U of T doing it because they felt they would have to do it too. Because they were a little disingenuous in their arguments that this would allow more people to attend. I think 30% of the new money was going to student aid increases while the rest of it was for raises and pay for new faculty. Some want to go to law school, but can’t go because they can’t pay. I think the law profession is not as highly regarded by society as other professions, and there are higher rated professions such as physicians and dentists.”
Talking about the changes happening in Ontario today, Jackman, though a retired businessperson now, is still as engaged as ever with the law.
