Lamentations over a once great service
Reading the weekly Headnotes Bulletin was an integral part of my Monday routine in 1L. I would scroll through the announcements, conveniently sorted by category (student office, academic events, student activities), clicking on and registering for the events that caught my eye. I paid special attention to the ones that were held during lunch because that meant I didn’t have to pack food that day. The Critical Analysis of Law and the James Hausman Tax Law and Policy workshops were my favourite: they featured hot food served in trays.
On December 2, 2019, in the last Headnotes of the semester, Dylan Reid bid the Faculty farewell as it was his last issue of editing Headnotes. Headnotes continued on though, taken over by the events team at the Faculty. So long as an announcement was submitted by Thursday noon, it would be included for publication on the following Monday.
This academic year, however, Headnotes is a shell of its former self. They are now merely a “reminder to check the eLegal calendar for upcoming events.” No, I’m not going to check the events calendar on eLegal. Not only do I have to log in一the horror of the one extra click一I have to toggle between the days on the calendar, unsure of what I am searching for.
Don’t get me wrong, the events calendar is great. I thought the daily emails were useful一for about a month in 1L一when they came every day around midnight. I don’t need three in one day, coming at 12:06am, 3:38am, and 12:32pm, with the first two emails listing different events and the third one listing events that are happening at that very moment. I think the glitch has been fixed now, but the point remains.
Perhaps it’s because I am in 3L now and there’s less free food offered due to the pandemic, but I am less attuned to events happening at the Faculty. The posts on the Virtual Community Facebook group are a blur. I am inundated with emails informing me of upcoming events, which I have trouble keeping up with.
I understand that the Faculty is trying to shift us to U of T Law Connect. My registration is still waiting to be approved so I cannot comment on how useful a tool it is. But I am not looking forward to keeping track of another website to check (on top of Quercus, UTLC, eLegal) and I miss the simplicity of Headnotes. I miss the events, helpfully organized in a list, with a concise headline that included its date and time.
Maybe most of all though, I miss the free food that Headnotes notified me about.
