November 2024 Faculty Council
The Faculty Council met for the first time in the 2024-2025 school year on November 27, 2024. Faculty Council members welcomed newcomers to the Faculty, discussed first-term law school events, and summarized the JD and Graduate Admission reports.
Dean Jutta Brunnée began the meeting by welcoming two faces to the U of T Law community: Professor Sabine Tsuruda (JD/PhD), who joined the Faculty in July to research and teach the law of work, contract law, and legal theory, and Annette Paul (MPA, CFRA), Assistant Dean (Advancement), who joined U of T Law in August of 2024.
Dean Brunnée noted that the U of T Law budget presentation by Scott Maybury, Vice-President of Operations and Real Estate Partnerships and Vice-Provost of Academic Operations and Jeff Lennon, the University’s Assistant Vice President of Planning and Budget, which was initially scheduled for October 2024, had been pushed to January 2025, the next Faculty Council meeting on January 22, 2025. The presentation includes information on how tuition is set and the law school’s funding streams and expenses.
The Dean also reflected on the success of the Faculty’s 75th anniversary celebration held in September 2024 at the Isabel Bader Theatre. She announced there will be other events this year intended to bring together different alumni groups, such as former recipients of the Cecil A. Wright Dean’s Key award, former Grand Moot participants, and alumni of the JD/MBA program. Dean Brunnée announced that there will also be a special issue of the Faculty of Law Review in March of 2025 where current Faculty Members will reflect on the contributions and accomplishments of former Faculty members.
President of the Students’ Law Society (SLS), Isabel Brisson (3L), spoke next. Brisson first thanked the administration for its action in addressing the security concerns that students raised last year. All entrances, except for the Flavelle main entrance, are accessible through fob access alone. Brisson then addressed the ongoing frustration of students regarding the accommodations process, particularly the ability of students to access lecture recordings. She asked the Faculty to consider recommendations made by the SLS and the Disabled Law Students’ Association in the 2023-2024 academic year on providing recordings. Brisson ended her remarks by expressing gratitude for the Faculty’s “continued partnership in making the school a place where everyone feels supported and valued.”
President of the Graduate Law Students’ Association (GLSA), Dimitrios Tsilikis, spoke about the Association’s current projects, which include transferring its banking account to the University, investing money that it has “sitting around”, holding more social events, changing its constitution, and creating a work progress group for Global Professional LLM students.
The Faculty Council then approved the following change to the Master of European and Eurasian Studies program. The “Core Interdisciplinary Research Seminar”, which is taught at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, will be changed from a mandatory full-year course to a mandatory half-year course.
Next, Professor Benjamin Alarie presented the annual JD Admissions report. Professor Alarie emphasized that the Faculty made fewer offers in 2024 (355 offers, compared to 361 in 2023 and 368 in 2024) but received a higher number of acceptances (231 acceptances, compared to 214 in 2023 and 210 in 2022). The higher number of acceptances was not expected. Professor Alarie attributed this “higher yield” to the success of the Faculty’s financial aid program. Professor Alarie thanked Associate Dean Christopher Essert for quickly assembling new small groups to accommodate the larger first-year class.
Professor Alarie stated that the Faculty of Law makes offers in three waves: approximately 200 offers in December, 100 offers in late January or early February, and another round of offers in late February or early March. Professor Alarie shared that later offers have a lower acceptance rate, likely because offerees have started to plan on attending law school elsewhere. Professor Alarie stated that 2024 was likely an anomaly and that the Faculty would likely not “overcorrect” by making fewer offers for the 2025-2026 class. Professor Alarie thanked the Admissions Committee, composed of Faculty members, staff members, and 3L students at U of T Law for their work on the first round of admission profile reviews.
Other than the class size, the 2024 JD Class profile statistics Professor Alarie that presented were similar to previous years. The median LSAT was 167 (it has ranged from 166-168 for the last four years), the median GPA was 3.91 on a 4.0 scale, and a majority of the class identified as female. The complete class profile is available on the Faculty’s website.
Next, Dean Brunnée thanked former Associate Dean of Graduate Programs, Professor Larissa Katz, whose term as Associate Dean ended on December 31, 2024, for her “attentive, energetic, and forward looking” work as Associate Dean. Professor Vincent Chiao took over the position as of January 1, 2025.
Professor Katz then presented the Graduate Admissions report, which showed an overall decline in applications to graduate programs (SJD and LLM) in 2024. However, Professor Katz stated that the pool of applicants was “amazing” and that the Faculty had still generated an “incredible” class of graduate students. She said that the U of T has mandated an increase to funding for all doctoral students, including law students, which will put the Faculty “in a much better position to compete with other excellent doctoral programs in law.” Another highlight is that this year’s SJD class has done incredibly well with receiving nominations for highly competitive grants. Moreover, Professor Katz emphasized that there was a higher uptake in GPLLM applications and the GPLLM class, with 169 new students,was larger than previous years.
In adjourning, Dean Brunnée stated that every five years, as part of the academic planning process, U of T requires all of its units to undergo a U of T quality assurance process. This process will be happening during the 2024-2025 academic year. It requires the Faculty to undergo an extensive self-study. This winter term, the Faculty will be soliciting input from students, Faculty, and staff in order to compile a report during the summer of 2025. During the 2025-2026 academic year, external auditors will visit the Faculty.
The following Faculty Council meeting was held on Wednesday, January 22, 2025. See Olivia Schenck’s (3L) article in this issue, titled “January Faculty Council Meeting Included ‘Open Book’ Exam Policy Change Concerns and an Alarming Annual University Budget Presentation”, recapping the January Faculty Council meeting. Additional Faculty Council meetings will be held in February and March.