Indigenous history class for lawyers justified and more common in Canada: experts
EDMONTON — As Alberta’s Law Society seeks to defend rules that require members to take a course on Indigenous issues, experts say such measures are common elsewhere in Canada and are well-grounded in legal rationale.
“It is increasingly common that law societies across the country are requiring continuing education in certain particular areas” that include cultural awareness, said Trevor Farrow of York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto.
“The law is continually changing,” said Jeremy Webber of the University of Victoria’s law school.
“The reason for the requirement is to ensure that a lawyer does not continue to practice their area of law as though it were the 1980s.”