LU convocation features school's first-ever law graduates

THUNDER BAY – For the first time in its history, law students will be counted among Lakehead University's alumni. 

The 58-student Bora Laskin Faculty of Law class of 2016 held a ceremony at the former Port Arthur Collegiate Institute site on Friday morning before joining their colleagues for convocation at the Thunder Bay Auditorium in the afternoon.

“They were very successful,” said Lakehead University president Brian Stevenson.

“They were going into a new program, they were studying with new professors in new facilities and I think they did a fantastic job at getting through the system in doing innovative and new kinds of things that other law schools have not done across the country.”

The law program is the first of its kind in Canada to forego mandatory articling after graduation. It was the first Canadian law school to nominate an Indigenous woman as dean in Angelique EagleWoman and the first to make Aboriginal law classes mandatory in its first and second year curriculum. 

Larissa Speak received the Dean’s Medal for the Bora Laskin Faculty of Law as the program’s highest academic achiever. Not only has Speak committed to stay in Thunder Bay to article at Ontario Superior Court but she added she never would have decided on law school if Lakehead hadn't launched the program in 2013.

“We’ve been treated as pretty special all the way along. It’s exciting to be the first charter class and set the tone of the program going forward so we’re all very respectful,” she said.

“I’m working in Thunder Bay following graduation so I’m excited to be involved in the law school after that.”

Lakehead’s senate granted lawyer and former Quebec Premier Jean Charest with an honourary doctorate at Friday’s ceremony. As Premier, Charest introduced the $80-billion Plan Nord to develop Quebec’s northern region in 2011.

“I’m a huge believer in the importance of northern communities,” Charest said.

“There’s not a lot of people who know how many other cans have jobs in Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg and Vancouver because of the people who work here. Whether they’re lawyers, manufacturers, accountants or bankers, they work on Bay Street because there’s other Canadians who get up every morning in northern communities across Canada and who allow them to have good paying jobs.”