ProfReader

Many are relatively similar.

Yes, you generally need permission (everywhere that I've worked anyway).

Absolutely not. You will sound like a whiner with sour grapes and you won't win anyone over using words like "arbitrary". Maybe you are or maybe you aren't, but that's what you will sound like.

Oh, you don't have any such choice in your first year. The vast majority of your classes will consist of being lectured at just like every other law school.

I completely agree. I don't even really think this is bad marketing, unless every single other law school is also engaging in bad marketing. I think that they genuinely will make more technologically-savvy lawyers and, at least from that quotation, aren't claiming that this will somehow make them much, much more employable than the graduates of any other law school. And I think several schools claim something similar to saying that their graduates will be "driven to expand the reach of justice." As for the final claim, "The legal profession is changing and so too must law school", I think that various groups of people say this all the time in a variety of different settings. I don't think that is problematic at all. Again, other law schools probably make similar claims. The only claim that maybe mystifies me a bit is that their graduates will have diverse work experience. Not because I necessarily doubt this (I have no idea how they will structure the work experience part of the program or the afternoon sessions with what will likely be practitioners in 2L), but because I don't have enough information to assess that claim.

I know plenty of people in their early 20s who are much more skeptical than this. I certainly was. Regardless of what either of us thinks about this topic, neither of us are experts in the psychology of advertising, so have no real idea who believes what about marketing materials aside from pure anecdotal speculation. I'm also not sure that anyone is telling anyone that something "will occur" in terms of career prospects. I just had a look at the marketing materials and they are pretty innocuous about what "will occur".

I would have to take a closer look at the marketing materials to determine if there is something that I find concerning, I guess. If there are any actual misrepresentations, then those would absolutely be problematic. However, I also think that by the time someone is in their early 20s, they realize that marketing is designed to paint a one-sided picture. I also think that it isn't problematic to market choices that were made for pedagogical reasons. If there is good reason for those choices, then great, market them. Therefore, based on the abstract of that article alone, I don't really see the problem with branding (as long as it isn't linked, for example, to misleading career prospect numbers). I think the way some US schools game the system to appear better on the quality metrics discussed in that article is way worse than people saying "we're different...here's how."

Huh? We are talking about two different things, I think. The conversation started with curriculum design, which in my experience is primarily pedagogically-motivated, but seemed to shift to marketing, which I have no idea about. I've never seen my school's marketing material and have no idea where it came from. When you spoke about the curriculum and noted a shift to virtue signalling and branding, I assumed that you meant things like building up the Indigenous aspects of the curriculum, making things more-skills based, or making things more technology-focused. All of those have credible pedagogical justifications and, in my experience, were done for pedagogical reasons rather than virtue signalling, branding, etc. The branding and marketing came well after the fact (except perhaps for some secondary discussion about how, for example, increasing the skills-based aspects of the curriculum (which were done for pedagogical reasons) would perhaps stand somewhat apart from another school in the same market). The marketing materials that lead students to believe things are almost a completely different question than curriculum design.

In my experience, this is not "primarily" the case.

Seriously? Currently, students at many schools are learning a bunch of Aboriginal law content in Constitutional law. If they are pulling that content out of that course, then let's say they make Constitutional law a bit shorter (2.5 hours a week instead of the 3 that it is at many schools) and then let's say that Aboriginal law is 1.5 hours once a week, that's only an extra hour a week of class, which isn't much. Students at various schools are doing an extra hour or two a week in something (for example, students at Calgary take Legislation, which isn't common among law schools). We also don't know that the boot camps will take away from class time at all. Maybe they start or end earlier (like the UofT where they do their orientation stuff before other law schools are in session or at other schools where they don't get a fall reading week). See @BlockedQuebecois above for another example of how this might not actually be "insane" relative to other schools. I do agree that students should be skeptical if they are asked to commit before having any more information. However, I doubt that will be the case and we have no reason whatsoever to think that more information won't be forthcoming (in fact, there is a place on the website where you can asked to be kept abreast of information). What I don't agree with is idle, baseless skepticism well in anticipation of when this information would need to be provided to students. And what I think is even more ridiculous without more information are some of the outright hostile comments about "yanking their accreditation" and the like earlier in this thread.

It might SEEM insane, but without any information whatsoever, including a schedule, what is the point in opining on it?

I've heard a rumour that the mentors are practitioners who work with the faculty in the relevant area, but I can't confirm that. If so, then that may actually be beneficial to learn abut something and then have some sort of practical exercise that deals with that material. Or not. But it is WAY too early to tell. Lots of schools do intensive courses. Without knowing more about the actual evidence on intensive courses, I don't feel like I am in a position to judge. I don't see how this interferes with office hours. I've taught intensive courses and I just had office hours every other class or so.

Has an actual schedule been published? I took a look on the website a few days ago and didn't see one. I definitely didn't read family and corporate as being taught in two weeks of morning classes. I read the materials as having two weeks of morning classes on these issues and then assumed that the "hands-on mentorship in small student ‘firms’ in the afternoon" would relate to whatever morning topic they had discussed in the morning. Students at my school spend about 36 hours in family law, which could very easily be spread over two weeks.

I'm maybe not quite as optimistic as this about some of the pedagogical reasons for their curricular choices, but jeez, many people on this thread are jumping to conclusions on the basis of VERY LITTLE information. Why shit talk a coding boot camp without knowing anything about it? It's not even an entire class. It will probably only be for a few days or a week. Ditto for the emotional intelligence and cultural training. Also a bootcamp, so it's not like tons of time will be spent in that class. Yes, there are valid POTENTIAL concerns with that class that were discussed a few pages ago, but there is definitely not enough information to draw any conclusions at this stage. I've seen the course outlines for orientation to law/foundations/perspectives/etc. classes at different law schools and they certainly contain things that I consider far more useless than emotional intelligence. Some of the mandatory classes like family law are certainly less useless than courses like conflict of laws, which was a mandatory class at one Canadian law school not that many years ago (edit: is STILL required at UNB). The concerns about half the time being devoted to classes are also almost certainly unfounded and it is pointless even articulating them without a schedule. As noted above, Osgoode condenses some of its classes into one semester. As have others at various times.

The exact itinerary wasn't really the point. The point was that you can do lots in 2.5 weeks. That being said, I didn't love the South as much as other places and wouldn't spend more time there than a few days.