ABSTRACT
Imagine this. Justice O’Halloran, a justice of the British Columbia Court of Appeal in the late 1940s meets Dr Klassen, a forensic psychiatrist working in Toronto, Ontario in the 1990s. They meet to discuss an application for admission to a law society by an applicant who has disclosed that he falsified his résumé and transcripts in applying for an articling position. In particular, they are there to determine whether the applicant is of ‘good character’ for the purposes of admission. To begin the discussion, each makes an opening statement about what they think is primarily relevant to a determination of that kind:
Justice O’Halloran: The law student’s training is not manual training, but is training of the mind, not only in law, but if he wishes to be something more than a mere legal mechanic, he must study logic, history, in particular constitutional history, political science and economics, a certain amount of philosophy and acquire a reasonable familiarity with English literature, and know something at least of the literature of other countries … The object of law training is to attract young men of high character, and to train them in a manner that they will be trustworthy, honourable and competent in the performance of their legal duties, and will use such influence as they have to maintain and improve but not destroy our Canadian constitutional democracy.1
