Law of Leadership

Emma Phillips on the Law of Leadership

UPDATE: The Law of Leadership concentration will not be offered this 2021/2022 academic year.

Overview

Whether an executive director of a not-for-profit organization, the principal of a high school, a member of the senior administrative team at a hospital, college or university, a manager in the public or private sector, or a member of a company’s c-suite, today’s leaders are surrounded by legal and regulatory issues on a daily basis. The Global Professional Master of Laws in the Law of Leadership is designed to provide leaders with a robust legal education that is responsive to the complexity of the issues they and their organizations regularly face. The GPLLM is curated to provide graduates with the legal knowledge, concepts, methodology, and frameworks they require in order to engage the law in their decision making and management practices. The program will enable participants to: appreciate the various areas of law and legal frameworks by which they are bound (and their legal obligations thereunder), and identify and better manage legal issues, engage in legal reasoning, and work more effectively with the law and legal counsel.  

This program is geared toward executives and leaders who have at least five (5) years of full-time professional work experience, ideally in a management position, including leaders in charities, advocacy organizations, social enterprises, foundations, institutions of higher education, the health sector, the public and private sectors, and others. Human resource professionals and others looking to expand their business and leadership fluency are encouraged to apply.

Program Length and Structure

The GPLLM is a full-time executive program offered in the evenings and on weekends in order to accommodate the schedules of busy professionals. The program consists of three terms (September to December, January to April, and May to mid-July). The schedule offers a deliberate balance between rigorous academic engagement, and respect for your personal and professional commitments.

The GPLLM consists of a wide variety of courses. Over the course of eleven months, students complete ten courses, including five courses from within their concentration. Students are required to take five courses from within their concentration, including one required course, and can take the remainder of their courses from any of the four concentrations offered.

The program may be completed in one year (three sessions with a F/W/S registration sequence) or through an extended full-time option that allows students to complete the program requirements over two years (six sessions with a F/W/S/F/W/S registration sequence).

 

Curriculum

The GPLLM curriculum is carefully curated in order to provide students with exposure to the legal issues and problems that are foundational, and also most timely and relevant.  Students will gain an understanding of key legal concepts and tools, and have the opportunity to apply them to real-world problems, including ones they confront in their own workplaces. Primarily through independent activities, but also in teams, students acquire skills and knowledge that will immediately being to inform how they approach problems and challenges. The skills involved in “thinking like a lawyer” are new, and, we are told, transformative,

The GPLLM program offers students both cohesiveness and flexibility in course selection. The program consists of approximately 40 courses. Each concentration is tied together by its own mandatory course, held on Friday evenings in the fall term.  Students are required to take at least five (5) courses within their concentration.  The remainder of their courses can be selected from any of the concentrations, providing students with the ability to curate a program of study that reflects their unique interests.

Students have found that there is considerable synergy between, for example, courses in the Business Concentration and in the Innovation, Law and Technology space, and they have found the ability to take courses in multiple concentrations to be an impactful aspect of the program. Please see the following pages for course descriptions for the Law of Leadership concentration, the Business Law concentration, the Canadian Law concentration, and the Innovation, Law & Technology concentration.

While subject to change, typically the method of evaluation includes written assignments, group work, presentation, and participation. 

Courses

*Please note that not all courses will necessarily be available every year.

  • Perspectives on Leadership and the Law (required)
  • The Law of the Workplace
  • Corporate Social Responsibility, Ethics and the Law
  • Harassment, Discrimination and the Duty to Accommodate
  • Privacy & Freedom of Information 
  • Procedural Fairness in Decision Making
  • Executive Compensation
  •  

    Dispute Resolution and Negotiations 
  • Privacy and Expression in the Digital Age
  • Cannabis Law

Please also see Law of Leadership - Course Descriptions.