The Faculty of Law at Université de Montréal in Canada was officially founded in 1892. In 2018, the Faculty was ranked[by whom?] as the best francophone law school in the world. In addition to its civil law degree (LL.B.), the Law School offers a one-year J.D. in common law for Quebec civil law graduates that enables them to take the bar exam in other Canadian provinces and in New York, Massachusetts and California.
The Faculty was originally a branch of Québec City's Université Laval in Montréal. It became part of the Université de Montréal upon its foundation in 1920. Between 1895 and 1942, the Faculty was located on St. Denis St. in Montréal. In 1945, it moved to Mount-Royal and was relocated in 1968 to its current location, which became the Pavillon Maximilien-Caron in 1978 in honour of a jurist. One of the first full-time law professors in Quebec, Maximillien Caron promoted a reform in the teaching of law that integrated all aspects of life and instituted new pedagogical methods that included sociology, economics and politics. Since the graduation of its first class in 1879, the Faculty has trained the largest number of jurists in Canada. Indeed, approximately 15,000 students have obtained an undergraduate law degree from the Faculty. The faculty of law of the University of Montreal is very prestigious and is considered by many intellectuals, judges and politicians to be the best law faculty in Canada.
For nearly 60 years[when?], the Faculty has published the Revue Juridique Thémis de l'Université de Montréal which was ranked by the Washington and Lee University School of Law as Canada's first primarily French-speaking journal, along with the University of Toronto Law Journal for English-speaking Canada and the Harvard Law Review for the United States. The Revue is published three times a year and touches upon public law, private law and criminal law. It includes contributions from the research centres of the Faculty and letters from international jurists about their legal system.
Established in 1962, the Public Law Research Centre (Centre de recherche en droit public (CRDP)) is the first and most important legal research centre in Canada. The CRDP is renowned for its interdisciplinary approach and work on contemporary forms of law as well as for maximizing the involvement of students in its extensive research activities. Research concentrates on three main axes: law and new social relations; law and information and communications technologies; and, law, biotechnology and community. Since 1995, the Centre publishes a bilingual electronic review, Lex Electronica, which is an international journal specializing in communications and information technologies law, health and biotechnology law, as well as theories of law and social changes. The Centre relies on the active participation of 15 full-time researchers and 50 students from a dozen different countries currently working on over 20 research projects. Among the CRDP's most important recent research projects, one deals with the various dimensions of the status of Aboriginal peoples in Canada, and another one examines questions pertaining to privacy and information security.
Students of the Faculty belong to two student associations, the Association of Law Students (AED, undergraduate level) and the Association of Graduate Law Students (ACSED, graduate level). These two associations are part of the Federation of Student Associations of the Campus of the Université de Montréal (FAÉCUM). Members of their executive boards sit at Faculty Council as well as on other Faculty committees. In addition to organizing cultural and professional development activities, they coordinate numerous other committees, as the well known Comité du droit des affaires et de gestion (CDAG) and the Comité Droit et Politique, therefore contributing to a dynamic student life. The AED publishes a student newspaper, Le Pigeon Dissident, and both associations have launched websites presenting their activities and addressing other subjects of interest.
Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Prime Minister of CanadaLouise Arbour, Supreme Court of Canada Justice (1999–2004), UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (2004–2008)
