When Queen’s Law launched Canada’s first undergraduate Certificate in Law (CiL) program in the summer of 2017, then-dean Bill Flanagan had high expectations. He hoped the ground-breaking initiative would help meet a growing demand for legal education in Canada. “It will not only benefit students by strengthening their legal literacy and career and academic prospects,” said Flanagan. “It will also be applicable to a wide range of professionals, including people working in business, public service, and a broad range of other sectors.”

As the saying goes, “Truer words were never spoken.”

The CiL soon became a highly sought-after program with spaces in courses filling up quickly. In some measure this was because of the pandemic, which was a boon to distance education generally. However, in the case of the CiL there was more to it than that. A lot more. 

“There’s clearly a strong demand and a need for this program,” says CiL Academic Director Hugo Choquette, Law’05, LLM’10, PhD17. “That’s why it has grown so much since 2017, and it’s continuing to evolve.”

The CiL program, which is a part-time, undergraduate offering, is delivered online and it is open to a wide range of students both on- and off-campus. Those who enroll can take individual courses, or they can work towards completing four courses to graduate with a certificate from Queen’s Law. 

At present, there are seven courses in the CiL program, each of them has been created and is taught by Queen’s Law faculty and instructors. Current offerings include an introduction to Canadian law as well as courses in Aboriginal law, workplace law, corporate law, public and constitutional law, intellectual property, and international law.

“We’re also thinking about adding some courses, perhaps one in criminal law and another in health law,” says Choquette. 

An integral component of the CiL program continues to be the technology that makes course content as engaging as possible for students. Animations and interactive video are among the tools currently used in course delivery. Always looking for ways to enrich the visual and interactive learning experience, Educational Development staff at Queen’s Law are exploring gamification and infographics, as well as FeedbackFruits for collaborating on documents. 

Choquette feels such measures will further enhance the draw of the CiL program among three groups of potential applicants for whom he feels the CiL already has special appeal.

One is undergraduate students at Queen’s (and other post-secondary institutions) who are thinking of applying to law school or who are eager to take law-related courses that will augment their degree studies. That was the case for Toronto native Erica Walter, Artsci’23. A Life Sciences major, she’s thinking of applying to law school in hopes of earning a JD degree that will eventually enable her to work in the legal end of the pharmaceutical industry or maybe in the public sector, where she could be involved in the development of healthcare policies. 

“I’ve learned a lot in the CiL program, and I’ve really enjoyed meeting a variety of people of different ages and backgrounds in the group activity sessions and simulated exercises,” says Walter, who, like all Queen’s undergraduate students successfully completing their first two CiL courses, also earned academic credit towards her degree. 

A second group of people who have been applying for admittance to the CiL program are mature students who are considering a career change. In early 2015, Constance Carriere-Prill, Law’25, was working in a Corrections Canada facility in Kingston when she decided she wanted her life to go in a new direction. She’d completed two years of undergraduate studies, but there wasn’t a lot of time in her life to hit the books – not when she was working full-time, married, raising four children, and involved in community engagements. 

It was her increased involvement in the latter commitments that in January 2019 prompted her to return to Queen’s, finish her undergraduate degree, and apply to law school in hopes of possibly pursuing a career in human-rights-based law. “Within a few weeks of my return to Queen's, I saw a Facebook ad for the CiL program,” recalls Carriere-Prill. “I felt enrolling in the CiL program would allow me to dip my toes into the study of the law. Because the classes were available online, I could view them when I had time and work at my own pace.”

After completing the program in 2020, Carriere-Prill finished her BA in global development studies in 2021 and pressed ahead when she applied to and received admittance to JD studies at Queen’s Law. It was then that she discovered an unexpected benefit of her CiL experiences. “I felt comfortable in my classes because I’d already had some exposure to some of the material. That was reassuring. Looking back on it, I have to say that doing the CiL program was one of the best career decisions I’ve ever made.”

A third group applicants to the CiL program are individuals in mid-career who are eager to gain new knowledge and add fresh credentials to their resumes. That was so for 40-year-old Joe Reid, the General Manager of Transportation and Operations Services for the City of Belleville, ON. 

Reid had studied civil engineering at community college, and one day when he was 20 years into his career in the municipal government sector, he went searching online for self-improvement courses that he might take. That’s when he happened upon the Queen’s Law website. He liked what he found there. “Law is all around us, especially in a job like mine,” says Reid. “When I read the description of the CiL program, it seemed ideal to me.” 

The Introduction to Canadian Law course gave Reid a solid understanding of the basics of the legal system. He then went on to take courses in workplace law, public and constitutional law, Aboriginal law, and corporate law. All have proved invaluable to him. 

“There are 444 municipalities on Ontario, and I think officials in all of them would benefit from taking the CiL program. It exceeded my expectations, and that’s why I’ve been recommending it to my peers,” says Reid. 

To date, 562 students have completed the CiL program. The list of graduates includes names from all across Canada, and some from as far away as India and China. That’s the beauty of an online program. Geography no longer matters.

Not surprisingly, demand for spots in the Winter Term, which begins in January 2023 is brisk.

“The application deadline is December 1, and time is growing short. I’d recommend that anyone who’s thinking of applying do so quickly,” says Hugo Choquette. 

For more information and to submit an application, please visit the Queen’s Certificate in Law program website. 

By Ken Cuthbertson, Law’83