With all the negative press surrounding the York strike in recent weeks, it’s a welcome change to hear that something productive is going on at the northern Toronto university: Osgoode Hall is teaming up with fellow York faculty Schulich School of Business to create the Jay and Barbara Hennick Centre for Business and Law, an interdisciplinary learning centre which will aim to produce lawyers with sound business sense.
The initiative was made possible by a $3 million donation from Jay Hennick, the Toronto-based founder and CEO of FirstService Corporation, a real-estate service company with more than US$1.5 billion in annualized revenues.
Mr. Hennick, who attained a B.A. from York and LL.B. at the University of Ottawa, had previously donated $500,000 to his legal alma mater to establish the UofO’s Jay Hennick LL.B/MBA Program.
Unlike a joint J.D./MBA (formerly LL.B./MBA) format, the Hennick Centre will grant a business/law degree in just three years, as opposed to the joint degree’s four.
Additionally, the Centre plans to launch a business certificate program for already-practising lawyers, similar to the executive MBA currently offered at many business schools.
The Hennick Centre is allegedly modeled after a similar program at NYU, and, by taking advantage of faculty integration, aims to move beyond a current system which creates “good technicians grounded in the law, but who lack business judgment.”
The framework for this project has been being laid since at least June 2008, and the advisory board is still adding to its roster of big-business lawyers and entrepreneurs.
A formal launch for the Hennick Centre will take place tomorrow, Friday, February 6th 2008 at the Hilton Toronto Hotel. The reception will feature former Ontario Premier Mike Harris introducing the keynote speaker, current Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty. Perhaps if Mr. Flaherty (originally a small-town personal injury lawyer) had been able to take advantage of such an innovative program in his day, he would be exercising better business judgement while managing one of the world’s largest economies.