(Please visit our Web site for more information www.osgoode.yorku.ca/streams)
In 2001-02, Osgoode Hall Law School introduced a significant innovation in the upper-year curriculum. Students have the opportunity to concentrate their studies in a particular subject area of the curriculum. Three curricular streams are currently offered: International, Comparative and Transnational Law; Litigation, Dispute Resolution and the Administration of Justice; and Tax Law. Additional streams will be introduced in future years. It is not imagined that all, or even most, students will elect to enrol in one of the streams being offered this year. All students, whether enrolled in a stream or not, will have equal access to all courses offered in the upper-year curriculum. However, those students with a particular interest in one of the subject areas covered by the offered streams may wish to consider enrolling.

Osgoode Hall Law School has a rich, diverse and fully elective upper-year curriculum. Within this curriculum, students are generally able to plan a course of studies that enables them to pursue their special interests, that is consistent with their individual learning styles, and that ensures they obtain an excellent and comprehensive legal education. The purpose of organizing some of the upper-year courses into streams is to provide more structure to aspects of the upper-year curriculum and to allow certain curriculum goals to be pursued more systematically. By providing an organized sequence of courses in particular subject areas, the curricular streams will challenge students to undertake truly advanced work on difficult and complex legal problems. This will enable students to build cumulatively on the skills and knowledge they have acquired in other law school courses, to develop sufficient expertise in the subject area that they can confidently challenge underlying concepts and assumptions, and to collaborate intellectually in the subject area with scholars, public policy analysts and practitioners.

Another purpose of the curricular streams is to ensure that within a coherent course of studies students are exposed to the significant theories, principles, conceptual frameworks and tools of policy analysis needed for the serious study of the law and for the full range of important lawyering skills such as problem solving, legal analysis and reasoning, legal research, factual investigation, communication skills, and recognizing and resolving problems of professional responsibility. Also, a capstone course in each curricular stream will enable students to engage in a major exercise of research and writing that will consolidate, deepen and enrich their understanding of the law.

International, Comparative and Transnational
Law Program ("ICT Program")
Convenor - Professor Craig Scott

The world is changing rapidly and, with it, the nature of governance and the practice of law. Osgoode is well positioned to respond to these changes, both through curriculum offerings available to all students and through the specialized study represented by the ICT Program. There is a large range of courses taught in the international, comparative and transnational field in any given year at Osgoode, both by regular faculty and by visitors. Over half of Osgoode's full-time faculty members are currently working on some aspect of international, comparative and transnational law, including the interaction of various forces of globalization with the development of domestic law.

Students registered in the ICT Program must complete the following requirements over the course of the LLB program:

• In the first year, enroll in Globalization and the Law as their perspective option;
• In second year take two of three ICT pillar courses:
  Public International Law, Conflict of Laws (also known as Private International Law), and/or Comparative Law;
• In third year, take the ICT Program's capstone course, The ICT Colloquium; and
• Over the course of the two upper years, complete 13 further ICT-designated course credits ("optional" credits).

Within the 13 optional credits, students must satisfy each of the following two requirements:

• Pursue at least one of the opportunities designated by the program as having an "experiential" dimension (see below for a list), up to a maximum of 10 of the 13 ICT credits; and
• Do research work worth at least 3 credits of the 13 credits in an ICT course or on an ICT subject.

Program in Litigation, Dispute Resolution
and the Administration of Justice ("LDA Program")
Convenor - Professor Janet Walker

With the introduction of the LDA Program, Osgoode continues its tradition of pioneering innovative programs that combine scholarly inquiry with experiential learning in the practice of law, and that join critical legal education with clinical legal education. The LDA Program builds on this tradition and the faculty strengths in this area in this curricular stream, which focuses on five key elements of learning: the law of evidence, alternative dispute resolution, witness examination, written advocacy, and doctrinal and critical study of dispute resolution and the justice system. The program begins with the foundational knowledge and skills that students acquire in the first year Civil Procedure I and Legal Research and Writing courses, and it goes on to ensure that each graduating student has benefited from the basic learning necessary to thrive in a career in dispute resolution. In addition, the program extends beyond private law litigation and dispute resolution to public law dispute resolution, including advocacy in the criminal law and administrative law contexts; and it extends to related subjects in the fields of professional responsibility and the operation of the justice system.

To receive the LDA accreditation, students must:

1. Take the course in Evidence;
2. Take one course that includes substantial instruction in alternative dispute resolution (Dispute Settlement, Labour Arbitration, Lawyer as Negotiator, Theory & Practice of Mediation);
3. Take one course that includes substantial instruction in either witness examination or written advocacy (Trial Practice Seminar, Constitutional Litigation, Labour Arbitration, Legal Drafting, Mooting, Innocence Project, Community and Legal Aid Services Program);
4. Take one course that includes substantial doctrinal or critical study in a subject related to Litigation, Dispute Resolution and the Administration of Justice (Administration of Civil Justice: Class Action, Administration of Criminal Justice, Advanced Evidence Problems, Civil Procedure II, Conflict of Laws, Criminal Law II, Criminal Procedure, International Dispute Resolution, Legal Profession, Litigating the Insurance Claim;
5. Take the LDA Colloquium; and
6. Complete a minimum of 25 academic credits in LDA Program courses in total, including those courses taken in accordance with the requirements in the above paragraphs.
Upon request, the Convenor may consider other courses as fulfilling the requirements of the stream.

Tax Law Program ("Tax Program")
Convenor - Professor Neil Brooks

The Tax Program reflects a special strength of Osgoode. The tax and related curriculum is rich and diverse. Three full-time faculty members devote their energies primarily to teaching and researching tax law and related public policy issues. The program also draws upon expert adjunct faculty members with a wide variety of experiences. The development of skills in statutory interpretation and analysis, critical thinking, problem-solving, communicating, analyzing public policy, resolving professional ethical problems, and planning will be emphasized throughout the program. Therefore, the Tax Program will be of interest not only to students who might be considering a career relating to the practice of tax law but also more generally to those interested in developing these skills in the context of tax law.

Students registered in the Tax Program must complete the following requirements over the course of the LLB program:

1. The foundational seminar, Tax Lawyering;
2. The foundational course, Tax I;
3. The survey course, Taxation of Business Enterprises;
4. One of the following two policy seminars, either Tax Law as an Instrument of Economic and Social Policy or Tax Policy;
5. One of the following two advanced seminars, either Advanced Corporate Tax or Estate Planning;
6. The Tax Law Program capstone course, Tax Law and Policy Colloquium; and
7. Overall, a minimum of 27 academic credits in Tax Program courses, including those courses taken in accordance with the above requirements. (In addition to the courses mentioned above, Tax Program courses include Tax Planning, Taxation of Wealth Transfers, International Tax, Internet Commerce and Taxation and special topic courses that will be offered from time to time.)