Not just a law school: A connected legal ecosystem

The Faculty of Law at the University of Manitoba recognizes that beyond serving the function of a law school, it is a connected legal ecosystem in which education, research, professional practice, and community engagement strengthen one another. With this understanding, the Faculty created its 2026 – 2029 Strategic Map, MomentUM: The Architecture of Impact, as a way to capture both who the Faculty is today and the direction in which it intends to move as a community.

“Our strategy is organized around three mutually reinforcing pillars,” says Dr. Richard Jochelson, Dean of Law, “creating knowledge that matters, empowering learners, and reimagining engagement. Faculty research informs teaching and professional practice; experiential learning places students in clinics, courts, community organizations, competitions, and public-facing projects; and those experiences generate new questions for scholarship, policy development, and law reform.”

An integrated legal education

This continuous cycle is supported by the Faculty’s scholarly publications (including the Manitoba Law Journal and the Canadian Journal of Human Rights), research hubs, clinical programs, judicial and community partnerships, alumni networks, and expanding capacity for rapid and accessible knowledge mobilization. The result is an integrated legal education that connects the classroom to the courthouse, the academy to the profession, and the Faculty of Law to the communities it serves.

Reconciliation, access to justice, equity, and public service are integral parts of the work the Faculty of Law engages with. Guided by Indigenous knowledges, the principles of Wahkohtowin (a Cree word meaning kinship, or connection – learn more), and sustained relationships with Indigenous communities, the Strategic Map commits the Faculty to structural and lasting change in its governance, curriculum, physical spaces, research, and clinical programming. This principle also inspires the Faculty to deepen its engagement with rural, northern, Francophone, newcomer, and justice-involved communities while preparing law students to lead in a rapidly changing legal landscape.

As this new Strategic Map illustrates, the Faculty of Law is not simply observing changes in law and society but rather actively engaging in building the relationships, knowledge, and institutional capacity needed to help shape them.

The Faculty of Law thanks and acknowledges the efforts of Dr. Laura Reimer on the community consultation aspects of this work, and the graphic design expertise of Evgeniya Lapanov who transformed the document visually. Thanks as well to Lily Deardorff for making the content accessible online.