Teaching, Research and Judge Judy – A Profile of Shannon O’Byrne

Professor Shannon O’Byrne has been teaching at the Faculty of Law for nearly 20 years. In that time she has been the recipient of numerous academic and teaching awards, including the University of Alberta’s most prestigious teaching award, the AC Rutherford Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.

What do you enjoy most about teaching?

I enjoy the opportunity to engage in conversation with students on a variety of different topics related to law. There is plenty of subject matter to talk about and there is also a lot of room for debate. In the classroom environment, it becomes clear just how collaborative the learning process is—for me included. In addition, teaching also gives me a chance to visit my very bad jokes on a fresh group of students every single year. That alone is priceless to me.

What do you enjoy most about the students?

I love their fresh perspective, enthusiasm, and ambition.  Our students generally have an excellent sense of what they want out of life and they regard a law degree as key part of getting there.  It is very fortifying to work with people who have that kind of focus.

You have received the highest teaching awards from both the Faculty of Law and the University of Alberta. Other than telling bad jokes in the classroom, what do you think that you’re doing ‘right’?

Plain and simple, I really do enjoy teaching. On a related front, I do spend a great deal of time thinking about how best to present the content of my courses and how best to help students be engaged by the material. I think that students know that and appreciate the sincere effort even if I don’t always hit the target. 

What is your teaching philosophy?

I try to help students understand the specifics of a case.  Once that is in place, we step things up and see how the case does or does not fit into a larger context.  Not everything fits, by the way, which is a lesson unto itself.

I believe that practice-based commentary is a very effective and a valid jumping off point, particularly in the commercial-based courses that I teach.  In fact, I endeavor to make the connection to the practice of law as often as possible. On a related front, I use course content as a way of launching ethical discussions concerning, for example, what amounts to conduct unbecoming a barrister and solicitor.  I also discuss theory in my classes as a way of illustrating specific justice issues, as well as the contingency of legal rules.

In addition, I believe that it is tremendously important to help students prepare for exams as much as possible and I do what I can to facilitate that process. 

What is your most memorable teaching experience?

When I was about 20 years old, I was a graduate student working on my Master’s degree in English literature. At that same time, I also taught an undergraduate course called “English for Engineers.”  In many ways, this was my most memorable teaching experience because it seemed that the whole class was entirely baffled by me.   It was as if I were a Martian who was delivered by spaceship to the University of Alberta every day, just before every class.

About half-way through the course, I changed things up and focused on the legal consequences of not expressing one’s self clearly.  I started to give examples of pipeline trenches being dug in the wrong direction, cranes toppling over, and other assorted bits of litigation-inducing mayhem which could arise from imprecise oral or written expression. Once I was able to prove that engineers should deeply care about the finer points of grammar, we all got on the same page. I discovered that my course had, up until then, been missing a tangible context altogether. I also learned the importance of seeing the course from the student’s vantage point and making the course relevant to that perspective. I was being needlessly abstract in my approach and was reaching no one. So I learned to cut that out.

What are your main research interests?

My research focus is in contracts but I’ve expanded my horizons by considering an emerging area of scholarship called law and the emotions. I have applied insights from this area to damages in contract law, as well as to the subprime mortgage crisis in the U.S. I also have some ideas on how law and the emotions scholarship might cash out in corporations law.

Your work has been cited many times by the Supreme Court of Canada and other levels of court across the country. How do you feel about that?

It is very gratifying.  As an academic I have the time to ruminate on how the law works, or should work, and to the extent that this proves helpful to the bench and bar, I’m delighted. 

What sort of relationship exists between your research and teaching?

The relationship is often very direct.  My published work in the area of recovery of mental distress very much emanated from lecture material I built up in my Judicial Remedies class over several years. Other times, the relationship between research and teaching is more tangential but again, because my research focuses on the big picture, teaching always helps me with that. 

What is one thing that students might be surprised to learn about you?

If by surprised, you mean appalled, the answer is easy:  I watch Judge Judy.

From your point of view, as both a professor and alumna of this law school, what do you think the Faculty of Law offers to students that is unique?

I’m not an expert on what other law schools offer, but I do know that our school delivers a top-tier legal education. The faculty is composed of a mix of scholars who write from a doctrinal perspective, from a theoretical perspective, and from a combination of the two perspectives. This diversity infuses the law school curriculum and provides students with a wide range of courses and approaches to legal subject matter.  What could be better?

Our Faculty is somewhat unusual in the number of required courses we have.  I’m all in favour of this approach because it provides a solid foundation upon which students can then develop their unique interests through optional courses. Law firms know that our students are well-rounded, well-prepared, and will succeed in their articles.

Professor Shannon O’Byrne received her LLB and LLM from the Faculty of Law at the University of Alberta and has been teaching and telling bad jokes at her alma mater for close to 20 years.