$80 million new gift from Hal Jackman to university raises his giving to well over $150 million
A record-breaking $80 million donation by alumnus Hal Jackman to the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law will allow the faculty to strengthen what dean Jutta Brunnée calls its “key ingredients”: the diversity of its student body and top-tier faculty members.
That’s according to Brunnée, who told Canadian Lawyer that the faculty – now renamed the Henry N.R. Jackman Faculty of Law – plans to significantly boost its financial aid program to attract “exceptional students from the widest possible range of backgrounds and with the widest possible range of experiences.”
The money will also go towards creating four new chair positions, one devoted to public international law and another to legal theory. Brunnée says the two remaining chair positions are not yet attached to any specific area of study, and the faculty will decide on priority areas soon.
The process for selecting who will fill those four positions has not started either, Brunnée says. However, she says it’s “tremendously exciting for us to have this possibility to either attract outstanding people or retain them, as the case may be.”
The University of Toronto announced Jackman’s donation recently, noting that the gift brought his total contributions to the law faculty up to $100 million. Jackson’s previous contributions went towards scholarships and kick-started the construction of a state-of-the-art building for the faculty.
The $80 million gift is the largest ever given to a Canadian law faculty.
The university said $35 million of Jackman’s latest gift has been earmarked for scholarships and student-centred programming. The bulk of that money – $25 million – will go towards a scholarship fund that will be used to boost existing financial aid and bursary programs, expand academic awards, introduce new scholarships for graduate students, and create experiential learning opportunities like research projects and internships.
The remaining $10 million will fund a new co-curricular program called “Lawyers and Leaders for a Changing World.” Brunnée notes that the law faculty already runs programs aimed at helping students develop practical skills like public speaking, professional writing, networking, and connecting students to alumni.
Brunnée says the new program will “up the ante” and build upon these existing resources with interactive workshops, excursions, lectures, and mentorship opportunities.
“We find ourselves at a time where we’re grappling with the lasting impact of the pandemic, where AI is making rapid advances, and in the global arena, there’s increasing polarization,” the dean says. “Our conviction is that there’s going to be all the more need for principled, empathetic, strategic leaders, and we’re excited to be able to launch or shape this program at this particular juncture.”
The remainder of Jackman’s gift will go towards faculty resources. In addition to funding the new chair positions, the money will boost the activities of the Future of Law Lab, which facilitates innovation-focused workshops, events, research and cross-disciplinary learning opportunities for faculty.
The money will also go towards a fund to help faculty take advantage of visiting scholar opportunities, international conferences, and other exchanges.
For Brunnée, though, bolstering the faculty’s financial resources for students is a particular point of pride. The university noted that the faculty aims to ensure that no prospective students decline an admission offer due to insufficient financial resources, and that, on average, faculty students who receive financial aid pay less tuition now than they did in 2019.
“Above everything, what [the gift] will do is further enhance the financial aid program that allows us to attract wonderful students from across the country with all manner of different interests,” she says.
“The further lowering of any barriers that there may be to coming to the law school is a really important aspect of this gift,” she adds. “I am personally gratified that we are now at a point where, for the last three years, when we ask our first-year class when they come in, what their top five reasons for coming to the law school were, they now routinely mention the financial aid program.
“That is just wonderful to me,” Brunnée says.