News

Patricia Hyndman first arrived at Dalhousie Law School in 1965 as a junior faculty member. “There were some challenging – and, in retrospect, amusing – moments when I became the first female professor at the law school,” she says. “Nonetheless, despite the fact that I wasn’t always quite sure how to cope with some of the unexpected turns of events, I have to say that I enjoyed every moment I spent in Nova Scotia and I have continued, since then, to enjoy very good times with the wonderful friends I made during those years.”

Today, Hyndman lives in Suffolk, England. Although she is retired, she remains an Emeritus Fellow at Wolfson College, Cambridge, and in that capacity she’s a committee member there on the Disciplinary Committee and on the Statute and Ordinances Committee. On May 24, she attended Queen Elizabeth’s Garden Party at Buckingham Palace with Professor Emeritus John Yogis.

Below, Hyndman shares the Convocation address she gave to our law school students on May 26, 2000, when she received an LLD:

“Mr. Chancellor, Mr. President, members of the Senate, of the Board of Governors, and of the Faculty of Law, Chief Justices, Justices, honoured guests, and last but far from least, the first law graduates of the 21st century. May I begin by saying how thrilled I am by the great honour bestowed on me. Along with others who have been associated with this law school, I have always retained a strong affection and respect for it, for the beautiful province that is its home, and for the people I met, many of whom have become life-long friends and are here today. So this honour really is very special.

To all of the graduates, many congratulations. As everyone here knows, becoming a law graduate is not easy. Many hurdles need to be jumped, hurdles that vary with different students’ circumstances. I have no doubt that, on the way, some of you have overcome some very formidable obstacles indeed. 

“To all of the graduates, many congratulations. As everyone here knows, becoming a law graduate is not easy. Many hurdles need to be jumped, hurdles that vary with different students’ circumstances. I have no doubt that, on the way, some of you have overcome some very formidable obstacles indeed. 

“Whatever those obstacles were, clearly you have triumphed over them, and you have met the demanding academic standards of this prestigious school. It is your success, and that of your families – parents, grand-parents, partners, children, and friends, many of whom have played a vital supporting role – that we are gathered to celebrate today.

“I first arrived at Dalhousie in the mid-’60s as a very junior member of staff, and somewhat nervous about my new role. To disguise my nervousness, I planned to assume an air of aloof dignity, and the first occasion I felt called for this air was the cocktail party held for staff and students on the evening before the first day of my first term in my new job. As I was to learn, things don’t always turn out as intended. 

“I walked into the party, sporting my yellow staff name tag and, practically instantaneously, I was grabbed from behind, thrown upward, and twirled around on high, mini-skirt and all, by a large and ebullient male third-year student. He had assumed I was one of those rare beings – female first-year students – and this was his way, it seems, of dealing with them!

“I was mortified – I was not aloof, I was aloft! For my bearer’s part, he almost dropped me when, in mid-twirl, he suddenly registered the significance of the yellowness of my label.

“It proved difficult to be aloof, anyway. I spent my first year here in what is now the University Club, “the charming stone… ivy-covered building.” I knew that I was in an institution with a proud history and a formidable reputation. My immediate circumstances of accommodation, however – and those of my now illustrious colleagues, Professor Sir Nigel Rodley and Associate Dean John Yogis, QC – somewhat belied this. 

“We three were ensconced in the warren that was the basement, in two small rabbit holes. I had one cozy hole all to myself, whereas the other two were required to share theirs. But, as if in compensation, whenever a class was in session, I could neither reach nor leave mine except by an exceedingly tortuous route somewhat reminiscent, I always thought, of the maze of the Minotaur in ancient Crete. 

“Many changes have occurred since then, the new Weldon building being the most concrete, as it were. I will touch on only a very few. First, numbers and women. In 1965, my first year here, the graduating class consisted of 32 men and two women; in 1966, of 40 men and one woman; and in 1967, of 55 men and two women. There were very few practising women lawyers, and I was the first female legal academic.

“Today the Dean of the law school, Dawn Russell, is, as you all know, a woman, and a wonderfully successful Dean. The incoming Associate Dean is a woman, the Chief Justice of Nova Scotia is a woman, and the President of the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society is a woman. More than one-third of the full-time faculty are women, and they are making huge contributions to teaching, to research, and to many projects being conducted largely in the world beyond Dalhousie. 

“Classes are much bigger now: 160 enrolled in your class, not just from Nova Scotia but from all 10 provinces, making this a truly national law school. Recently, the number of women enrolling has exceeded that of men. Women achieve many of the highest marks and collect many of the prizes. This year is no exception.

“This, I hasten to say, is not to denigrate the male graduates, who I hope are not now feeling thoroughly left out! They shouldn’t be. Over the years, the outstanding contributions made by the school’s graduates have inspired many eulogies. One article that appeared in Maclean’s magazine in 1954 described the law school as ‘The Brainiest School in the Country: So many Prime Ministers, Provincial Premiers, Chief Justices, MPs and Millionaires [having] been turned out by [it].’

Perhaps you may be feeling somewhat uncertain about where and how you will fit into the wider world. To those people in particular, what I can say, with confidence, is that a law degree provides a wonderful jumping-off point. It can lead to all sorts of things, some of which you may not, as yet, have even considered to be possible. 

“Perhaps, as you prepare now to undertake new challenges, you have a career plan and a good job awaiting you, or perhaps you may be feeling somewhat uncertain about where and how you will fit into the wider world. To those people in particular, what I can say, with confidence, is that a law degree provides a wonderful jumping-off point. It can lead to all sorts of things, some of which you may not, as yet, have even considered to be possible. 

“I arrived, almost by accident, at my present pursuit of international human rights law, an area that I find exciting, challenging, fulfilling, and absorbing. Through it I meet remarkable people and encounter complex and fascinating, though often heart-rending, situations. It is certainly never boring, and there are those wonderful occasions when it is clear that something really worthwhile has been achieved. I didn’t know that such a career existed. I hadn’t even studied international law, nor taught it, despite it sometimes seeming that I have taught almost every other possible subject in the curriculum!

“My interest began because, in the early 1980s, I was asked to help a regional association of lawyers, LAWASIA, establish a regular publication on the human rights issues of the Asia–Pacific region. Immediately, I was appalled by my confrontation with dreadful abuses of rights that were happening daily in the region around me. One thing led to another. Before I knew what was happening, I was running a regional lawyers’ human rights committee, with the impossible mandate of involvement in human rights issues throughout the whole of Asia and the Pacific. 

“There followed all kinds of activities: efforts to empower rural women living in poverty and inequality; issues of child labour, asylum-seekers, refugees, child soldiers, dowry deaths, minorities, indigenous peoples; freedom of expression; constitutional issues; the independence of judges and lawyers, and many others. 

“A whole new world had opened up, and not just in career terms – in new interests, contacts, friendships, challenges, and, much later, and somewhat indirectly, in the arrival into my life of my two lovely little Sri Lankan daughters who are here with me today.

Great opportunities do exist, even though you may not be aware of them at this moment, and what is important is to get out there, get involved, find things that interest you, and pursue them with enthusiasm.

“Now, I am not suggesting that you all suddenly become human rights lawyers or adopt two lively children. Nor am I advocating that you take up, as a matter of strategy, the deliberate absence of a career plan! What I am saying is that great opportunities do exist, even though you may not be aware of them at this moment, and that what is important is to get out there, get involved, find things that interest you, and pursue them with enthusiasm.

“Over the years, the law school’s graduates have had a huge impact on the legal profession and in public life, not only in the Maritime provinces but throughout Canada. Those of you who graduate today are the inheritors of this great tradition, and it falls to you to continue it. I am sure that you will.

“In closing, may I again offer my sincere congratulations to you all. Thank you.”