The University of New Brunswick Faculty of Law is the second oldest university-based common law Faculty in the Commonwealth. It is located in New Brunswick's capital city, Fredericton, and is one of two law schools located in the province, the other being the French language Faculty at l'Université de Moncton.
The current Dean of the Faculty is Professor Michael Marin.
History
Establishment and early history
In 1892, the King's College Law School was established in Saint John, New Brunswick, in the Provincial Building at the intersection of Princess Street and Canterbury Street in the city's central business district. This building housed the offices of various Provincial civil servants as well as the Saint John Law Society. The parent institution of the King's College Law School was King's College, which was located at that time in Windsor, Nova Scotia. Windsor, a port located on the Bay of Fundy, had developed strong commercial connections with Saint John during the 19th century.
In 1912, the King's College Law School entered into a partnership with the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, whereby undergraduates in arts at UNB became able to take first-year law courses on the campus in Fredericton. A disastrous fire swept through the King's College campus in Windsor on February 3, 1920, placing the future of the institution in doubt. An offer by the Carnegie Foundation to fund moving King's College from Windsor to Halifax, where it would be located adjacent to and integrated with Dalhousie University, was accepted in 1922; as a result, King's College was renamed as the University of King's College.
These events saw various suggestions made as to the future of the orphaned King's College Law School, still located in Saint John. One option was for the law school to continue to operate in New Brunswick either independently or as a school of the proposed new University of King's College. The latter option proved difficult, given the existence of the Dalhousie University Faculty of Law and the fact that the University of King's College was to have considerable integration with Dalhousie.
Instead, in 1923, the King's College Law School became the University of New Brunswick Faculty of Law. After integration into the UNB system, the law school continued to operate in Saint John much as before, and the 1912 arrangement that had allowed first year students to study law in Fredericton also continued.
Beaverbrook's changes
In 1948, the newly installed Chancellor of the University of New Brunswick, Lord Beaverbrook, who had registered at the King's College Law School in the 1890s but did not attend the institution, registered shock upon seeing the condition of the instructional space used by the law school in Saint John's Provincial Building. Beaverbrook arranged to purchase two buildings on Germain Street and to move the school into new facilities; he also purchased the residence of the late F.P. Starr on Coburg Street with the intention of creating a joint-use reception centre for the law school and the Saint John City Council, however, this plan was subsequently scrapped.
Prior to 1950, the UNB Faculty of Law had only one professor of law on its campus in downtown Saint John, with the majority of instruction being provided by members of the Court of Queen's Bench of New Brunswick or by practicing barristers. In 1950, two professors of law were appointed. In 1953, the law school moved from the Provincial Building to Beaverbrook House on Carleton Street, at which time the faculty's dedicated law library was created; this year also saw the appointment of the first full-time dean of law. In 1956, an additional professor of law was appointed.
In 1959, the faculty moved from Saint John to Fredericton, where it was initially located in Summerville House, the residence on Waterloo Row that was used by Lord Beaverbrook as his Fredericton residence before he donated it to UNB in the late 1950s. The UNB Faculty of Law remained at Summerville House until the October 1968 opening of the law building (formerly Ludlow Hall), located at the intersection of Dineen Drive and Kings College Road on the university's College Hill campus.
