Search by keywords, year, or scroll below to learn more about significant milestones, including special events and major donations, in UBC Law’s rich history.
Allard School of Law Milestones
The University of British Columbia has received an $11.86 million gift from law alumnus Peter Allard, which will support the UBC Faculty of Law's new building, establish an international prize that supports freedom, integrity and human rights, and create an online historical fa
The Class of 1948, known as the "Old Sweats", were the first class to graduate from the law school at UBC. They are pictured here at their ten year reunion in 1958.
Pictured above are the first five deans of the law school, joining together to commemorate its 50th year. From left to right: George F. Curtis (1945–1971); Kenneth M. Lysyk (1976–1982), C.
The Walter S. Owen Chair in Law, the first endowed Chair at the Faculty of Law, was established in honour of the Honourable Walter S. Owen, O.C., Q.C., LL.D., K. St. J., one of Vancouver’s most prominent lawyers, business people and philanthropists. Among his many services to the legal profession and the public, he was President of the Canadian Bar Association (1958-59), Treasurer of the Law Society of British Columbia (1964-65), and Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia (1973-78). He died in 1980, and the campaign to fund the Walter S.
By the 1970s, the law school at UBC had outgrown its first building and embarked on a major renovation including the addition of a new multi-story concrete structure built in the Brutalist style fashionable at the time. The new building re-opened on September 17, 1976 as the “George F. Curtis Building.” Curtis, the first Dean of the law school, is pictured above.
The Law Society of BC had operated the Vancouver Law School (VLS) since 1914, but had closed the school during the First World War, and again in 1943 for the Second World War. The Legal Professions Act was amended in 1944 to allow the Law Society to merge the VLS with the new Law faculty at the University of British Columbia. The Law faculty at UBC was established over the summer of 1945, in time to serve the large number of veterans returning from World War II seeking a legal education. The faculty opened on September 6, 1945, with the first classes held September 24th, 1945.