Acting Dean Andrew Botterell shares his vision
August 28, 2024
Professor Andrew Botterell has agreed to assume the role of acting dean during the university’s search for Western Law’s next dean.
Botterell joined Western in 2007. A former Supreme Court of Canada clerk, he was named “Professor of the Year” at Western Law in 2013-2014 and received the Faculty’s Award for Teaching Excellence in 2017-18. He chaired Western’s Department of Philosophy from 2016-2019 and is a former editor of the Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence.
His legal teaching and research interests are primarily in the philosophy of criminal law and in private law theory, and his work has appeared in Jurisprudence, Legal Theory, Law & Philosophy, Criminal Justice Ethics, the Osgoode Hall Law Journal, and the Alberta Law Review, among other places. From 2019-2022 Andrew served as Western Law's associate dean (research & graduate studies), and in 2023 he was appointed as Western Law’s associate dean (academic).
We recently spoke to Acting Dean Botterell about what he most appreciates about Western Law, his plans for the upcoming year and his past and current scholarship.
What drew you to taking on the role of acting dean and what are you most looking forward to?
I have held a number of leadership positions during my time at Western—chair of the philosophy department, and associate dean (research and grad studies) and associate dean (academic), both at the law school—and taking on the role of acting dean seemed like a natural continuation of that trajectory. It is a role that I have always been curious about and I feel up to the task of taking on more active leadership of the faculty. I am excited to be building on the excellent momentum initiated by Professor Chamberlain and I am fortunate to be supported by a great team of faculty and staff colleagues.
So far, I have been enjoying learning more about how Western Law works from an academic and financial perspective. I am also looking forward to promoting the successes of our faculty and students and playing a more active role in the Western Law community, including meeting with and learning from our esteemed alumni locally, nationally and internationally. Closer to home, I welcome the opportunity to continue to champion the faculty within the provost’s leadership team and around the president’s table.
Which initiatives or areas will you be focusing on this year?
In the next year, we will continue our progress in strengthening our community, our experiential learning opportunities, and our research trajectory, and we will review opportunities to adapt legal education to keep pace with emerging technologies.
At Western Law, we pride ourselves on our inclusive, close-knit community. Going forward, we will continue to devote time and energy to strengthening our commitment to equity, diversity, inclusion and decolonization so that all members of our community feel valued and empowered.
I hope to be able to build upon our experiential learning opportunities and to welcome more visiting researchers and speakers to Western Law. We’re committed to helping students discover what professional path is best suited to them, so it is important to continue to support them with opportunities and connections to explore their options.
I will also work with colleagues to ensure that our upward research trajectory continues. We will build upon the significant gains in expanding the diversity of our faculty and their subject matter expertise ranging from business and innovation; law in a global society; litigation and advocacy; human rights and freedoms; and the state and modern democracy.
Lastly, I would like to initiate conversations about technology and law, and the role that technology should—and perhaps more importantly should not—play in our curriculum and in the legal profession more generally.
As a Western Law faculty member since 2007, what stands out to you about our community?
Throughout my time as a faculty member and member of the senior administration team, I have found Western Law to be supportive, inclusive, collegial and friendly. I believe that Western Law community members are genuinely proud to be a part of Western Law. Amongst our students, we see strong bonds begin in first year through our small group program, and we hear that these bonds continue post-graduation as our alumni often continue to support each other throughout their careers.
Our faculty and staff also play a crucial part of building our authentic and encouraging community offering personalized support to our students. Similarly, our faculty members champion each other’s success and engage frequently through research collaborations and professional development opportunities. I want to ensure that we continue to foster that supportive attitude amongst faculty, staff, students and alumni.
What is your greatest hope for the future of Western Law?
I want Western Law to provide an outstanding legal education to students and to empower faculty to engage in deep and meaningful academic work. I think Western Law is an exceptional place to be a faculty member and a student and we will continue to identify opportunities to promote the achievements of our community to ensure that others share that attitude too.
Aspirationally, I would like Western Law to be recognized as one of the top 3 law schools in Canada and a premier law school globally. The more doors we can open for Western Law faculty, students and alumni within Canada and internationally, the more exciting it will be to be a faculty member here and the more rewarding it will be to be a student.
How would you describe your scholarship and what have you most recently been focused on?
My scholarship is, I suppose, somewhat eclectic. My background is in Philosophy (I have a PhD in Philosophy from MIT) and no matter how hard I try, I can never really get away from it. Wilfred Sellars famously said that “the aim of philosophy, abstractly formulated, is to understand how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term.” I suppose that sums up my intellectual attitude too.
I am, at a basic level, interested in foundational questions about fault, liability and responsibility in different areas of law. I have written on private law issues (including damages for breach of contract, the nature of the cause of action in unjust enrichment, and the structure of liability in tort law) as well as on criminal law issues (including the justification for the voluntary act requirement and the viability of the defence of diminished responsibility).
I also have an interest in the ethics of parenthood and procreation and have written a number of papers with my spouse, Carolyn McLeod (a philosopher and former Chair of the Philosophy Department here at Western), on matters related to adoption, contract pregnancy and parental licensing.
I am currently thinking about the state’s standing or authority to punish offenders when the state has played a role in the creation of what academics sometimes call “criminogenic conditions”. There is a growing literature on this topic, and I find the issues to be deep and fascinating.
