U of Law celebrates Teaching Excellence and 'Naming' of award

The University of Alberta Faculty of Law's reception celebrating the 'Naming' of the Sessional Teaching Award as The Pringle Royal Award, and the presentation of The 2012 Honourable Tevie H. Miller Teaching Excellence Award & The Pringle Royal Teaching Award Ceremony

The University of Alberta Faculty of Law hosted an awards ceremony and reception on Friday, March 15^th, to celebrate the 'Naming' of the Sessional Teaching Award as The Pringle Royal Award, and the presentation of the 2012 Teaching Excellence Awards. The 2012 Honourable Tevie H. Miller Teaching Excellence award was presented to Professor Annalise Acorn, and the 2012 Pringle Royal Teaching Excellence Award was presented to Marie Gordon Q.C.

Professor Annalise Acorn, the 2012 Honourable Tevie H. Miller Teaching Excellence Award recipient with her parents. From left to right: Glen Acorn, Annalise Acorn, and June Acorn

(l-r) Jillana Sehn (2L) presenting the 2012 Pringle Royal Teaching Excellence Award to Maia Gordon, who was accepting the award on behalf of her mother, Marie Gordon Q.C.

U of A Faculty of Law students, faculty, and staff, alongside the wider legal community, friends, and family, joined Dean Philip Bryden, at a reception to congratulate and celebrate with Professor Annalise Acorn and Marie Gordon Q.C., at the double celebration. In addition to these awards, this was a very special occasion as the Faculty of Law also recognized the accomplishments of two of its longest serving and most distinguished sessional lecturers, Alex Pringle, Q.C. and Peter Royal, Q.C., by naming the Sessional Teaching Excellence Award in their honour, The Pringle Royal Award. Both Alex and Peter are past winners of the Sessional Teaching Excellence Award and both have served the Faculty and its students as sessional lecturers for more than 25 years. The Sessional Teaching Excellence Award annually recognizes excellence in teaching by a sessional instructor who teaches at the University of Alberta Faculty of Law.

(l-r) Peter Royal Q.C and Alexander Pringle Q.C., at the 'Naming' ceremony for the Pringle Royal Teaching Excellence Award

"We are honoured that Alex Pringle and Peter Royal, two of our most distinguished and long serving sessionals, were willing to lend their names to this award which recognizes annually the excellent teaching of our cadre of sessional instructors," commented Vice Dean John Law on the naming of the Sessional Teaching Excellence Award after U of A Law sessional instructors Alex Pringle Q.C. and Peter Royal Q.C. "They and their sessional colleagues have for 100 years made manifest the commitment of members of the Bar to the education of generations of Alberta lawyers, - the Faculty and the society it serves have benefited enormously from this contribution. "

Alexander Pringle Q.C.

Alex Pringle is the senior member of Pringle Chivers Sparks and has been practicing as a criminal defence lawyer since 1973. A native Edmontonian, he received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Alberta in 1968 and earned his law degree from the University of Toronto in 1971. He was called to the Alberta Bar in 1972 and was subsequently called to the Northwest Territories Bar and Yukon Bar in 1977 and finally the Saskatchewan Bar in 1980.

Alexander Pringle Q.C. at the 'Naming' ceremony for the Pringle Royal Teaching Excellence Award

Alex Pringle enjoys a national reputation as a criminal lawyer and has defended serious cases in Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick, as well as in the Yukon Territories and the Northwest Territories.

In addition to his full-time criminal defence practice, Alex Pringle has for 30 years taught various courses as a sessional lecturer at the Faculty of Law at the University of Alberta. For the past 20 years he has taught the Criminal Law course and over the years he has also taught courses at this law school in Criminal Trial Procedure, Advanced Criminal Law and Advocacy, and Introductory Criminal Law. Alex Pringle was a lecturer, teaching Bar Admission Course Criminal Law, Province of Alberta, from 1980 - 1987. He was a Visiting Law Professor at the Faculty of Law, Nigata University, Nigata, Japan, during the summer of 1990.

Mr. Pringle, because of his expertise in criminal law matters, is often asked to be a speaker on topics relating to criminal law, and has in the past been a panelist or featured speaker for the following groups: The Court of Queen's Bench Justices of Alberta; The Alberta Provincial Judges Association Convention; The National Correctional Services Conference; The Canadian Association of Journalists; The Legal Education Society of Alberta; The Legal Education Society of British Columbia; The Criminal Trial Lawyers Association of Alberta; The Alberta Crown Attorneys Association; The Western Provincial Court Judges Conference; The National Training Seminar for Judges at the National Judicial Institute; The Edmonton Police Service, Training Section; The Alberta Homicide Investigators' Convention; The Alberta Child Abuse Investigators' Convention; The Western Canada Crimes Against Children Conference; American College of Trial Lawyers; and the International Commission of Jurists.

From 1986 - 1998, the Province of Alberta appointed Mr. Pringle to represent Alberta each year at the Canadian Uniform Law Conference. He was elected Chair of the Criminal Law Section of the Uniform Law Conference in 1998. This body is responsible for recommending to the Parliament of Canada changes to the criminal law. Mr. Pringle was a founding member of the Criminal Trial Lawyers Association of Alberta, and also the Environmental Law Centre.

A significant portion of Mr. Pringle's practice involves his representation of accused in criminal appeals. He has obtained landmark decisions in the Supreme Court of Canada on many occasions involving criminal law issues and issues relating to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Mr. Pringle was appointed Queen's Counsel in 1992. He was also appointed as a member of the American College of Trial Lawyers in Washington, D.C. in 1993. Mr. Pringle is also the author of several entries in the New Canadian Encyclopedia relating to various topics involving criminal law issues, including 'Criminal Codes: R. v. Steven Truscott'; 'R. v. Clifford Olson'; and 'R. v. Coffin; Mann v. The Queen'.

Alex Pringle is one of Alberta's top criminal trial lawyers and his practice covers serious crimes of violence, narcotics cases, white collar crimes and other major criminal cases.

Peter Royal, Q.C.

Peter Royal was called to the Bar on July 10, 1975. He holds both a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of laws degree from the University of Alberta, and a Master of Laws degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London.

Peter Royal Q.C. at the 'Naming' ceremony for the Pringle Royal Teaching Excellence Award

He was appointed Queen's Counsel in 1986 and sat as a Bencher of the Law Society of Alberta from 1986 to 1995. He was President of the Law Society from 1994 to 1995; he sat as a Member of the Board of Directors of the Legal Aid Society of Alberta from 1986 to 1990, and he was also the Alberta Director on the Board of the Federation of Law Societies from August 1998 to November 2003.

Peter was President of the Criminal Trial Lawyers' Association from 1982 to 1983. He was awarded the Harradence prize by the Association in 2002.

Peter Royal is exclusively a criminal defence practitioner at both the trial and appellate level and he has appeared at all levels of court in Alberta and the Supreme Court of Canada.

Peter Royal has taught continuously as a sessional instructor at the University of Alberta, Faculty of law since 1980, initially teaching Criminal Trial Procedure and Advocacy, and since 1981, the Law of Evidence. He was the first recipient of the Law Faculty's Sessional Teaching Excellence Award in 2005, and as such, naming the award after him, and Alex Pringle, was an easy and obvious choice.

"The contributions made to the Faculty of Law by Justice Tevie Miller, Alex Pringle, Q.C. and Peter Royal, Q.C. are outstanding examples of the commitment many members of the legal profession have made to the education of the next generation of lawyers who will graduate from the University of Alberta ," said Dean Philip Bryden. "We are delighted to recognize those contributions though the teaching awards named in their honour, and to celebrate the exceptional accomplishments of Annalise Acorn and Marie Gordon as law teachers."