University of Canterbury Faculty of Law
New Zealand academic faculty
The UC Faculty of Law (informally UC Law School; Māori: Te Kaupeka Ture) is the law school at the University of Canterbury. The Canterbury Faculty of Law, established in 1873, is one of New Zealand's two oldest law schools (alongside University of Otago Faculty of Law). The Faculty began offering a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) in 1877. The faculty awards degrees in law and criminal justice, including the LL.B., LL.M., and Ph.D.
Originally led by a single practitioner, the faculty's teaching responsibility later shifted to prominent figures like William Izard and George Weston. The faculty grew over time, establishing multiple full-time chairs by 1970, and moved to the Ilam campus in 1974. In 1993, it relocated to a newly constructed law building.
The faculty has several affiliated clubs, including the Law Students' Society (LAWSOC), founded in 1923. It also publishes the Canterbury Law Review, a peer-reviewed journal established in 1980.
Prominent faculty members have included John Burrows, Philip Joseph, Ursula Cheer, and Stephen Todd. The faculty has produced widely used legal texts, and its alumni have made significant contributions to law and public service, including Supreme Court justices William Young and Andrew Tipping, and Prime Minister of Tuvalu, Feleti Teo.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “University of Canterbury Faculty of Law” is new Zealand academic faculty. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through University, Canterbury and Faculty, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “new Zealand academic faculty” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q130260167. Authority coordinates are -43.525, 172.584. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1873, 1877, 1970 and 1974.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “University of Canterbury Faculty of Law”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow University of Canterbury Faculty of Law primary sources, University of Canterbury Faculty of Law archive and University research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “University of Canterbury Faculty of Law”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “University of Canterbury Faculty of Law” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.