With the holiday season quickly approaching, a group of students at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law spread some holiday cheer last week singing Christmas carols outside their law library.
Check out this short
video of the event.
The group, known as the Chords of Appeal, was able to relieve some stress on the last day of classes before dreaded exams began.
Former law student Emma Costante originally started the Chords of Appeal two years ago after deciding to turn the students’ jam sessions into an official group. When Costante graduated last year, Meghan Bridges, now a second-year law student, took over as choir director.
Singing has always been a big part of Bridges’ life. For 15 years she was in a show choir (similar to the TV show
Glee) and took private voice lessons for eight years. She has also been a cast member in five musicals and even directed a musical herself.
This year there are 10 second-year law students in the group, most of whom have previous singing experience.
“We have a good mix of students with lots of singing experience and students with little to no singing experience,” says Bridges. “As a group we focus more on having fun while we’re singing than on using formal technique and such.”
The group meets on weekends at Bridges’ apartment to rehearse a cappella songs.
Aside from her love of singing, Bridges says she joined the Chords of Appeal to relieve stress and take a break from studying on the weekends.
“Joining Chords last year was one of the best decisions I made — the students in the group were incredibly supportive, and I don’t know that I could have made it through 1L without our Saturdays singing together,” she says.
“Chords is a supportive, friendly, and competition-free niche in an environment where competition and stress is typically rampant,” she adds. “I love knowing that I can spend a few hours of every weekend singing with some of my closest friends regardless of how much stress we’re under.”
Unfortunately, there will be no more carolling for the rest of the year as the students wrap up their assignments and prepare for exams, but they hope to perform at some open-mic nights — also known as coffee houses at U of T — in the new year.
U of T isn’t the only law school getting into the holiday spirit. Many law schools across the country have run food, clothing, and toy drives for various charities.
And what would the holidays be without an ugly Christmas sweater party? University of Saskatchewan College of Law dean Sanjeev Anand even agreed to wear his ugly Christmas sweater for a week if the students were able to collect 100 items for their food/toy drive. Unfortunately only 87 items were collected.
The University of New Brunswick Faculty of Law also held an ugly Christmas sweater party. Check out photos from the event
here.
The Dalhousie University Schulich School of Law competed in an indoor cycling spin-off against the university’s medicine and dentistry faculties to collect food donations for Feed Nova Scotia.
Students at the University of Windsor’s law faculty beared the frigid waters of the Detroit River for their annual Polar Bear Dip on Dec. 3, which raised money for the Downtown Mission.
