Some families might have settled for a fruit basket; newly-minted Assistant Professor Patricia McMahon got a building. To congratulate her on joining the faculty at Osgoode Hall Law School, McMahon’s two sons and husband presented her with a Lego replica of the Osgoode building on the Keele Campus.
Husband Kevin Ackhurst (LLB ’96) and the couple’s two children, 12-year-old Max and 14-year-old Jack, ordered a custom Lego replica of the building from a Spanish company, BuildaMOC (My Own Creation), which designed and sourced the bricks for the mini-Osgoode structure based on photos and input from Ackhurst.
The delivery went undetected by McMahon and her family surprised her with the unassembled kit in March. The Lego masters – with Max leading the charge – constructed it in the garage over a few days in June.
No lawyers were harmed in the making of the model.
“My husband and the kids wanted to get me a unique office-warming present,” McMahon explained in an email. “I’m pleased to report that Lego Osgoode now has a proud place of prominence in my office window. It isn’t going anywhere!”
The building joins a number of other Lego masterpieces the boys have crafted over the years, including the United Nations Headquarters, the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine and the London skyline.
When not admiring her impressive office Lego collection, McMahon will teach courses in both the first-year and the upper years of the JD curriculum, most particularly in the areas of legal process, contracts, equity and legal history, including legal biography.
She comes to the law school from Torys LLP, where she was a senior associate in the litigation department. She has also served as the coordinator and lead interviewer for the oral history program at the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History since 2015. McMahon’s primary research interests are in the areas of civil procedure, equity and legal history broadly defined. She is a graduate of Yale Law School.