Research Advisory Board

 

Dr Patricia Hughes

Dr. Patricia Hughes has been the Executive Director of the new Law Commission of Ontario since September 15, 2007.  Prior to her appointment as the Dean of Law at the University of Calgary (2001-2006), she was the Chair of Women and Law at the University of New Brunswick Faculty of Law (1992-2001), a vice-chair of the Ontario Labour Relations Board (1986-1990) and Alternate Chair of the Ontario Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal (1990-1992).  From 1984 to 1986, she was Counsel at the Ministry of the Attorney General (Ontario) with responsibility to review legislation for compliance with section 15 of the Charter.  Most recently, she was Executive Director of Education and Scholar in Residence in the Calgary office of Bennett Jones LLP.            

Dr. Hughes graduated from Osgoode Hall Law School in 1982 and was called to the  Bar  of  Ontario in 1984 and to the Alberta Bar in 2001.  She received her  B.A.  and  M.A.  in Political Science from McMaster University and her Ph.D. in Political Theory from the University of Toronto in 1975.  Patricia has written and spoken on legal aid and access to the legal system and  administrative  process,  as  well  as  on a wide variety of issues iin labour law, women’s rights and constitutional law.

Jeffrey B. Berryman, University of Windsor

Professor Jeffrey B. Berryman, LL.B. (Hons.), M.Jur. (Auckland, N.Z.), LL.M. (Dalhousie), of Osgoode Hall, Barrister-at-Law, Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand. A former Dean of the Faculty, Professor Berryman teaches Contracts and Remedies. Professor Berryman is the author of The Law of Equitable Remedies and is co-author of the leading remedies casebook, Remedies: Cases and Materials. Professor Berryman has published widely in the area of remedies and has taught and given seminars on the subject in U.K., Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. He has also acted as a consultant to the Federal Court of Canada on Anton Piller injunctions.

Jamie B. Cameron, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University

Professor Jamie Cameron’s teaching interests include American and Canadian Constitutional Law, the Charter of Rights, Criminal Law, and Freedom of Expression. She has done extensive research in comparative aspects of Canadian and American constitutional law, with particular emphasis on the interpretation of constitutionally guaranteed rights and freedoms in each jurisdiction. Other areas of research interest include freedom of expression and the press; freedom of association; constitutionalization of criminal law; and principles of fundamental justice.  Author of The Charter's Impact on the Criminal Justice System, Professor Cameron has been involved in constitutional reform initiatives, serving as an advisor to former Ontario Premier David Peterson during the Meech Lake Accord process, as a witness to various Parliamentary committees, and as a member of the national YES committee during the Charlottetown Accord and referendum process.  As well, she has been active in a variety of academic and public interest projects and currently serves as Editor of the Osgoode Hall Law Journal as well as on the Board of Editors for Ontario Reports and the Board of Directors of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.  Prior to joining Osgoode in 1984, she was Clerk to the Right Honourable Justice Dickson at the Supreme Court of Canada, practised as an associate lawyer in Vancouver, and taught at two American law schools, Columbia and Cornell.

Brenda Cossman, University of Toronto (On Leave)

Professor Brenda Cossman joined the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto in 1999, and became a full professor in 2000. She holds degrees in law from Harvard and the University of Toronto, and an undergraduate degree from Queen's. In 2002 and 2003, she was a Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Prior to joining the University of Toronto, she was Associate Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School of York University.

Professor Cossman's teaching and scholarly interests include family law, law and sexuality, and freedom of expression.  Her most recent book on Sexual Citizens: The Legal and Cultural Regulation of Sex and Belonging was published by Stanford University Press in 2007.  Her publications include the co-authored Bad Attitudes on Trial: Pornography, Feminism and the Butler Decision (University of Toronto Press) and Censorship and the Arts (published by the Ontario Association of Art Galleries).

Tony Duggan, University of Toronto

Tony Duggan holds the Hon. Frank H. Iacobucci Chair in the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto. He is also a Professorial Fellow in the Faculty of Law at the University of Melbourne. He has doctoral and undergraduate degrees in law from Melbourne, and a master’s degree in law from Toronto. Prior to his appointment at the University of Toronto, he held the Henry Bournes Higgins Chair in Law at Monash University, Victoria. He was Associate Dean at the University of Toronto from 2002-2004.

Professor Duggan currently teaches secured transactions, bankruptcy law and trusts. He has published widely in these areas and also in the areas of contract law, consumer credit and consumer protection. He has authored, co-authored and edited numerous books, including Consumer Credit Law, Contractual Non-Disclosure: An Applied Study in Modern Contract Theory, and Canadian Bankruptcy and Insolvency Law: Bill C-55, Statute c.47 and Beyond.

His law reform work includes membership of the Uniform Law Conference of Canada's Working Group on Reform of Fraudulent Conveyances and Fraudulent Preferences Law, advice and submissions to the Australian Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department in relation to its Personal Property Securities Law Reform Project, and a co-submission to the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Natural Resources, Development and Technology on Bill C-55, The Wage Earner Protection Program Act and Amendments to the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act and the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act.

Sébastien Grammond, University of Ottawa, (Civil Law Section)

Professor Sébastien Grammond is Associate Professor and Vice-Dean (Research) at the Faculty of Law (Civil Law Section) of the University of Ottawa.  He holds a LL.B. and a LL.M. from the Université de Montréal, as well as a D.Phil. from the University of Oxford, with a thesis on the legal regulation of membership in indigenous peoples and linguistic minorities.  After his clerkship with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, he began practising law in 1994 with Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP in Montreal, specialising in native law, constitutional and administrative law and construction law.  Since 2004, he has been teaching contractual obligations and native law at the University of Ottawa.  His research focuses on minority and indigenous peoples rights, in particular on the relationship between law and indigenous identity.  In matters of private law, his research focuses on the interpretation of contracts and contractual justice.   He is the author of several publications in those fields.  His latest book, Aménager la coexistence: les peuples autochtones et le droit canadien (2003), was awarded the prize of the Quebec Bar Foundation for the best law treatise written in Quebec in 2002-2003. He frequently appears in the media, commenting subjects that have a legal dimension.  He received the President’s Award for Service to the University through Media and Community Relations (2006).  He is a member of the Quebec and Ontario bars.

Kai Hildebrandt, University of Windsor
Kai Hildebrandt, Associate Professor at the University of Windsor has been chosen by the Research Advisory Board as the representative of a discipline other than Law. Professor Hildebrandt (Ph.D., Michigan) is a trained political scientist, but teaches in the Department of Communication Studies. He teaches courses in (Quantitative) Research Methods, Audience Analysis and Evaluation Research. His research areas have included political behaviour and elections, media and politics, survey methodology, and empirical research into legal issues. His most recent research projects study the socialization of law students in five Canadian law schools, and (with W.C. Soderlund) the impact of media convergence on media content. He has co-authored or co-edited three books, Germany Transformed (Harvard University Press, 1981); Television Advertising in Canadian Elections: The Attack Mode (Wilfred Laurier University Press, 1999); and Canadian Newspaper Ownership in the Era of Convergence: Rediscovering Social Responsibility (University of Alberta Press, 2005), as well as book chapters and articles in the European Journal of Political Research, Canadian Journal of Communication and Windsor Yearbook Access to Justice, among others. His empirical, social science based research into legal matters include investigations of Replevin (for the Law Reform Commission of Ontario), Small Claims Court, the CAW Legal Aid Plan, and the impact of law school admissions policies on the selection and socialization of law students at the University of Windsor Faculty of Law and across five diverse Canadian Law Schools.  


Ben Hovius, Univeristy of Western Ontario

Professor Hovius joined the Faculty of Law in 1978 and served as Associate Dean (Administration) from 1999 to 2004. His teaching areas encompass Constitutional Law, Family Law, Children’s Law and Legal Research, Writing and Advocacy. His publications include: The Law of Family Property (with Timothy G. Youdan), Family Law: Cases, Notes and Materials (six editions) and numerous articles in the areas of Family and Constitutional Law. Professor Hovius has served as Associate Editor of the Ontario Reports, a panel member of the Board of Inquiry under the Ontario Human Rights Code, a referee under the Employment Standards Act, and an arbitrator under the Farm Products Marketing Act.

Lesley Jacobs, York University

Lesley Jacobs (BA, MA, UWO; D.Phil. Oxford) is Professor of Law & Society and Director of the York Centre for Public Policy & Law (yccpl.osgoode.yorku.ca) at York University in Toronto, Canada. Prior to coming to York, he taught at Magdalen College, Oxford, and the University of British Columbia. He has held a range of distinguished visiting appointment at other universities including the Harvard Law School, Oxford Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, Law Commission of Canada, the University of California, Berkeley, University of Toronto, and the University of British Columbia. His books include Rights and Deprivation (Oxford University Press, 1993); Workfare: Does it work? Is it fair? (IRPP, 1995); The Democratic Vision of Politics (Simon & Schuster, 1997), and Pursuing Equal Opportunities: The theory & practice of egalitarian justice (Cambridge University Press, 2004). His newest book (with Sarah Biddulph), International Human Rights Issues in the Asia Pacific: New Perspectives on Social Rights, is to appear in 2009. His research interests straddle empirical social-legal research and theoretical work on social justice. 

Erik S. Knutsen, Queen's University

Professor Erik S. Knutsen teaches at Queen’s University, Faculty of Law. His areas of academic interest include tort, insurance, and civil procedure issues. His scholarship is informed by an American-Canadian-Commonwealth comparative perspective and his work has been published in American and Canadian legal publications. Professor Knutsen was previously a Visiting Assistant Professor at Florida State University College of Law from 2000 to 2001 and again from 2005 to 2006, where he earned an Excellence in Teaching and Leadership Award. He has also taught an undergraduate law course at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay.

Professor Knutsen holds a Masters of Law (LL.M.) from Harvard Law School, a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) from Osgoode Hall Law School, and an Honours Bachelor of Arts (B.A. (Hons.) from Lakehead University. At Harvard Law School, he was research assistant to Professor Paul Weiler. At Osgoode Hall Law School, he was a Senior Editor of the Osgoode Hall Law Journal.

Professor Knutsen has practiced tort, insurance, and commercial litigation in Canada and the United States. He practised at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP in New York, where he was on a litigation team that managed insurance litigation related to the 9/11 World Trade Center disaster. He also practised litigation at Fasken, Martineau, DuMoulin LLP in Toronto and at Carrel+Partners LLP in Thunder Bay. He has appeared before the Supreme Court of Canada, the Court of Appeal for Ontario, and the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on a variety of tort and insurance cases.

James F. Leal, Beament Green

Mr. James Leal was born in Toronto in 1955. He is a graduate of Victoria College, University of Toronto. He graduated from Queen's University Law in 1982 and articled with Beament Green in Ottawa. He was admitted to the Bar of Ontario in 1984. He has lectured in Business Law, Real Estate Law, Legal Writing and Legal Ethics at the Bar Admission Course of the Law Society of Upper Canada, in Corporate Law at the Continuing Education Faculty of Algonquin College and on Legal Ethics at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law. He is a Trustee and Past President of the Carleton County Law Association, and Chair of the Commercial Law Section of the Carleton County Law Association. He is a founding organizer of the Montebello Solicitors Conference. He is a past Co-Chair of the Electronic Registration of Real Property Title Documents Committee of the Law Society of Upper Canada. His practice is restricted to  Commercial and Real Estate Law and Commercial and Arbitration Advocacy. He acts as counsel for numerous national associations as well as local non-profit and other organizations. He is a director of the Ottawa Bluesfest and a past director of the Causeway Foundation, The Catholic Education Foundation of Ottawa-Carleton and the New Era Classroom Technology and Research Foundation. He is currently a senior partner at Hebert Leal, a commercial real estate and business law boutique.

Anne Marie Predko, Ministry of the Attorney General

Ms. Anne Marie Predko is the Ministry of the Attorney General’s appointee on the Research Advisory Board.  Currently, as Acting Director of the Family Policy and Programs Branch, Anne Marie works in the Court Services Division of the Ministry leading the branch responsible for developing and coordinating implementation of policies pertaining to family court processes and structure, and for developing and overseeing delivery of court-connected family justice services including family mediation and Family Law Information Centres.  She has an undergraduate degree from the University of Waterloo, and an LLB. from Osgoode Hall Law School.  Called to the Bar in 1996, Anne Marie practis ed family and employment law for four years before joining government as Counsel in the Policy Division.  In that role, Anne Marie supported the government’s legislative response to same sex marriage, family arbitration and issues relating to victims of domestic violence. 

J. Anthony VanDuzer, University of Ottawa, (Common Law Section)

Professor Tony VanDuzer graduated from the Common Law Section in 1982. He is an Associate Professor and Vice Dean (Research) of the Section and has been a member of the Faculty of Graduate and Post-Doctoral Studies since 1993.

Prior to joining the Section in 1989, he practised corporate and commercial law in Toronto with Fasken & Calvin (now Fasken Martineau Dumoulin). At the law school Professor VanDuzer teaches a number of upper year courses on domestic and international business law as well as acting as the faculty advisor to the Section's teams participating in the Canadian Corporate/Securities Law Moot and the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot.  Outside the law school, Professor VanDuzer has taught more than 20 short courses to officials from Canadian government departments and more than a dozen foreign states on various trade and investment issues both in Canada and abroad.  He has also taught in the University of Ottawa Executive MBA program and at the Queen’s University International Studies Centre.

Professor VanDuzer’s main area of interest is international trade and investment.  He is a member of the Academic Advisory Council to the Deputy Minister for International Trade and has participated in technical assistance projects relating to business and trade law involving a number of transition and developing economies, including Armenia, Bangladesh, China, El Salvador, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Thailand, Ukraine and Vietnam.   He has acted as an outside legal assessor for the Central and East European Law Initiative of the American Bar Association in reviewing a draft Foreign Trade Law for Bosnia-Herzegovina and a draft Competition Protection Act for Bulgaria.  Recently, he worked as a foreign expert advising on the development of a new foreign trade law for Russia which was passed by the Duma in 2005.

Professor VanDuzer's publications include books on corporate law and merger notification under the Competition Act as well as articles on various business and trade law issues. With Professor Gilles Paquet of the School of Management, Professor VanDuzer wrote Anticompetitive Pricing Practices and the Competition Act: Theory, Law and Practice, a major study for the Competition Bureau published in 1999. Many of Professor VanDuzer's recommendations for reform of the Competition Act were included in a bill amending the act in 2004.  In 2005, his study for the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Health, Education and Social Services in Canada: The Impact of the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services was tabled before the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

Professor VanDuzer is the chair of the Advisory Board of the Centre for Trade Policy and Law (CTPL), a creation of the Faculty of Law and the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs (NPSIA) at Carleton as well as an Adjunct Research Professor at NPSIA.   In 2003, he joined the editorial board of a new journal focusing on trade and transition economies entitled International Economic Policy.

Janice Vauthier, Vauthier Paivalainen Lawyers

Janice Vauthier was chosen by the members of the Research Advisory Board to represent the private bar and was nominated by the Ontario Bar Association. Ms Vauthier is a lawyer from Thunder Bay, Ontario. She attended law school at the University of Windsor, where she graduated in 1979. She has been in private practice since her call to the bar in 1981.  Janice is active in the Ontario Bar Association where she sits on its executive and council. She is the past-President of the Thunder Bay Law Association and has been active in that organization for many years. She practices, with her husband at the firm Vauthier, Paivalainen as a general practitioner, with an emphasis on litigation, including family law. She is a member of the Legal Aid Area Committee for the Thunder Bay district, as well as a settlement conference mediator for Legal Aid.

As well as working in private practice, Janice serves as a part-time Vice-Chair of the Health Professions Appeal and Review Board in Toronto, where she concentrates on adjudication and overall training, education and skills development of the Board.

Over her career Janice has served as Chair of numerous community organizations including, United Way (professional section),  Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Foundation, and Thunder Bay Housing, to name a few.