Learn more about our committed professors and research leaders

Professor OLABISI AKINKUGBE teaches Contracts and JudicialDecision Making, International Trade Law, and International Human Rights Law. He is an Editor and Co-founder of Afronomicslaw Blog - a blog dedicated to the analysis of all issues relating to international economic law in the Global South. He co-organized the 2019 Purdy Crawford workshop. His stream theme was Sustainable Development Goals, Trade, Investment, and Inequality. He is currently planning a workshop in September 2020 on Theoretical and Methodological Approaches for the Study of International Economic Law in the Global South. The workshop builds on an earlier online symposium.

Professor NAYHA ACHARYA teaches Civil Procedure, Alternative Dispute Resolution, Ethics, and Introduction to Law for undergraduate students. Her central research focus right now is ADR, in particular, mediation as a dispute resolution process. She also writes about procedural theory generally, and has written and presented at a workshop on higher education teaching and learning this year.

Professor Emeritus BRUCE ARCHIBALD published Capabilities Approaches and Labour Law through a Relational and Restorative Lens in Brian Langille (ed) The Capability Approach to Labour Law and Restorative Regulation of Criminality at Work in Canada in the volume Criminality at Work, edited by Alan Bogg, Jennifer Collins, Mark Freedland and Jonathan Herring. Both books were published by Oxford University Press. He is enjoying the freedom from regular teaching which flows from his new emeritus status and the privilege of supervising graduate students and doing bits of research.

Professor KIM BROOKS is grateful to have been able to get to know many of the members of the graduating class of 2020 and is sorry she missed out out on raising a glass to them in person in May. She was delighted with the hard work of the Bowman moot team and with students in tax, international tax, and the Dalhousie Law Journal courses. She’s excited about the launch of our renovated Business Law Specialization.

2019-2020 was the ‘year of Japan’ for Professor ALDO CHIRCOP. On behalf of MELAW, he was convenor of the first Canadian-Japanese Scholarly Exchange on the Law of the Sea for leading subject scholars from across Canada and Japan, with generous support of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA). He was also MOFA guest at ocean law workshops in Kobe and Tokyo and gave a keynote address at a virtual conference in Sapporo.

Professor STEVE COUGHLAN brought out a new book, co-authored with Alex Gorlewski (’13), entitled The Anatomy of Criminal Procedure: A Visual Guide to the Law. The book takes a unique approach, setting out the rules of the criminal justice system in seventy separate annotated flowcharts. The book functions on a stand-alone basis, but is also a companion volume to Steve’s Criminal Procedure, the fourth edition of which appeared this year. Two of Steve’s other books Detention and Arrest, and Canadian Law Dictionary, originally authored by John Yogis (’64) were cited by the Supreme Court of Canada this year. In addition, he was chosen by Canadian Lawyer as one of the Top 25 Most Influential in the Justice System for 2019.

Professor ROB CURRIE was delighted to see the publication of two textbooks: Kindred’s International Law: Chiefly as Interpreted and Applied in Canada, 9th ed (co-edited with colleague Phillip Saunders), published in the fall of 2019; and the third edition of International & Transnational Criminal Law (co-authored with Joseph Rikhof), published January 2020. He is also pleased to be teaching a new experiential learning course, Criminal Appeals Practice, which he co-created with Schulich grad Lee Seshagiri (’06). Associate Dean, Academic MICHAEL DETURBIDE was busy organizing the transition of classes and examinations online in 2020. He taught Business Associations, and was acting Director of the Law and Technology Institute in 2020. He chaired the Studies Committee and was a member of the Academic Committee and Admissions Committee. His new book (with Professor Teresa Scassa of the University of Ottawa) entitled Digital Commerce in Canada was published in April by LexisNexis.

Acting Dean RICHARD DEVLIN has continued to serve as Chair for the Canadian Association for Legal Ethics. In that role, in collaboration with the Board of Directors, he has provided feedback to Canadian Judicial Council on revisions to the Ethical Principles for Judges. In particular, CALE has argued that the Principles should: 1) be reconstituted as a code of conduct, 2) address Reconciliation with Indigenous peoples; 3) include an explicit duty of judicial confidentiality, 4) pursue a larger discussion of judges’ obligations to promote access to justice; 5) endorse technological competence; and 6) provide guidance on post-retirement return to practice.

Professor JOCELYN DOWNIE was excited to launch two new courses in public policy and law. First was an intensive course that brought students and major players together to explore the case study for this year - the process of changing abortion policy on Prince Edward Island. Second was a seminar that she co-taught with Laurel Broten (President and CEO of Nova Scotia Business Inc. and former Ontario Minister of Environment, Children & Youth Services, Women’s Issues, Education, and Intergovernmental Affairs). She also released a personal directives app to enable Nova Scotians to ensure their health and other personal care wishes are followed when they can longer speak for themselves (in collaboration with the Legal Information Society of Nova Scotia - see legalinfo.org “online apps”).

Professor MARIA DUGAS teaches Legal Research and Writing and Torts. In October she presented at a judicial conference run by the National Judicial Institute. She was also a panelist at the Canadian Association of Black Lawyers’ Annual Conference held in Halifax, speaking about alternative legal careers. This summer she plans to continue her work in Critical Race Legal Theory, looking at issues around racism in sport.

Professor ELAINE GIBSON had a busy year teaching tort law and damage compensation, medical malpractice, public health law, and introduction to legal ethics. She has been researching and speaking about the failures of the tort system to provide adequate redress to victims of medical malpractice and, in recent months, state quarantine powers in times of pandemic, as well as the need for provision of personal protective equipment to health care providers during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Professor DIANA GINN continues to publish in the field of law and religion. Along with three co-applicants, she has received a SSHRC Connections Grant to explore possible links between how public schools teach about religion, and students’ understandings of citizenship. She is involved with an Access to Justice Project on procedural fairness before administrative tribunals, and continues to update the Nova Scotia Real Property Practice Manual. This year, Professor Ginn taught Property Law and ADR.

In addition to the course on Intellectual Property, Professor LUCIE GUIBAULT took over the teaching of two courses on Law and Technology and Entertainment Law. She joined a research group on IP and the Right to Research, led by the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property at the American University. She also prepared a report for Canadian Heritage on the feasibility of implementing an Extended Collective Licensing regime for online music streaming services.

Professor ADELINA IFTENE taught Criminal Law, Evidence and Imprisonment and Prison Policy. Her book, Punished for Aging: Vulnerability, Rights and Access to Justice was published by the University of Toronto Press in August 2019. The Schulich School of Law hosted the book launch, opened by Senator Kim Pate (’84), in October 2019. Adelina also gave book talks at four other law schools across the country.

Professor COLIN JACKSON continued teaching Taxation I, Secured Transactions, Sale of Goods, and Bankruptcy & Insolvency, and was thrilled to receive this year’s DLAA & LSS Award for Excellence in Teaching Law. He also finished and defended his doctoral thesis, Into the 'Vortex of Legal Precision': Access to Justice, Complexity, and the Canadian Tax System and graduated with Schulich Law’s class of 2020.

Professor ARCHIE KAISER continues teaching in the Criminal and Mental Disability Law areas and as Faculty Advisor for Pro Bono Dalhousie, while maintaining his Legal Issues class in the Department of Psychiatry. He is an executive member of HaliFIX, which operates a privately funded Halifax Overdose Prevention Site and still serves with People First Nova Scotia and the Nova Scotia Association for Community Living, organizations which advocate for persons labelled with an intellectual disability.

Professor JODI LAZARE taught Constitutional Law and Introduction to Legal Ethics. She published research on the gendered economic consequences of marriage breakdown and judicial reliance on the Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines in the Canadian Journal of Women and the Law and has a forthcoming article in the Queen’s Law Journal on determining ownership of companion animals upon family breakdown. In October 2019, in partnership with Animal Justice, she co-organized the inaugural Canadian Animal Law Conference, a sold-out event.

Professor CONSTANCE MACINTOSH was delighted to teach some of her favourite courses this year, including Indigenous Governance, Contract Law, and Immigration and Refugee Law. Research highlights included co-editing a special collection of articles on current issues in migration law, and workshopping ideas on how to bring together the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Professor Emeritus WAYNE MACKAY completed the 4th edition of his Teachers and the Law book. It was published by Emond-Montgomery publishers in February of 2020. He also remains active in the McGill University led iMPACTS SSHRC funded national project on sexual assaults at universities, including doing a presentation (by Skype) to a conference on sexual assault law at McGill Law School in February 2020. He serves as expert legal advisor to the Legal Information Society of Nova Scotia (LISNS) on their Workplace Sexual Harassment Project and contributed the lead segment to their online training for lawyers on this project in March 2020. He continues his regular CBC column on legal matters for Info AM and comments widely on all legal matters on local and national media, including many comments on legal issues arising from COVID-19.

Professor ANDREW FLAVELLE MARTIN joined Schulich Law on July 1, 2019. He taught Public Law, Introduction to Legal Ethics, Legal Profession, and Advanced Legal Research. He’s continued his long-term project on legal ethics for government lawyers and the Attorney General, focusing this year on the implications of federalism and activism for government lawyers. He also worked on the application of Gladue principles in the professional discipline of Indigenous lawyers and in administrative law more generally. Research Associate and Lecturer ANTHONY ROSBOROUGH taught Copyright Law, the Fox Moot and select lectures in Intellectual Property I. He co-authored a chapter on copyright and perceptual disabilities with Professor Lucie Guibault while collaborating on several other projects. He was awarded the Cloch Prize for his LLM dissertation on the Right to Repair and Canadian Foundation for Legal Research grant to survey the preparedness of Canadian Small Claims courts to hear intellectual property claims.

Associate Dean, Research SARA SECK led the climate justice stream of the Purdy Crawford workshop, and moderated the Wickwire legal ethics panel on business and human rights. She supervised researchers in projects on responsible business conduct for UN Environment’s Environmental Rights Initiative and a SSHRC-Impact Assessment Agency Knowledge Synthesis Grant. Publications include articles in Climate Policy, Sustainability, and Amnesty International. Forthcoming in October is the co-edited Cambridge Handbook on Sustainable Development and Environmental Justice.

Professor ROLLIE THOMPSON retired in June 2020. This past year, along with Shelley Hounsell-Gray, he taught a course in Child Protection Law, only one of four such courses taught in Canada. He will become a professor emeritus, but he plans to continue researching, writing and speaking at conferences, as well as editing the Nova Scotia Civil Procedure Rules and the Canadian Family Law Quarterly. No rocking chair yet.

Professor DAVID VANDERZWAAG had another productive research year. His co-editing of the Research Handbook of Polar Law and the Research Handbook on Ocean Acidification continued with upcoming publication by Edward Elgar. He co-organized a panel, Transboundary Fisheries Governance in an Era of Changing Oceans at the Integrated Marine Biosphere Research (IMBeR) Open Science Conference in Brest, France, in June 2019. He co-authored Saving the North Atlantic right whale in a changing ocean: Gauging scientific and law and policy responses in Ocean and Coastal Management.

Professor SHEILA WILDEMAN enjoyed a year of her retired spouse’s fine cooking. This gave her the energy to, among other things, obtain a SSHRC Partnership Engage grant (My Home, My Rights: Exploring Human Rights in Community Living). This will enable Sheila and Ruth Strubank/NS Association for Community Living to work with a team of Participatory Action Researchers with intellectual disabilities, using artsbased methods to explore human rights and community inclusion and create an advocacy resource based on what we learn.

Professor MICHELLE WILLIAMS taught African Nova Scotians and the Law; served as lead of Dalhousie’s African Nova Scotian (ANS) Strategy: and was appointed as a Dalhousie Provost Fellow. She organized the IB&M 30th Anniversary events; continued her work with the ANSDPAD Coalition and the ANSA2J Judicial Committee; and joined the Board of CCLISAR. After 16 years serving as Director of the IB&M Initiative, she moved into a tenure-track position with the Schulich School of Law on July 1, 2020.

Professor Emeritus FAYE WOODMAN came out of retirement briefly this spring to teach Equity and Trusts and found her students keener and smarter than ever. She co-edited the 4th edition of The Law of Trusts with Mark Gillen at Victoria and authored several chapters on taxation of trusts, succession and estate planning, and constructive trusts. She continues as a representative on the Pension Advisory Committee of the Dalhousie Plan and as occasional advisor to the Law Reform Commission.