2022-23 Schedule
Fall Term 2022
Wednesday September 14 - Jordyn Beaupre, McMaster University: “Localism in an International Social Purity Crusade: Establishing the Age of Consent in Late-Victorian Canada”.
Wednesday September 28 - Dan Rohde, Harvard University: "The Bank of the People, 1835-1840: Law, Money and Sovereignty in Upper Canada".
Wednesday October 12 – Bruce Ryder, Osgoode Hall Law School: “Canada’s First Anti-Discrimination Law: Ontario’s 1932 Prohibition on Unfair Discrimination in Insurance Industry”
Wednesday November 2 – Jim Phillips, University of Toronto: “The Trials and Travails of Elizabeth Campbell: A remarkable Parliamentary Divorce of the 1870s”.
Wednesday November 16 – Philip Girard, Osgoode Hall Law School: “On the edge of many empires: employers’ liability and workers’ compensation in Quebec’s industrial age, 1880-1931”.
Wednesday November 23 - Elena Caruso, University of Kent Law School: “The ‘Social Decriminalisation’ of Abortion and the Rise of the Feminist Movement in 1970s Italy".
Wednesday December 7 – Ian Radforth, University of Toronto: “Deadly Swindle: an English Dandy on Trial for Murder in Victorian Ontario.”
Winter Term 2023
Wednesday January 11 - Nicole O’Byrne, University of New Brunswick: “A Legal History of Abortion Access in New Brunswick”.
Wednesday January 25 – Stepan Wood, University of British Columbia: “Indigenous litigants and the reception of English law in Canada.”
Wednesday February 8 – Sally Hadden, Western Michigan University: “Early Colonial American Courts, Appeals and ‘Primitive’ Judicial Review.”
Wednesday February 22 - Tyler Wentzell, University of Toronto: “An Officer and a Litigant: Canadian Militia Commanders in Civil Actions Against Municipalities, 1867-1904”
Wednesday March 8 – Brad Miller, University of British Columbia: "The Internationalization of the Frederick Gerring."
Wednesday March 22 – Taylor Starr, York University: TBA
Wednesday April 5 – Genevieve Painter, Concordia University: TBA
2021-22 Schedule
Fall Term 2021
Wednesday September 15 – Jeff McNairn, Queen’s University, ‘Inviolate and Subservient to the Public Welfare: Private Property and Expropriation for Public Use in Upper Canada’
Wednesday September 29 – Mélanie Méthot, University of Alberta: ‘How “l'Affaire Delpit” Failed to Become a Cause Célèbre.’
Wednesday October 13 - Chris Monaghan, University of Worcester, UK: 'Impeachment Reimagined: Drawing upon history to empower the UK House of Commons'.
Wednesday October 27 – Lara Tessaro, University of Kent: ‘Constitutionally Cosmetic: Federalism and Lipstick Perform an Ontological Turn in Canadian Food and Drugs Law, 1945-47’.
Wednesday November 10 – Alex Martinborough, Queen’s University: ‘Writing Empire and Making Nations: Law, Constitutions and History-Writing in British Settler Colonies, 1860-1935.’
Wednesday November 24 - Daniel Murchison, York University: ‘Alice Payette's Piano and Fur Coat: Views of Métis Life from the Manitoba Surrogate Court, 1870 to 1930".
Wednesday December 1 – Wayne Sumner, University of Toronto: ‘Cognitive Deficiency and the Insanity Defence: The Case of Mike Hack.’.
Winter Term 2022
Wednesday, January 12 - Rob Konduros, Hilborn and Konduros: ‘British Ideas of Federalism and the Life of A.V. Dicey as a Metaphor for Imperialism.’
Wednesday, January 26 - Heidi Bohaker, University of Toronto: TBA
Wednesday, February 9 – Bill Wicken, York University: 'R. v. Hill and R v. Carpenter, Same Jury, Same Judge, Same Verdict, Different Sentence: Manslaughter and Race in Brant County, Ontario, May 1896.'
Wednesday, February 23: Richard Manning, Independent Scholar: ‘Undercover Investigation, Prohibition, and "Disreputable" Detectives in 19th-Century Canada’. Note: This is during the U of T law school reading week.
Wednesday, March 9 – Eghosa Ekhator, University of Derby, UK: ‘Foreign Relations in Precolonial Africa: A Case Study of Portuguese-Benin Kingdom Diplomatic Interactions.’
Wednesday, March 23 – Opeyemi Rabiat Akanda, Osgoode Hall Law School: ‘Decolonization by Codification: The Making of the 1958 Penal Code in Late Colonial Nigeria.’
Wednesday, April 6 – Jacqueline Briggs, University of Toronto: TBA
2019-20 Schedule
January 15: Lara Tessaro, University of Kent: ‘Cosmetically Constitutional: A Legal Form for Material Substance, 1932-195?”.
January 29: Coel Kirkby, University of Sydney: TBA
Wednesday February 12: Jim Phillips, University of Toronto: ‘A Legal History of Indigenous Policy in Early National Canada: The Indian Acts, 1869-1920’.
Wednesday February 26: Kris Kinsinger, Osgoode Hall Law School: ‘To Entrench or Not to Entrench? Canadian Constitutionalism and the Bill of Rights Debate’
Wednesday March 11: Shelley Gavigan, Osgoode Hall Law School: ‘Improper Intimacies and Patriarchal Relations in Canada’s North-West Territories: Methodological, Ethical, and Interpretative Challenges in the Nineteenth-Century Criminal Court Records.’
Wednesday March 25: Elizabeth Koester, University of Toronto: ‘Eugenics in the Ontario Legislature: Dr. Forbes Godfrey and his Private Member's Bills, 1910 to 1921.’
April 1: Erika Chamberlain and Rande Kostal, Western University: TBA
2018-19 Schedule
Wednesday January 16: Nicholas Rogers, York University: 'Murder on the Middle Passage: The trial of Captain Kimber 1792.'
Wednesday January 30: Philip Girard, Osgoode Hall Law School: ‘American Influences, Canadian Realities: The Rise and Fall of the Harvard Law Model in Canadian Legal Education’.
Wednesday February 13: Jackson Tait, Osgoode Hall Law School: 'In Search of the Lex Mercatoria: Canadian Legal Interpretation of Atlantic Marine Insurance Contracts, 1860 - 1924'
Wednesday February 27: Eric Reiter, Concordia University: ‘Robinson v. CPR (1882-92): Law, Society and Wrongful Death in Quebec’ [tentative title]
Wednesday March 13: Mark Walters, McGill Law School: ‘The Quebec Act and the Covenant Chain: How Crown-Indigenous Treaty Relationships Shaped Imperial Constitutional Design.’
Wednesday March 27: Colin Grittner, University of British Columbia: ‘Elective Legislative Councils and the Privileges of Property across Mid-Nineteenth-Century British North America’
Wednesday April 3: Patricia McMahon, Tory’s: TBA
2017-18 Schedule
Wednesday September 13: Christopher Moore, Independent Historian: “Federalism, Free Trade within Canada, and The British North America Act, s.121”
Wednesday September 27: Special Law Society of Upper Canada Event – Lawyers and Canada at 150. This will take place at the Donald Lamont Learning Centre, Osgoode Hall, 130 Queen Street West, from 3.00-6.00, with a reception to follow 6 – 7.30, in Convocation Hall at Osgoode Hall. The programme is reproduced below. The event is free but you are asked to register at http://www.lawsocietygazette.ca/event/lawyers-and-canada-at-150/
Wednesday October 4: Jim Phillips, University of Toronto: “Squatting and the Rights of Property in British North America”
Wednesday October 18: Ian Kyer, Independent Historian, “The Ontario Bond Scandal of 1923 Revisited”
Wednesday November 1 – Constance Backhouse, University of Ottawa: “Claire L’Heureux-Dubé.”
Wednesday November 15 – Philip Girard, Osgoode Hall Law School, "Two Cheers for the Constitutional Act of 1791."
Wednesday November 29 - Nick Rogers, York University: " 'Strumpet hot bitch!' Defamation Suits before Bristol's Bawdy Court, 1720-1790."
2016-17 Schedule
Wednesday September 14 – Ryan Alford, Lakehead University: ‘Understanding Judicial Tolerance of Executive Branch Unilateralism: Changing Dynamics in the American Federal Judicial Appointments Process 1972-2010.’
Wednesday September 21 – Thomas Mohr, University College Dublin: TBA
Wednesday October 12 – Paul Craven, York University: “Just Cause – Industrial Discipline at Arbitration in the 1940s.”
Wednesday October 26 – Bradley Miller, University of British Columbia: “Dangerous Doctrine: Jurisdiction in the Northeastern Boundary Dispute.”
NOTE - Thursday October 27 – American Society for Legal History Conference in Toronto
NOTE - Thursday October 27 – 5 – 7 - Annual Osgoode Society Book Launch, and Opening Reception, American Society for Legal History Conference
Friday October 28 and Saturday October 29 – American Society for Legal History Conference in Toronto
Wednesday November 9 – Suzie Chiodo, Osgoode Hall Law School: "Class Roots: The Genesis of the Ontario Class Proceedings Act, 1966-1992"
Wednesday November 23 – Constance Backhouse, University of Ottawa: “Claire L’Heureux-Dubé: A Feminist Legal Biography”
Wednesday December 6 – Nelson Ouellet, University of Moncton: “The Origins of Workers Compensation in New Brunswick”
2015-16 Schedule
Wednesday September 23 – Brian Young, McGill University: ‘Law, landed families, and intergenerational issues in nineteenth-century Quebec.’
Wednesday October 7 – Ian Kyer: ‘The Canada Deposit Insurance Act of 1967: a Federal Response to a Constitutional Quandry.’
Wednesday October 21 –Paul Craven, York University: ‘The 'Judges Clause': Judges as Labour Arbitrators, 1910-1970.’
Wednesday November 4 – David Fraser, University of Nottingham: ‘ “Honorary Protestants”: The Jewish School Question in Montreal, 1867-1997.’
Wednesday November 18 – Jacqueline Briggs, University of Toronto: ‘R. v. Jonathan: A Case in Context Study'
Wednesday December 2 – Jim Phillips, University of Toronto: ‘A History of Law in Canada, 1815-1850.’
2013-14 Schedule
Wednesday September 11 - Ian Kyer, Fasken Martineau: “The Thirty Years War: The Legal Battles that Created the TTC 1891-1921"
Wednesday September 25 - Jordan Birenbaum, University of Toronto: “Elmer A. Driedger (1913-1985): A Biographical and Intellectual Sketch of the Father of Canadian Statutory Interpretation”.
Wednesday October 9 - Nick Rogers, York University: “Parricide in Mid-Eighteenth Century England: The cases of Mary Blandy and Elizabeth Jefferies.”
Wednesday October 23 - Jeremy Milloy, Simon Fraser University: “Windsor is 'A Very, Very Bad Place to Live if You Are Black': Workplace Violence, Race, and Radical Law in the Aftermath of Charlie Brooks's Murder”
Wednesday October 30 - Osgoode Society Book launch
Wednesday November 6 - Ubaka Ogbogu, University of Alberta: “Doctors versus Councillors: A Legal History of Smallpox Vaccination in Ontario, 1882 - 1920”
Wednesday November 20 - Mary Stokes, Osgoode Hall Law School: “Municipal Corporations in Court, 1850-1880.”
December 4 - Lori Chambers, Lakehead University: “TBA”
2012-2013
Wednesday September 12 - Matthew Light, University of Toronto: "The Ambiguities of Influence: Russia, the Death Penalty, and Europe"
Wednesday September 26 - Nhung Tran, University of Toronto, "Mortgaging Local Culture: the Commodification of Village Performance in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Vietnam"
Wednesday October 10 - Bettina Bradbury, York University: "Troubling Inheritances: An Illegitimate Maori daughter contests her father's will in the New Zealand Courts and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council."
Wednesday October 24 - Doug Hay, York University: "Criminal Lawyers in Eighteenth Century England
Wednesday November 7 - Rob Steinfeld, University of Buffalo: "Outline for a History of the Origins of American Judicial Review"
Wednesday November 14 - Doug Harris, University of British Columbia, and Jim Phillips, University of Toronto: "History of De facto Expropriation in Canada." This is a discussion of two chapters in the forthcoming book Property on Trial: Canadian Cases in Context, to be published by the Osgoode Society. The book launch for this book, and the other Osgoode Society publications for 2012, is on Thursday November 15, 5 p.m., at Osgoode Hall.
Wednesday November 21 - Paul Craven, York University: "Called to Account: Magistrates and Public Accounts in 19th Century New Brunswick"
Wednesday December 5 - Anthony Gaughan, Drake University: "Do the Ends Justify the Means? The Trial of the Watergate Burglars."
2010-2011
Wednesday September 15: Eric Reiter, Concordia University: "From Shaved Horses to Aggressive Churchwardens: The Pre-History of Personality Rights in Lower Canadian Law"
Wednesday September 29: Rosemary Gartner, University of Toronto: "The Past as Prologue: Decarceration in California then and now"
Wednesday October 13 - Jula Hughes, University of New Brunswick: "Sir James Stephen's Code"
Wednesday October 27 - Judy Fudge, University of Victoria: "A Simple Matter of Justice? The Federal Female Employees Equal Pay Act, 1956."
Wednesday November 10 - John Weaver, McMaster University: "The Laws and International Agreements on Medical Registration in the British Empire: Refugee Doctors, 1933-1942."
Wednesday November 24 - Jim Walker, University of Waterloo: "The RDS Case"
Wednesday December 8 - Simon Stern, University of Toronto: "The Rise of Legal Analysis."
2009-10
All sessions are in the Faculty Common Room, Flavelle House, starting at 6.30. All students are welcome.
Wednesday September 16 - Almos Tassonyi, Senior Economist, Government of Ontario: "Good Housekeeping: The Imposition of the Hard Budget Constraint on Municipalities in Ontario in the Great Depression."
Wednesday September 30 - Simon Stern, University of Toronto: "The Origins of the Reasonable Person"
Wednesday October 14 - Allan Greer, McGill University: "Commons and Enclosure in John Locke's America"
Wednesday October 21 - Robert Gordon, Yale University: "Do Lawyers Promote the Rule of Law?"
Wednesday November 4 - Angela Fernandez, University of Toronto: "Tapping Reeve and the Litchfield Law School: A Pushy Pedagogy and Married Women's Property Rights."
Wednesday November 18 - Bonny Ibhawoh, McMaster University: "African Appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, 1850-1960"
Wednesday December 2 - Michael Marrus, University of Toronto: "Some Measure of Justice: The Holocaust Era Restitution Campaign of the 1990s."
Wednesday January 13 - John Beattie, University of Toronto: "Detection: The Bow Street Runners at Work"
Wednesday January 27 - Lyndsay Campbell, University of Calgary: "Through American Eyes: Questions and Themes Concerning Mid-19th-Century Upper Canadian Legal Institutions"
Wednesday February 10 - Jeremy Martin and Jim Phillips, University of Toronto: "Making Legal History: Manitoba Fisheries v. The Queen"
Wednesday February 17 - Reading Week
Wednesday February 24 - David Steeves, Independent Scholar: "The Daniel Sampson case and Jury Selection in the 1930s"
Wednesday March 10 - Paul Craven, York University: "Three Ships: Poverty, Paternalism and Politics at Mid-Century."
Wednesday March 24 - Robert Steinfeld, University of Buffalo: ""The Early Anti-Majoritarian Rationale for American Judicial Review."
Wednesday April 7 - Frank Luce, Osgoode Hall Law School: "Labour Justice and 'rule by law': Brazil's Dictatorship, 1964-1985".
April 14 or 21 - Carolyn Strange, Australian National University: TBA
2008-09
Tuesday September 23 - Shelley Gavigan, Osgoode Hall Law School, “ ‘Make a Better Indian of Him:’ Indian Policy and Criminal Law in the North-West Territories, 1876-1903.”
Tuesday October 7 - Greg Taylor, Monash University, Melbourne, “How The Torrens System Got To Canada.”
Wednesday October 22 - Nick Rogers, York University, “"Theatres of Justice in the London [Gordon] riots of 1780."
Wednesday November 5 - Allan Greer, McGill University, “Commons and Enclosure in John Locke's America"
Tuesday November 18 - Doug Harris, University of British Columbia, “Condominium: The Rise of Property in the City".
Wednesday December 3 - Jim Phillips and Brad Miller, University of Toronto, “Colonial Politics and the Judiciary in Nova Scotia’s Age of Reform, c. 1825-1841"
2007-08
| Date | Speaker | Title |
Tuesday
September 23 | Shelley Gavigan, Osgoode Hall Law School | " 'Make a Better Indian of Him:' Indian Policy and Criminal Law in the North-West Territories, 1876-1903." |
Tuesday
October 7 | Greg Taylor, Monash University, Melbourne | "How The Torrens System Got To Canada." |
Wednesday
October 22 | Nick Rogers, York University | "Theatres of Justice in the London [Gordon] riots of 1780." |
| Wednesday November 5 | Allan Greer, McGill University | "Commons and Enclosure in John Locke's America" |
Tuesday
November 18 | Doug Harris, University of British Columbia | "Condominium: The Rise of Property in the City" |
| Wednesday December 3 | Jim Phillips and Brad Miller, University of Toronto | "Colonial Politics and the Judiciary in Nova Scotia's Age of Reform, c. 1825-1841" |
2006-2007
September 20 - Karen Macfarlane, York University, "The practice of trials per medietatem linguae in Eighteenth-Century England"
October 4 - Eric Tucker, Osgoode Hall Law School, "Recurring Dilemmas: The History of Shareholder and Director Liability for Workers' Wages"
October 18 - Julia Croome, Jim Phillips, and Christian Vernon, University of Toronto, "Reformers, Tories, Judges (and Coal Miners): The Judiciary in Nova Scotia Politics, 1828-1842"
November 1 - Eric Adams, University of Toronto, "Fighting for Freedom: Canadian Constitutional Thought During the Second World War"
November 15 - John McLaren, University of Victoria, "Men of Principle or Ratbags? Judicial
Independence and Disciplining of Colonial Judges in the 19th Century British Empire" - or " A Funny Way to Run an Empire!
November 22 - Kelly De Luca, Columbia University
December 6 - Myra Tawfik, University of Windsor, "Canadian Copyright Law in the Nineteenth Century"
2004-2005
| Date | Speaker | Title |
| Thursday September 16 | Bob Gordon,
Yale University | "The Legal Profession and the Rule of Law: Past and Present" |
| Wednesday September 22 | Randy McGowen,
University of Oregon | "Making Examples and the Crisis of Punishment in mid-Eighteenth Century England" |
| Wednesday October 13 | Paul Finkelman,
University of Tulsa | "The Law, Slavery and Free Blacks in the Antebellum Mid-West" |
| Wednesday November 10 | James Muir,
York University | "Credit and Consumerism in Halifax in the 1750s" |
| Wednesday November 24 | Chris Tomlins,
American Bar Foundation | TBA |
| Wednesday December 1 | Douglas Hay,
York University | "Workers, Employers, and English Law in Scottish Courts in the 18th and 19th Centuries" |
2003-2004
| Date | Speaker | Title |
January 16th
6.30 p.m. | Mark Fortier,
University of Winnipeg | "Early Modern Equity" |
January 30th
6.30 p.m. | Bob Sharpe,
Ontario Court of Appeal
Kent Roach,
University of Toronto | "The Early Years: Brian Dickson at the Supreme Court, 1973-1975" |
February 13th
7.00 p.m.
In Solarium (Seminar Room 2), Falconer Hall | Jim Phillips,
University of Toronto | "The Early History of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court"
Joint session with the Colonial History Group |
February 27th
6.30 p.m. | Joe Kary,
Kary and Kwan | "Mingled Roots: The English and French Origins of Quebec Libel Law" |
March 13th
7.00 p.m. | David Yarrow,
Osgoode Hall Law School | "The Conception of Aboriginal Title in the Royal Proclamation of 1763"
Joint session with the Colonial History Group |
March 27th
6.30 p.m. | Dick Risk,
University of Toronto | "Law Teachers in the 1930s: 'When the World Was Turned Upside Down.'" |
April 3rd
6.30 p.m. | Catharine Wilson,
University of Guelph | TBA |
