30th Anniversary Symposium

To mark its 30th anniversary, the Society will hold a symposium on Canadian legal history, which will be in part a celebration of its past and in part a discussion of future directions. The symposium, generously funded by the Law Foundation of Ontario, will be held at Osgoode Hall, on Friday October 30th, 9- 5. The programme is below. If you are interested in attending the symposium, which is free of charge, please email mmacfarl@lsuc.on.ca.

Abstracts of the papers to be presented at the symposium are available by clicking on the author's name below.

Osgoode Society Symposium on Canadian Legal History - October 30, 2009

9 - 9.15 - Welcoming Remarks: the Hon R. Roy McMurtry, President, Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History

9.15 - 10.45 - Session 1: Osgoode's Successors: Courts and Judiciary in Canadian History

Chair: Ian Kyer, Faskens

Paul Craven, Professor, Social Science Division, York University: "Low law and Low Courts: Reconstructing the Work of Minor Tribunals"

William Kaplan, Toronto Lawyer and Arbitrator: "Canadian Maverick: The Life of Ivan Rand"

John McLaren, Professor of Law Emeritus, University of Victoria: "Disciplining Rogue Judges: The Canadian History"

Jim Phillips, Professor of Law and History, University of Toronto, "An Overview of Canada's Judicial History"

10.45 - Coffee Break

11.00 -12.30 - Session 2: Peace, Order and Condign Punishment:Canadian Criminal Justice History

Chair: Barry Wright, Professor of Law and Criminology, Carleton University

R. Blake Brown, Professor of History, St Mary's University: "Disarming the foreigners … is the only way to render them harmless’: Gun Control in early Twentieth-Century Canada"

Patrick Connor, Ph.D. student, York University: "The Pardon in Upper Canada, 1791-1841"

Bradley Miller, PhD Student, University of Toronto: "A Free Trade in Criminals: The Travails of Canadian Extradition Law after 1867"

Robert Sharpe, Ontario Court of Appeal: "Murder in Late Nineteenth-Century Picton: A Case Study of Wrongful Conviction and Capital Punishment"

12.30 - 1.45 - LUNCH

1.45 - 3.15 - Session 3: Historically Outside the Law: The Legal History of Social Justice

Chair: Professor Doug Harris, Faculty of Law, University of British Columbia

Hamar Foster, Professor of Law, University of Victoria: "One Hundred Years of Advocating for Justice: Litigating the Calder Case"

Judy Fudge, Lansdowne Professor of Law, University of Victoria: "Canadian Courts and Canadian Labour: An Unhappy History"

Melanie Brunet, University of Toronto: "Simply Catching Up? The 'Feminization' of Law Schools in Quebec Since the 1960s"

Barrington Walker, Professor of History, Queen's University: "A Dubious Legacy: African-Canadians and the Law in Canadian History"

3.15 - Coffee Break

3.30 - 5.00 - Session 4: Canadian Legal History: Present and Future

Chair: Patricia I. McMahon, Osler Hoskin

Constance Backhouse, Professor of Law, University of Ottawa: "A Cohort of Feminist Lawyers"

Philip Girard, Professor of Law and History, Dalhousie University: "Writing a History of Canadian Law: Themes and Prospects"

Mark Walters, Professor of Law, Queens University: "Writing a History of Aboriginal Law in Canada"

Mary Stokes, Doctoral Student, Osgoode Hall Law School: "Historians and Low Law: A Case Study of Municipal Administration"