One of our authors, Professor Emerita Shelley Gavigan of Osgoode Hall Law School, passed away on Sunday, April 20th. Shelley made immense contributions to Osgoode Hall Law School, particularly as Director of the Parkdale Clinic and as the hand-picked Associate Dean to the late Peter Hogg when he served as Dean. A long-time member and… Read more »

HeARTs for Hunger An Art Auction of Pieces of Work by the Hon. Roy McMurtry (1932-2024) SAVE THE DATE 24 April 2025 | 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm | Osgoode Hall   Lawyer, judge, and landscape painter. With a legacy of milestone contributions to the Ontario justice system during his time both as Attorney General… Read more »

On March 20, 2025, the Law Society of Ontario announced that 6 people have been awarded the Law Society Medal for 2025. They include  Osgoode Society Editor-in-Chief Jim Phillips. The citation reads:   Professor Jim Phillips: is a member of the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto, cross-appointed to the Department of History, and a… Read more »

Lori Cambers and Joan Sangster, eds., Essays in the History of Canadian Law Volume XII: New Essays in Women’s History (2023) was an honourable mention in the category of collective works awarded by the Fondaton du Barreau du Québec. Jim Phillips, Philip Girard and R. Blake Brown, A History of Law in Canada Volume II: Law for… Read more »

Prof. Jim Phillips has been elected an honorary fellow of the American Society for Legal History, the highest honour the Society bestows. Congratulations to our Editor-in-Chief! https://www.law.utoronto.ca/news/jim-phillips-elected-honorary-fellow-american-society-legal-history  

Osgoode Society Editor-in-Chief Jim Phillips was recently named a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. The official announcement reads: “Jim Phillips, Professor of Law and History, University of Toronto, is a leading figure in the field of Canadian legal history. Phillips has been an intellectual leader in the expansion of legal scholarship beyond traditional… Read more »

Zoé Bernicchia-Freeman, one of the Osgoode Society’s student ambassadors in 2023-2024, was awarded the Silver Medal at Osgoode Hall ’s convocation last week. Congratulations. Zoe will be articling in 2024-2025 and clerking at the Ontario Court of Appeal in 2025-2026.

Fred Kaufman, a retired Judge of the Quebec Court of Appeal, passed away in early January. Fred’s remarkable life, from fleeing Austria as a refugee from the Nazis to time in an interment camp in New Brunswick as an ‘enemy alien’ , to law school, law practice and the Court of Appeal is chronicled in… Read more »

The Osgoode Society’s Oral History Director, Professor Patricia McMahon, was featured in a Globe and Mail article on Saturday November 11th about the problems she and other historians are having with access to information requests to Library and Archives Canada. The article, and accompanying podcast, are available here- https://www.theglobeandmail.com/podcasts/the-decibel/article-canadas-broken-information-laws-keep-history-in-the-dark/  

CHRIS ENGLISH. The Osgoode Society notes with deep regret the passing of one of our authors, Christopher (Chris)  English, in St John’s on August 11, 2023. Chris was for many years a Professor of History at Memorial University of Newfoundland, and a distinguished scholar of the history of France. In 1990, in the midst of… Read more »