Oct 30, 2023
- 6:30 pm - 9:00 pm
at Torys LLP (79 Wellington St W, Suite 3300, Toronto, ON)
The Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History invites you to our inaugural student event — ‘Women’s Fight for Legal Personhood: The Persons Case in Historical Perspective’.
Professor Jim Phillips will moderate a panel discussion between The Honourable Robert J. Sharpe, Professor Patricia McMahon, and Professor Sonia Lawrence examining the history and modern implications of the Persons Case (Edwards v. Canada (Attorney General), 1929 CanLII 438 (UK JCPC).
With reference to the 2007 book written by Justice Sharpe and Professor McMahon, The Persons Case: The Origins and Legacy of the Fight for Legal Personhood, the discussion will range from the the socio-legal context behind the constitutional challenge, the relationship between constitutional interpretation, gender, and the law, and an evaluation of the contemporary significance of the Famous Five.
This is a public event and is free for all registrants. Light refreshments will be served. Please register below to attend.
This event is organized by the Osgoode Society’s Law Student Committee, and law students and articling students are particularly encouraged to attend. Students who register will receive a free year-long membership to the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History, which includes a copy of the 2023 members’ book: Lori Chambers and Joan Sangster, eds., Essays in the History of Canadian Law Volume XII: New Essays in Women’s History.
Robert Sharpe was a judge of the Ontario Court of Appeal from 1999 to 2020. He was called to the bar in 1974 and practiced with MacKinnon McTaggart (later McTaggart Potts) in the area of civil litigation. He was a professor at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law from 1976 to 1988 where he… Read more »
Patricia McMahon is the Director and lead interviewer of the Osgoode Society’s Oral History Program. She is a professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, and a historian, living in Toronto. Dr. McMahon holds a Ph.D. in History from the University of Toronto and a J.S.D. from Yale Law School. Her Ph.D. dissertation examined the influence… Read more »
Sonia Lawrence
Professor Sonia Lawrence joined Osgoode’s faculty in 2001. She graduated from the University of Toronto’s joint LLB/MSW program, went on to serve as law clerk to Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin of the Supreme Court of Canada, and pursued graduate work at Yale Law School. Her work centers on the critical analysis of legal conception of equality.
Sonia has served as Assistant Dean of First Year, Director of Osgoode’s Graduate Program, and Director of the Institute for Feminist Legal Studies. She is current the President of the Canadian Association of Law Teachers. Professor Lawrence has taught constitutional and public law, a seminar in gender and equality, criminal law, a graduate methods seminar and a graduate research seminar and a graduate reading group organized around the concept of “social justice”, and in Osgoode’s ADI Program.
Sonia works on Canadian constitutional law, particularly although not exclusively in relation to section 15 equality rights, the relationship between law & social change, and bringing anti-racist / feminist analysis to law and legal inquiry.
Jim Phillips is Professor of Law, History and Criminology at the University of Toronto, and editor-in-chief of the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History. He was law clerk to Madame Justice Bertha Wilson of the Supreme Court of Canada (1987-1988) before joining the University of Toronto. He has published numerous articles on British imperial history… Read more »
