Kindra Brooks' initiative in establishing the Black Law Student Association (BLSA) and the Black Law Student 1L Award at the University of Saskatchewan's College of Law, driven by a commitment to diversity and inclusion.
All lectures are free to attend and open to the public.
Dispute Resolution Week kicks off this week, offering unique experiential learning for first-year law students inside the Provincial Courthouse and the Court of King’s Bench of Saskatchewan.
McDougall Gauley LLP, a distinguished Saskatchewan law firm with a legacy of excellence, has generously stepped forward to sponsor the First Year Welcoming Ceremony at the College of Law over the next ten years.
Sarah Buhler (LLM'11) will receive a 2023 USask Alumni Outstanding Impact Award this month
All lectures are free and open to the public.
The College of Law is delighted to announce the following appointments:
The College of Law is pleased to announce the recipients of the Law Society of Saskatchewan gold, silver and bronze medals for 2023. These medals are awarded to the students with the highest academic standing in the Juris Doctor graduating class.
ROSALIE SILBERMAN ABELLA (Honorary Doctor of Laws)
Law school can be a challenge for even the most dedicated student. Now imagine raising two young children at the same time.
Lu Wang was approaching 40 years old when he decided to pursue a career in law at the University of Saskatchewan (USask). Now, as a law school graduate, Wang is hoping he can help his Mandarin-speaking community feel more confident with legal language.
The first-year moots took place at the College of Law on March 1 and 2, 2023.
Dominga Robinson was honoured for her leadership during the Indigenous Student Achievement Awards Ceremony on March 9.
Nuka Olsen-Hakongak among graduates now practicing in home communities
“My parents really valued education and really supported us to go to university. Deborah received so much through her education at USask and I think she really wanted to make sure others had the opportunity to achieve their university education opportunities and goals.”- Verla Chatsis (BA’84, BSP’85)
Upon their graduation in 1972, the law class promised to stay close and keep in touch. This bond is still strong, as half of the Class of 1972 gathered for a reunion in July 2022 to celebrate 50 years and create a remarkable, inspiring legacy.
The College of Law is delighted to announce the following appointments:
After her husband John Sheppard (LLB’51) had passed in 2019 and his estate had been distributed, Laura Sheppard knew that she wanted to honour her husband.
The University of Saskatchewan’s (USask) College of Law is collaborating with local and national partners to focus on data and evidence informed policy making for the seventh annual Saskatchewan Access to Justice Week, taking place Oct. 24-28 in conjunction with the third annual Canada Access to Justice Week. Please see the full article linked below on PAWS.
The Seventh Annual Saskatchewan Access to Justice Week is October 24-28, 2022. This year, Saskatchewan is collaborating with local and national partners to co-host A2J Week events aimed at engaging both justice stakeholders and the public at large. We invite you to get involved in the events, and join the conversation!
Fall Term 2022 Lectures
Honorary Doctor of Laws
The College of Law is delighted to announce the following appointments:
The racism Lua Gibb (LLB'05) endured as a young girl set a fire in her belly. She vowed to stand up for Indigenous people so no other little girls would endure the same prejudice she did.
The College of Law is pleased to announce the recipients of the Law Society of Saskatchewan gold, silver and bronze medals for 2021. These medals are awarded to the students with the highest academic standing in the Juris Doctor graduating class.
A letter from the Indigenous Law Centre
On June 2, 2021, Archer Bell will graduate with a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Saskatchewan (USask) College of Law, the culmination of a global academic journey that took him overseas to earn a degree in Mandarin from the University of Xiamen, and featured a return trip to China to become a reality TV star.
On Monday May 10, the College of Law virtually welcomed 26 Indigenous students who will study and receive credit for Property Law and Kwayeskastasowin: Setting Things Right - a course in Aboriginal people and the law – over the next 11 weeks.
In January, the University of Saskatchewan (USask), in partnership with the Saskatchewan Health Authority and RMD Engineering, made headlines after successfully developing a “made-in-Saskatchewan” ventilator.
Wanda Wiegers, a professor at the USask College of Law, has been involved in research related to domestic violence for more than 20 years.
In December 2020, two College of Law faculty members released “Indigenous-Industry Agreements, Natural Resources and the Law”—a new publication that comprehensively reviews agreements that are formed between Indigenous peoples and companies involved in the extractive natural resource industry.
The early days of March 2020 were a stressful time in the College of Law. Following the announcement on March 13 that classes would move to remote delivery, faculty and staff had only three working days to adjust to online courses and another two weeks to prepare for final examinations to be held remotely.
Five minutes before the 2021 Dean’s Forum was about to begin, third-year law student Levi Graham received a call that left him speechless. The Honourable Justice Brown was on the other line, letting him know that he had been selected for a 2022-23 clerkship at the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC).
Earlier this week, first-year Juris Doctor students at the College of Law took part in their first moot court hearing—an annual event part of the Legal Research and Writing (LRW) course.
The Certification in common law in French Program (CCLF) of the University of Ottawa is pleased to announce the recipients of the ten bursaries of $3,000 each.
At a December 2020 meeting of the Law Society of Saskatchewan benchers, it was announced that a donation of $3000 would be made to the College of Law’s Wunusweh Lecture Fund.
Through hard work and support from her donor-funded scholarship, Jina Bae is on track to pursuing her childhood dream.
SASKATOON – The University of Saskatchewan’s (USask) CREATE Justice centre is teaming up with other organizations across Canada to acknowledge Access to Justice Week (Oct. 26-31) by providing the tools needed to address justice system obstacles.
As the fall edition of the McKercher Lecture Series at the University of Saskatchewan (USask) College of Law moves online, the speakers committee has decided to view this shift in operations as a new opportunity.
Students in the French Common Law Certificate Program at the University of Ottawa now have access to ten bursaries worth $3,000 each. The bursaries have been made available through a new Bursaries for Postsecondary Studies in French as a Second Language (FSL) Program, administered by the Association des collèges et universités de la francophonie canadienne (ACUFC), and funded by the Department of Canadian Heritage.
An alumna of USask College of Law, Chadha was named to the position effective July 22, 2020.
The international event, which is usually held in Switzerland, is now being hosted via Zoom from July 21 to 24 and the College of Law team consisting of Xaverie MacLennan, Archer Bell and Gillian Harrington, will be the first Canadian team to participate.
Martin Phillipson, dean of the College of Law, is delighted to announce the appointment of Lana Walker as the Director of the Nunavut Law Program (NLP) effective July 1, 2020.
The College of Law at the University of Saskatchewan acknowledges the recent statement on Anti-Black Racism by the Council of Canadian Law Deans (CCLD) which stated, in part, that “members of the CCLD stand in solidarity with all who mourn and who have denounced examples of systemic racism in Canadian and other societies, and, in particular, violence perpetrated against racialized people in Canada.”
The College of Law is pleased to announce the recipients of the Law Society of Saskatchewan gold, silver and bronze medals for 2020. These medals are awarded to the students with the highest academic standing in the Juris Doctor graduating class.
It takes a leap of faith to leave a dream job for the unknown.
Elsie Hall may be a well-known name to those who have walked the halls of USask Law, yet surprisingly, it is difficult to find an abundance of information on the first female to enrol and graduate from the college.
Sarah Bree enrolled in her first geography class at the University of Saskatchewan (USask) because a friend was taking it.
With so many highlights during Allyse Cruise’s three-year law school career at the University of Saskatchewan (USask), it’s impossible to mention just one.
Joelle French has never been afraid to mix learning with travel. Growing up in Edmonton and then Calgary, she decided to move to Nova Scotia for an undergrad degree and is now in Saskatoon pursuing her law degree at USask.
Medicine, nursing and dentistry students are not the only groups benefiting from the Health Sciences Building completed in December 2019. In an ongoing cross-college collaboration, USask College of Law students have been able to utilize the space and technology in the Clinical Learning Resource Centre (CLRC) to simulate medico-legal disputes.
Rachel Drew will have just five minutes to pitch her software company for a chance at $15,000.
How does a country balance the need to contain a disease outbreak such as COVID-19, with pressures to allow international traffic and trade? When should a country shut its borders—or re-open them—in the interests of protecting public health?
Since the first cases of COVID-19 were announced in the province, members of the USask community have come together to support one another in these uncertain times.
Since the first cases of COVID-19 were announced in the province, members of the USask community have come together to support one another in these uncertain times.
The USask team of Madison Miller and Graham Fuga (appellant team), along with Anna Lekach and Will Hampton (respondent team), brought home the top prize at the 2020 Donald GH Bowman National Tax Moot, held Feb. 27-28 in Toronto.
Pam Watson, a second-year student at USask Law, was presented with a Community Award during the University of Saskatchewan’s Indigenous Achievement Awards held at the Gordon Oakes Red Bear Student Centre on Feb. 6.
Justin Okerman, a second-year USask law student, was recently part of the championship team at the 2020 Helsinki Information Law Moot Court Competition.
A $140,000 prize will allow students in the College of Law’s Nunavut Law Program to participate in an array of professional learning opportunities, including a circumpolar exchange program.
Professor W. Brent Cotter, QC, was appointed a member of the Senate of Canada today.
Martin Phillipson, Dean of Law, and Associate Professor Sarah Buhler proudly accepted the Sir David Watson Award for Community University Partnerships during the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement’s (NCCPE) Engage Conference in Bristol, UK, on Dec. 4, 2019.
For Sarah Buhler, human rights are a core value she has held from an early age.
Katherine Starks has an interesting few years ahead of her. The recent graduate of the University of Saskatchewan College of Law is clerking at the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal in 2019-2020 after which she will take her freshly-honed skills all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, where she has been selected to clerk for Chief Justice Richard Wagner in 2020-2021.
The Honourable Madam Justice Georgina Jackson and Gerald Tegart are two of five USask alumni who have been named 2019 Alumni Achievement Award winners. Selected by their peers of more than 158,000 USask graduates scattered around the globe, they are being recognized for contributions that go above and beyond.
The University of Saskatchewan’s College of Law and CLASSIC (Community Legal Assistance Services for Saskatoon Inner City Inc), have recently been named co-recipients of the 2019 Sir David Watson Award for Community University Partnerships.
The Wiyasiwewin Mikiwahp Native Law Centre will receive $185,000 in 2019-20 to support their Innovation and Indigenization Project.
A University of Saskatchewan (USask) legal education program designed to increase the number of practicing lawyers in Nunavut has received $341,000 through the Justice Partnership and Innovation Program over the next two years.
Lawyers and judges in Canada are regularly grappling with the legal consequences of large resource development projects and their impacts on constitutional rights—particularly Indigenous rights. What lie beneath these difficult legal analyses are often even more complex spatial conflicts over specific territories, resources, impacts, and rights.
When Ronald C.C. Cuming began teaching at the University of Saskatchewan (USask) in the 1960s, email, podcasts and video-recorded lectures did not yet exist, law classes were taught out of the Murray Library, and Otto Lang was dean of the law school. Over the past half century, Cuming has witnessed a world of change at the College of Law and has played a large role in changing laws around the world.
Little did she know that 66 years later she would be a key member of the university’s leadership team, a leading law scholar and the longest-serving active female professor on campus.
Poitras will begin her term on July 1, 2019.
The College of Law is celebrating after a win at the Willms & Shier Environmental Law Moot in Toronto on March 2.
Professor Doug Surtees has devoted much of his research work to elder and disability law. His latest project is combining those two interests and taking a deep look at guardianship orders to ensure that legislation surrounding the topic is achieving what it was intended to.
After being told time after time that she would have to move out of Saskatchewan if she wanted to work on environmental law issues, Taylor Anne Yee decided to start making her own opportunities.
The University of Saskatchewan holds a special place in Ena Chadha’s heart. It was where she received her law degree, it was where she met her husband, and it was where she began to deeply explore the vast areas of human rights and constitutional law.
Since 2016, USask College of Law students have been offered the option to pursue Certification in Common Law in French (CCLF)—a partnership with the University of Ottawa Faculty in Law that allows select students the opportunity to gain valuable skills in French legal writing and advocacy as well as a deep understanding of the important issues surrounding language rights in Canada.
On June 22, 2018, Deborah E. Fry (JD’80) was appointed as the first female Chief Justice of Newfoundland and Labrador.
College of Law professor and Canada Research Chair at USask, Dr. Dwight Newman (PhD), is among 18 Saskatchewan lawyers honoured with 2018 Queen’s Counsel designations by the Province of Saskatchewan.
Born in Nunavut, 300 kilometres from the Arctic Circle, Robert Comeau never dreamed of going to law school one day, never mind having the opportunity right in his own community.
Larry Chartrand, academic director of the Wiyasiwewin Mikiwahp Native Law Centre at the University of Saskatchewan has been appointed as a member of the human rights expert panel of the Court Challenges Program (CCP).
On National Philanthropy Day, the University of Saskatchewan joined numerous non-profits in Saskatoon to recognize the donors, volunteers and supporters who make a positive difference in the community.
A generous gift from University of Saskatchewan (USask) alumnus Ken Fredeen (LLB’83) has allowed five USask students from Iqaluit to travel to Saskatoon for the first time since the Nunavut Law Program was established at the College of Law.
For a third year in a row, the University of Saskatchewan’s (U of S) College of Law and justice stakeholders from across the province are coming together to bring awareness to access to justice.
At a May 18 ceremony, the U of S Native Law Centre (NLC) added the Cree words “Wiyasiwewin Mikiwahp” meaning “law lodge” to its current name.
The University of Saskatchewan (U of S) has committed to reserve two seats in the College of Law's Juris Doctor (JD) program annually for Indigenous students from Newfoundland and Labrador.
College of Law alumnus Merlis Belsher (LLB'63) received an honourary Doctor of Laws at the University of Saskatchewan (U of S) Spring Convocation on June 7.
College of Law Associate Professor Sarah Buhler receives the Elizabeth Fry Society of Saskatchewan Lady Justice Award.
SASKATOON—A unique-in-Canada research database developed and launched at the University of Saskatchewan (U of S) will help to ensure the Gladue rights of Indigenous people are fully accounted for during sentencing.
Barbara von Tigerstrom will work with colleagues at the Johnson Shoyama School of Public Policy (JSGS), the University of Alberta College of Law and Canadian Blood Services (CBS) to investigate issues related to the commercialization of blood and tissue in Canada.
The College of Law is sad to share the passing of Professor and Dean Emeritus Douglas A. Schmeiser, SOM, QC.
Yvonne Boyer (JD '96) will be the first senator for Ontario to identify as Indigenous.
The College of Law is responding to the growing need for lawyers trained in family law negotiation skills.
Now in their second semester, the students of the Nunavut Law Program have been working hard to master the foundations of a legal education.
Strong performance earns College of Law team fourth place, as Osgoode Hall claim top spot.
The next two months will see University of Saskatchewan (U of S) College of Law teams participate in 11 different mooting competitions.
Former U of S chancellor Tom Molloy (BA '64, LLB '64) has been named as the province's new lieutenant governor.
