McKercher LLP Lecture Series Presents: Prof. Gemma Smyth, Law Foundation of Saskatchewan H. Robert Arscott Chair, College of Law

Professor Gemma Smyth is the Law Foundation of Saskatchewan H. Robert Arscott Chair at the College of Law. She is visiting from the Faculty of Law, University of Windsor on the territories of the Three Fires Confederacy. At Windsor Law, Professor Smyth is Associate Professor and Externship Program Director. She has spent her career researching, teaching and writing in clinical and experiential law contexts. These experiences have informed her interest in trauma- and violence-informed approaches to lawyering.

Trauma-informed lawyering has received increasing attention in many areas of law including evidence, criminal, immigration and refugee, and family law. Trauma-informed lawyering has also attracted criticism for its tendency toward individualization, medicalization, and overbroad or unclear application. In this talk, Professor Smyth will examine both the promise and dangers of a narrow approach to trauma- informed lawyering and examine possible frameworks to re-position human suffering in legal contexts.