Shauna Van Praagh

Full Professor - On leave

Chancellor Day Hall
Room 38
Montreal, Quebec
Canada H3A 1W9


514-398-6626 [Office]
shauna.vanpraagh [at] mcgill.ca (Email)

Professor Shauna Van Praagh


Curriculum Vitae - February 2023 
Focus online, January 2021: Shauna Van Praagh and the Chamber of Wizards
CTV News Interview: The Wizarding World of Law, 27 January 2021
Palsgraf v Long Island Railroad: A Case of Transsystemic Tort Law (1:49:51)
Talking Teaching Profiles: Asking good questions
Read her articles on SSRN 

Professor Van Praagh is also behind the Legal Education Seminar Working Papers, written by students taking her Legal Education Seminar (LAWG 525) course.


Biography

Shauna Van Praagh is Full Professor in the Faculty of Law, McGill, where she has taught and researched since 1993. She served as Associate Dean (Graduate Studies) from 2007-2010. She chaired the 1995-96 Committee on Curricular Reform, which produced the blueprint for the revised program of legal education introduced in 1999. She has also taught at Columbia Law School (1990-1992) and King’s College London (1992-1993), and was a visiting scholar at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires (2010-2011), Universitat de Barcelona and Hebrew University Jerusalem (2018).

Prior to joining University of McGill, Professor Van Praagh clerked for The Right Honourable Brian Dickson, Chief Justice of Canada, from 1989 to 1990.

Shauna Van Praagh has been intensively involved in the development of teaching and learning in law. She served as President of the Canadian Association of Law Teachers (2013-2014). She was appointed in 2015 as one of two academic members of the National Requirement Review Committee under the auspices of the Federation of Law Societies of Canada.

Professor Van Praagh was awarded the John W. Durnford Teaching Excellence Award in 1995.

Research interests and teaching experience

Professor Van Praagh’s substantive areas of research and expertise are primarily children and law, religion and law, legal education and the private law of civil wrongs. Within each area, she adopts a methodological approach grounded in legal pluralism, a sensibility to identity-based narrative and critique, and a particular emphasis on literary sources and style. She co-edited, with McGill colleague Helge Dedek, a book collection (Stateless Law: Evolving Boundaries of a Discipline, 2015) in which her own chapter focuses on teaching, learning, and responding to the legacy of Residential Schools for Canada’s Indigenous children. As one of the researchers in a multi-partner Quebec research project, Accès au Droit et à la Justice, she co-directs the Section dedicated to access to justice for youth.

Professor Van Praagh teaches Extra-contractual obligations/Torts to first year law students, Advanced Common Law Obligations to upper year students, and a seminar in Legal Education to graduate and upper year students. In addition, she has taught Social Diversity and Law, Children and Law, Foundations of Canadian Law, Feminist Legal Theory, and specialized courses related to governance of diversity, law of armed conflict, and socio-economic justice within the Hebrew University – McGill human rights summer program.

Education

  • J.S.D. degree (Columbia) 2000. Doctoral dissertation: “Follow the Children: Identity, Integrity, Learning and Law”
  • LL.M. (Columbia) 1992
  • LL.B. with Honours (Toronto) 1989
  • B.Sc. with High Distinction (Toronto) 1986

Employment

  • Full Professor, McGill Faculty of Law, 2015-
  • Associate Dean, Graduate studies, McGill Faculty of Law, 2007-2010
  • Acting Dean, McGill Faculty of Law, June 2009
  • Associate Professor, McGill Faculty of Law, 2000-2015
  • Assistant Professor, McGill Faculty of Law, 1995-2000
  • Visiting Assistant Professor, McGill Faculty of Law, 1994-1995
  • Boulton Fellow, McGill Faculty of Law, 1993-1994
  • Visiting Scholar, King's College London, 1992-1993
  • Teaching Associate, Columbia, 1990-1992
  • Law Clerk to the Rt. Hon. Chief Justice Dickson, Supreme Court of Canada, 1989-1990

Areas of Interest

Teaching: Extracontractual Obligations, Advanced Common Law Obligations, Social Diversity and Law, Children and Law

Research: Children’s Stories and the Law of Civil Wrongs; Religion and Law (Chasidic Law and Life); Legal Education; Governing Diversity through Law

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