Catherine Walsh

Full Professor

Chancellor Day Hall
Room 39
Montreal, Quebec
Canada H3A 1W9

514-398-5509 [Office]
catherine.walsh [at] mcgill.ca (Email)

Catherine Walsh


Biography

Catherine Walsh teaches and writes principally in the areas of secured transactions and private international law. Formerly a professor in the Faculty of Law of the University of New Brunswick, her move to McGill in July 2001 reflects her strong interest in the comparative and international dimensions of these subjects.

She has a long standing commitment to law reform, and has been actively involved in a number of national and international reform initiatives, including participating as a member of the Canadian delegation to Working Group VI of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) in the development of a series of multilateral legal instruments in secured transactions law.

She is the co-author, with Ronald Cuming (Saskatchewan) and Roderick Wood (Alberta), of Personal Property Security Law (Irwin Law, 1st ed. 2005, 2nd ed. 2012). She has been a contributing co-author from the outset of Private International Law in Common Law Canada: Cases, Text and Materials, the 4th edition of which was published by Emond-Montgomery in 2016.

Before commencing her law studies, Catherine Walsh worked as a CUSO volunteer in Ghana, an experience that contributed to her subsequent interest in comparative and international private law.

Education

B.C.L. (Oxford) 1979

LL.B. (UNB) 1978

B.A. (Dalhousie) 1972

Employment

Full Professor, Faculty of Law, McGill University, 2001-

Associate Dean (Academic), Faculty of Law, McGill University, 2003-2005

Professor, Faculty of Law, University of New Brunswick, 1994-2001 (Assoc. Prof 1986-1994; Assist. Prof. 1981-1986)

Counsel, Stewart McKelvey Stirling Scales, 1999-2002

Associate Lawyer, McKelvey Macaulay Machum (now Stewart McKelvey Stirling Scales), Saint John, 1980-1981

Law Clerk to the Chief Justice, New Brunswick Court of Appeal, 1979-1980

Recent Publications

“The Role of Party Autonomy in Determining the Third-Party Effects of Assignments: Of “Secret Laws” and “Secret Liens” (2018) 81 Law and Contemporary Problems 181

"General Jurisdiction over Corporate Defendants under the CJPTA: Consistent with International Standards?" (2018) 55 Osgoode Hall LJ 163 

 “A Transnational Consensus on Secured Transactions Law? The 2016 UNCITRAL Model Law” in Transnational Commercial and Consumer Law: Current Trends in International Business Law (Springer: 2018) (chap. 3)

“The law applicable to the third-party effects of an assignment of receivables: whither the EU?” (2017) 22 Uniform L Rev 781

“Proposals for Changes to the Canadian Personal Property Security Acts” (2017) 59 C.B.L.J. 145 (co-authored with Ronald Cuming, Tamara Buckwold, Anthony Duggan, Roderick Wood and Clayton Bangsund)

 “‘Functional Formalism' in the Treatment of Leases in Secured Transactions Law: Comparative Lessons from the Canadian experience” in S. Bazinas & O. Akseli, eds, International and Comparative Secured Transactions Law: Essays in honour of Roderick Macdonald (Oxford: Hart, 2017) 25

“Transplanting Article 9: The Canadian PPSA Experience” in Louise Gullifer & Orkun Akseli, eds. Secured Transactions Law Reform: Principles, Policies and Practice (Oxford: Hart, 2016) chap. 2)

Areas of Interest

Secured Transactions Law, Private International Law, International Business Law

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