President

Shauna Van Praagh is a Full Professor of Law at McGill University, recently awarded the Principal's Prize for Excellence in Teaching for Full Professors at McGill University. She has been a member of the Faculty of Law since 1993 and served as Associate Dean (Graduate Studies in Law) from 2007 - 2010. Professor Van Praagh’s areas of teaching, research and writing include children and law, social diversity and law, legal education, civil liability, comparative legal traditions, and storytelling in law. Intensively involved in the design and implementation of innovations in programmes and pedagogy, she received the John W. Durnford Teaching Excellence Award early in her career, and chaired the 1995-96 committee that produced the blueprint for a revised and unique program of legal education at McGill University. Her recently published book, Building Justice: Frank Iacobucci and the Life Cycles of Law (2022), explores and illustrates engaged citizenship through law.

Shauna Van Praagh served as President of the Canadian Association of Law Teachers (2013-2014); in 2015, she was appointed as one of two academic members of the National Requirement Review Committee under the auspices of the Federation of Law Societies of Canada. She has been actively involved in transdisciplinary research teams, networks and centres, including McGill’s Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism and the Centre de recherche en droit public at l’Université de Montréal. Her service to community includes public lectures, primary school workshops, contributions to literary journals, podcast interviews, opinion pieces in newspapers, and the organization of public symposia. In 2017, her contributions to community and outreach were recognized in the form of the One World Award given by Montreal’s Temple Emanu-El-Beth Sholom.

A graduate of the University of Toronto (Bachelor of Science 1986, Bachelor of Laws 1989) and Columbia University (Master of Laws (LLM) 1992, Doctor of Juridical Science (JSD) 2000), Shauna Van Praagh clerked for The Right Honourable Brian Dickson, Chief Justice of Canada, in 1989-1990. Born in Toronto, she grew up in New Delhi, Singapore and Ottawa. For the past 30 years, she has called Montreal home.