McGill Law Journal

Last updated

Overview

Since the 1970s, the McGill Law Journal has been cited more often by the Supreme Court of Canada than any other university-affiliated law journal in the world. Journal subscribers reside in more than twenty-five countries.

Following the faculty's policy of bilingualism, the McGill Law Journal is published in both French and English. [1] The editorial team is therefore composed of both French- and English-speaking students who select and edit articles written in both languages. The Journal publishes texts dealing with different topics in civil law, common law, and Indigenous legal traditions. [3] A member of the legal community wishing to have his or her article published in the Journal can make a submission through the McGill Law Journal website. [4]

History

The McGill Law Journal was founded in 1952 by Gérald Éric Le Dain and Jacques-Yvan Morin, two students at McGill University's Faculty of Law. [1] The Journal was the third entirely student-run journal to appear in Canada. [5] The first issue was edited by the founding editor in chief, Jacques-Yvan Morin. [1] From its inception, the Journal has promoted the development of legal research, attracting a readership of law professors, lawyers, and students. [1] The goal of its founders was to create a forum for intellectual exchange for Quebec's legal community. [5] Because the province is at the crossroads of the two great private law traditions of the Western world, civil law and common law, the first editors of the Journal immediately recognized its potential as a tool for the development of civil law doctrine in English and in French. [5]

Other Publications and Events

The first Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation was published by the editors of the McGill Law Journal in 1986. [6] To date, the Guide is in its ninth edition. With the help of members of the legal community—lawyers, judges, librarians, and professors—the Guide evolves with the legal profession. [6] A new edition of the Guide is published every four years. [6]

The Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation provides guidelines on how to build a bibliography and how to reference sources ranging from statutes and case law to Indigenous treaties and Talmudic law. The Guide is a reference standard for many courts and Canadian legal journals. [6] The Guide can be purchased online through the McGill Law Journal website. [6]

Podcasts

In 2012, the McGill Law Journal started publishing a series of podcasts exploring different aspects of Canadian law, the first Canadian law journal to do so. [7] In the podcast, leading academics, practicing lawyers, or other member of the legal community shed light on contemporary legal issues in conversation with members of the McGill Law Journal. [7]

Recent episodes published by the Journal cover topics such as the legal aspects of climate change, the debate over the notwithstanding clause in Quebec's Act Respecting the Laicity of the State, and the use of artificial intelligence in the legal field. [7] By examining the legal dimensions of contentious issues, the podcast aims to share legal knowledge and expertise with members of the legal community and of the public.

Special Issues

Special issues of the McGill Law Journal, which are published about once per volume, are the Journal's way of sharing legal information on a specific issue to a wider audience. Once a topic is chosen, the Journal invites specialists to write about it. Topics ranging from international human rights, contemporary Canadian constitutional law, and reform of the Russian Civil Code have all been selected for special issues. Other topics have included international dispute resolution, the legacy of Roncarelli v. Duplessis, technological innovations and civil liability, and legal pluralism in Indigenous communities. [3]

Events organized by the McGill Law Journal

The McGill Law Journal organizes several events throughout the year attended by the McGill community and members of the public. These events are designed to promote student involvement and academic research while allowing the Journal to attract high-quality submissions from legal scholars. [8] Each year, an English-language conference and a French-language conference are organized to enlighten the general public on a legal issue. [8] Following each conference, the Journal holds a reception that allows members of the legal community to discuss the topic. [8] The conferences help members of different bar associations obtain professional development credits. [8]

The McGill Law Journal's Annual English Lecture

Since the early 2000s, the McGill Law Journal has invited a well-known speakers to give a presentation to the McGill legal community and other people residing in Montreal. The lecture is then published in the Journal. The annual English lecture is one of the events at the Faculty of Law. [8] In 1984, Jacques-Yvan Morin gave a presentation there, as did the Honourable Justice Beverly McLachlin in 1991.

Year & VolumeSpeakerTitle of Presentation
2024

(vol 69)

Michelle O’Bonsawin

(Judge at the Supreme Court of Canada)

"A Difficult Road to Justice: The Relationship Between Mental Health and Access to Justice"
2023

(vol 68)

Constance Backhouse

(Professor and University Research Chair at University of Ottawa)

"Reckoning with Racism: Police, Judges, and the RDS Case"
2022

(vol 67)

John Borrows

(Academic, Jurist, & Professor at University of Victoria)

"Meaning Making: Students and Indigenous Legal Education"
2020

(vol 65)

James Tully

(Philosopher & Professor Emeritus)

"Sustainable Democratic Constitutionalism and Climate Change"
2019

(vol 64)

Patricia J. Williams

(American Legal Scholar)

"From Underground Railroad to Overland Migration: When the North Star Can't Be Found"
2018

(vol 63)

Tim Wu

(Professor at Columbia Law School)

"The Curse of Bigness Revisited – Antitrust in the New Gilded Age"
2016 (vol 62) Mari Matsuda (Advocate, Activist, & Professor)"The Next Dada Utopian Visioning Peace Orchestra: Constitutional Theory and the Aspirational"
2015 (vol 61) Suzanne Côté  (Judge at the Supreme Court of Canada)"The Firsts: Breaking the Glass Ceiling and Provoking Changes"
2014

(vol 59)

Mélanie Joly (Canadian Politician)"Le cadre juridique des villes au Canada"
2013

(vol 58)

Goodwin Liu

(Judge at the Supreme Court of California)

"Justice and Distribution of Equal Opportunity"
2012

(vol 57)

Sylvain Lussier (Canadian Lawyer)"Equality of all Under the Law: Quand les gouvernements doivent répondre devant les tribunaux"
2011

(vol 56)

Carlos Fuentes (Renowned Author)Untitled
2010

(vol 55)

Rosalie Abella

(Judge at the Supreme Court of Canada)

"International Law and Human Rights: The Power and the Pity"
2009

(vol 54)

John Ralston Saul (Canadian Philosopher)"The Roots of Canadian Law in Canada"
2008

(vol 53)

Patrick Macklem (Canadian Law Professor)"What is International Human Rights Law? Three Applications of a Distributive Account"
2007

(vol 52)

Pierre Dalphond (Canadian Senator)"What is the Future of Doctrine in Quebec?"
2006 (vol 51) John Gomery (Judge at the Superior Court of Quebec)"The Pros and Cons of Commissions of Inquiry"
2005 (vol 50) Thomas R. Berger (Judge at the Supreme Court of British Columbia)"One Man's Justice: My Life in the Courts"
2004

(vol 49)

John Fisher

(Former Director of Egale Canada )

"Outlaws or In-laws?: Successes and Challenges in the Struggle for LGBT Equality"
2003 (vol 48) Gérald A. Beaudoin (Canadian Senator)"Le contrôle judiciaire de la constitutionnalité des lois"
2002

(vol 47)

Kent Roach (Canadian Law Professor)"Did September 11 Change Everything? Struggling to Preserve Canadian Values in the Face of Terrorism"
2001

(vol 46)

Philippe Kirsch

(President of the International Criminal Court)

"Negotiating an Institution for the Twenty-First Century: Multilateral Diplomacy and the International Criminal Court"
2000

(vol 45)

Charles Gonthier (Former Judge at the Supreme Court of Canada)"Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: The Forgotten Leg of the Trilogy, or Fraternity: The Unspoken Third Pillar of Democracy"

The McGill Law Journal's Annual French Conference

The francophone conference uses the same general concept as its English equivalent, that is, the McGill Law Journal invites a renowned speaker to present on a contested or little-known legal topic to the McGill and broader Montreal legal community. [8] The following chart presents some of the speakers who have been invited to the francophone conference over the years as well as the topics covered in the presentations.

Year & VolumeSpeakerTitle of the Presentation
2023

(vol 69)

Idil Atak, François Larocque, Marie McAndrew, Delphine Nakache, et François Crépeau" Le chemin d’intégration: Interventions politiques et la situation actuelle des migrant(e)s au Canada et au Québec "
2022

(vol 68)

Me Marika Giles Samson (modératrice), Prof. Patrick Taillon, Me Julius H. Grey & Me Carle Evans" Droits linguistiques & la loi 96 "
2019

(vol 65)

Mathieu Devinat" L'évolution en trois temps de l'ouvrage, Interprétation des lois "
2017

(vol 63)

Me Eric Lavallée

(Lawyer and Trademark Agent at Lavery Lawyers)

Christelle Papineau

(Student Researcher at the Laboratoire de cyberjustice du Centre de recherche en droit public of the Université de Montréal)

" Les enjeux juridiques de l'intelligence artificielle "
2017

(vol 62)

Mona-Lisa Prosper (Partner, Propulsio 360 Business Consultants)

Me Nathalie Beauregard (Partner, Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt)

Davide Pisanu (Director General, Cirque du Soleil)

Moderator : Pierre-Emmanuel Moyse (Professor at the McGill Faculty of Law)

Conférence sur l'innovation et l'entrepreneuriat
2014

(vol 60)

Marc Mayrand (Director General of Elections Canada) and Jean-Pierre Kingsley (Former Director of Elections Canada)" Le droit électoral et la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés  : développements jurisprudentiels et enjeux actuels "
2013

(vol 58)

The Honourable Michel Bastarache (Former Judge at the Supreme Court of Canada)

Adrian Popovici (Université de Montréal)

Sylvio Norman (Université Laval)

Finn Makela (Université de Sherbrooke)

Julie Paquin (University of Ottawa)

" Colloque sur les aspirations et l'impact de la recherche universitaire en droit "

Past Editors, Members, and Authors

Editors in Chief

Here is a list of the editors in chief of the McGill Law Journal from Volumes 1 through 67: [1]

Some Former McGill Law Journal Editors

Former McGill Law Journal editors include judges Benjamin J. Greenberg, Morris Fish, John Gomery, Jean-Louis Baudouin, Brian Riordan, Allan Lutfy, Suzanne Coupal, Brigitte Gouin, Ronna Brott, Nicholas Kasirer, and Max M. Teitelbaum; there have been some board chairs such as David P. O'Brien and Bernard Amyot; academics such as Dick Pound and Bartha Knoppers; entertainment professionals such as Lionel Chetwynd; and politicians such as Irwin Cotler, Yoine Goldstein, and Canada's Minister of Justice David Lametti. [1]

Public Figures who have Published in the Journal

Renowned public figures who have appeared in the pages of the Journal include former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau, Supreme Court Justices Rosalie Abella and Gerald Fauteux, former Canadian Governor General David Johnston, and United Nations diplomat Yves Fortier. [1]

External Publications

Books

In 2013, author James Cummins published The Journal: 60 years of People, Prose, and Publication with 8th House Publishing in Montreal. [5] In celebration of the Faculty of Law's sixtieth anniversary, the book recounts the history of the McGill Law Journal from the first volume to the fifty-seventh. [5]

The Journal also featured in the book A Noble Roster: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Law at McGill, written by a former McGill Law student, Ian C. Pilarczyk. [9]

Supreme Court of Canada References to Journal Articles

The McGill Law Journal was the first Canadian legal publication to be cited in a Supreme Court decision. [1] To date, the Journal has been cited by the Supreme Court of Canada in over 150 cases. [1]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">McGill University Faculty of Law</span> Canadian law school in Montreal, Quebec

The Faculty of Law is one of the professional graduate schools of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the oldest law school in Canada. 180 candidates are admitted for any given academic year. For the year 2021 class, the acceptance rate was 10%.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Case citation</span> System for uniquely identifying individual rulings of a court

Case citation is a system used by legal professionals to identify past court case decisions, either in series of books called reporters or law reports, or in a neutral style that identifies a decision regardless of where it is reported. Case citations are formatted differently in different jurisdictions, but generally contain the same key information.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jacques-Yvan Morin</span> Canadian politician (1931–2023)

Jacques-Yvan Morin was a Canadian law professor and politician in Quebec. Morin graduated from the McGill University Faculty of Law with a BCL in 1953, where he was the founder of the McGill Law Journal. He taught international and constitutional law at Université de Montréal from 1958 until 1973. He was deputy director of the Canadian Yearbook of International Law from 1963 to 1973 and founded the Quebec Journal of International Law in 1984.

<i>Bluebook</i> Style guide on legal citation

The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation is a style guide that prescribes the most widely used legal citation system in the United States. It is taught and used at a majority of U.S. law schools and is also used in a majority of federal courts. Legal publishers also use several "house" citation styles in their works.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter A. Allard School of Law</span> Law school of the University of British Columbia

The Peter A. Allard School of Law is the law school of the University of British Columbia. The faculty offers the Juris Doctor degree. The faculty features courses on business law, tax law, environmental and natural resource law, indigenous law, Pacific Rim issues, and feminist legal theory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jean Beetz</span> Canadian judge

Jean-Marie Philémon Joseph Beetz,, c.r. was a Canadian lawyer, academic and judge from Quebec. He served as a puisne justice of the Supreme Court of Canada from 1974 to 1988.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Gonthier</span> Canadian Supreme Court judge

Charles Doherty Gonthier, was a Puisne judge on the Supreme Court of Canada from February 1, 1989, to August 1, 2003. He was replaced by Morris Fish.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dugald Christie (lawyer)</span> Canadian lawyer (1941–2006)

Dugald Christie was a Canadian lawyer and political activist. He was based in the city of Vancouver, British Columbia. He was the grandson of Dr Dugald Christie, a Scottish Presbyterian missionary doctor who founded the Mukden Medical College in Shenyang, China.

<i>Australian Guide to Legal Citation</i> Guide for the citation style used in legal writing in Australia

The Australian Guide to Legal Citation (AGLC) is published by the Melbourne University Law Review in collaboration with the Melbourne Journal of International Law and seeks to provide the Australian legal community with a standard for citing legal sources. There is no single standard for legal citation in Australia, but the AGLC is the most widely used.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Windsor Faculty of Law</span>

The Faculty of Law is a faculty of the University of Windsor in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. The first class of students matriculated in 1968, and the current building was opened in 1970. The Faculty has grown immensely over the past 50 years, increasing its national profile through its innovations in research and from thousands of alumni across Canada and the world. The 2017 endowment to the Faculty of Law was $10.2 million. The Faculty is also the current academic host institution of the Canadian Bar Review (CBR), the most frequently cited journal by the Supreme Court of Canada.

A law review or law journal is a scholarly journal or publication that focuses on legal issues. A law review is a type of legal periodical. Law reviews are a source of research, imbedded with analyzed and referenced legal topics; they also provide a scholarly analysis of emerging law concepts from various topics. Law reviews are generated in almost all law bodies/institutions worldwide. However, in recent years, some have claimed that the traditional influence of law reviews is declining.

<i>Willamette Law Review</i> Academic journal

The Willamette Law Review is a law review academic journal published by Willamette University College of Law in Salem, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1959 as a successor to an earlier publication, the triannual publication is housed in the Oregon Civic Justice Center. The journal is edited by students of the law school with oversight by the college's faculty. As of 2019, the Willamette Law Review has published a total of 55 volumes.

<i>Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation</i> Canadian legal citation standard

The Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation is a legal citation guide in Canada. It is published by the McGill Law Journal of the McGill University Faculty of Law and is used by law students, scholars, and lawyers throughout Canada. The book is bilingual, one half being in English and the other in French.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Université de Montréal Faculty of Law</span>

The Faculty of Law at Université de Montréal in Canada was officially founded in 1892. In 2018, the Faculty was ranked as the best francophone law school in the world. In addition to its civil law degree (LL.B.), the Law School offers a one-year J.D. in common law for Quebec civil law graduates that enables them to take the bar exam in other Canadian provinces and in New York, Massachusetts and California.

The Iowa Law Review is a law review published five times annually by the University of Iowa College of Law. It was established in 1915 as the Iowa Law Bulletin. It is ranked 11th among 1550 journals indexed in the W&L ranking. The journal has been student-edited since 1935.

The constitution of Quebec comprises a set of legal rules that arise from the following categories:

Alanna Devine is a Canadian lawyer who practices animal law in Quebec and Ontario. She completed her undergraduate degree in criminology at the University of Toronto and obtained degrees in civil and common law at McGill University Faculty of Law in Montreal, before clerking for the Honorable Justice Louise Charron at the Supreme Court of Canada. While a student she founded the McGill Student Animal Legal Defense Fund, a chapter of the Animal Legal Defense Fund. She has been a member of the Law Society of Ontario since 2007.

<i>McGill International Review</i>

The McGill International Review (MIR) is an online daily publication based in Montréal, Québec and operated by the International Relations Students' Association of McGill (IRSAM), which provides academic analysis and coverage of world affairs under the aegis of McGill University. The current editor-in-chief is Alison Lee.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Annie MacDonald Langstaff</span> Canadian legal and womens activist (1887–1975)

Annie MacDonald Langstaff was a Canadian law student, legal activist, supporter of women's suffrage and an early woman aviator. Born in Ontario in 1887, she graduated from Prescott High School and then married in 1904. Her husband quickly abandoned her, leaving her a single mother. Moving to Montreal in 1906, she began working as a stenographer in the law office of Samuel William Jacobs, who encouraged her to study law. Finding no barriers to her admission, Langstaff enrolled at McGill University in 1911, graduating three years later as a Bachelor of Civil Law. On applying to the Bar of Montreal to practice, she was refused the right to take the examination.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Citation of Canadian legislation</span> System for citing Canadian laws

Citation of Canadian legislation is the system of citing Canadian statutes and regulations in court decisions, briefs of law, and articles in law journals. The purpose of a citation is to allow the reader to understand the source of the legislative principle being cited, and to find the law in question. It is a type of legal citation, namely a "reference to a legal precedent or authority, such as a case, statute, or treatise, that either substantiates or contradicts a given position".

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 "About". McGill Law Journal. Retrieved 2020-11-14.
  2. Campagnolo, Yan; Andrzejewski, Camille (16 May 2022). "The Most-Cited Law Review Articles of All Time by the Supreme Court of Canada". SSRN   4213946 . Retrieved 17 September 2022.
  3. 1 2 "Issues". McGill Law Journal. Retrieved 2020-11-14.
  4. "Submissions". McGill Law Journal. Retrieved 2020-11-14.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Cummins, James (2013). The Journal: 60 years of People, Prose, and Publication. Montreal: 8th House Publishing.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 "The Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation". McGill Law Journal. Retrieved 2020-11-14.
  7. 1 2 3 "Podcasts". McGill Law Journal. Retrieved 2020-11-14.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Events". McGill Law Journal. Retrieved 2020-11-14.
  9. Pilarczyk, Ian C. (1999). A Noble Roster: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Law at Mcgill. Montreal: McGill University Press.