Professor Shelley Gavigan was appointed Associate Dean of Osgoode Hall Law School on July 1, 2010. An Osgoode faculty member since 1986, she teaches Criminal Law, Family Law, Poverty Law, and Children and the Law. Her research interests focus on socio-legal theory and history in the areas of Canadian criminal law; law and poverty; legal regulation and definition of family; access to justice and social justice.  Her current research includes a study of the relationship between First Nations peoples and criminal law on the nineteenth-century Canadian Plains, a research project studying access to justice and marginalized youth, and historical work on the legal regulation of women’s poverty in Canada.

Professor Gavigan has previously held appointments as Osgoode’s Associate Dean and Director of Clinical Education. She also served three terms as Academic Director of Osgoode's Intensive Program in Poverty Law at Parkdale Community Legal Services, where she drew on the practical foundation of her work in criminal law and family law as a lawyer in legal clinics in Saskatchewan, as the first Director of Complaints/Compliance with the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission, as well as a graduate degree and previous appointment in the School of Criminology at Simon Fraser University.

Areas of interest: Socio-Legal Studies, Legal History, Criminal Law, Feminist Legal Studies, Family Law, Clinical Education