Professor Sonia Lawrence joined Osgoode’s faculty in 2001. She graduated from the University of Toronto’s joint LLB/MSW program, went on to serve as law clerk to Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin of the Supreme Court of Canada, and pursued graduate work at Yale Law School. Her work centers on critical analyses of legal conception of equality.
Sonia has served in a number of administrative roles at Osgoode including Assistant Dean of First Year and Director of the Institute for Feminist Legal Studies. Her current teaching includes a first year public and constitutional law, a seminar in critical race theory, and serving as the academic director/instructor for Feminist Advocacy, a clinical legal education opportunity offered in partnership with the Barbara Schlifer Commemorative Clinic in Toronto. In the past she has served as the academic director for Osgoode’s Anti-Discrimination Intensive Program (offered in partnership with the Human Rights Legal Support Centre (Ontario), and taught seminars in gender equality, graduate research and research methods, among others. Sonia is serving two terms as the President of the Canadian Association of Law Teachers / Association Canadienne des Professeurs de Droit.
Research Interests: Public Law, Gender, Race, Critical Race Feminism, Feminism, Equality Law, Charter of Rights and Freedoms
Graduate Research Supervision (LLM, PhD): Sonia works on Canadian constitutional law, particularly although not exclusively in relation to section 15 equality rights, the relationship between law & social change, and bringing anti-racist / feminist analysis to law and legal inquiry.
Professor Lawrence is willing to read preliminary proposals from strong students in the areas of interest listed, and comment on interest in supervision prior to submission of an official application.
Note: Professor Lawrence will be on sabbatical from June 2022 to June 2023.