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 the critical analysis of legal conception of equality.
Sonia has served as Assistant Dean of First Year, Director of Osgoode’s Graduate Program, and Director of the Institute for Feminist Legal Studies. She is current the President of the Canadian Association of Law Teachers. Professor Lawrence has taught constitutional and public law, a seminar in gender and equality, criminal law, a graduate methods seminar and a graduate research seminar and a graduate reading group organized around the concept of “social justice”, and in Osgoode’s ADI Program.
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.