Expertise: Legal Profession

Puri, Poonam

Professor Poonam Puri is an internationally recognized scholar of corporate law, corporate governance, capital markets regulation. Appointed to Osgoode Hall Law School over twenty-five years ago, she has served as both Associate Dean, Academic and Associate Dean, Research, Graduate Studies and Institutional Relations at Osgoode. She has also chaired Osgoode’s Faculty Council several times and she is currently serving as Chair of York University’s Senate.

Professor Puri is Co-Founder and Director of the Osgoode Investor Protection Clinic, a clinic that provides pro bono legal assistance to individuals who have suffered financial harm. She is also Founder and Director of the Business Law LLM at Osgoode Professional Development. Both are the first of their kind in Canada.

A prolific scholar, Professor Puri has co-authored/co-edited close to 100 books, book chapters, scholarly articles in leading journals, and commissioned research reports. She has presented at over 200 invited keynotes, conferences and public addresses in Canada and around the world.

Professor Puri is a recipient of several prestigious fellowships and has received over $5 million in external research funding, including five SSHRC grants. Together with her co-investigators, she recently received $775,000 from both York University and the University of Toronto in order to conduct critical research on digital currencies. Her scholarship is academically rigorous and firmly grounded in the realities of policy-making and law in action. Governments and regulators in Canada and internationally, including the Bank of Canada, Ministry of Finance, Treasury Board Secretariat, Industry Canada, and the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank, have called upon her expertise for financial regulation that serves the public interest.

In the community, Professor Puri currently serves on multiple boards, including the Canada Infrastructure Bank and Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, the latter as Chair. She has previously served as a Commissioner of the Ontario Securities Commission and on the boards of Women’s College Hospital and the Greater Toronto Airport Authority (Pearson Airport), among others. Her public and private sector board work has provided her with valuable experience and skills in financial management, strategic planning, operational oversight, labour relations and stakeholder engagement.

Awards and Professional Honours (Selected)

  • Osgoode Hall Law School Award for Excellence in Teaching (2022, 2009, 1999)
  • Peter Dey Governance Achievement Award, Governance Professionals of Canada (2022)
  • Yvan Allaire Medal for Outstanding Contributions in Governance, Royal Society of Canada (2021)
  • Law Society Medal, Law Society of Ontario (2021)
  • Walter Mundell Medal for Excellence in Legal Writing, Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General (2020)
  • Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers in Canada, Canadian Lawyer Magazine (2015, 2017)
  • Canada’s 100 Most Powerful Women Award: Trailblazers & Trendsetters (2011)
  • Female Lawyer of the Year, South Asian Bar Association of Toronto (2010)
  • Female Professional of the Year, Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce (2008)
  • Canada’s Top 40 under 40 Award (2005)
  • Arbor Award, University of Toronto’s highest award for alumni volunteers (2004)

Representative Publications

  • Halpern, Paul, Caroline Cakebread, Chris Nichols & Poonam Puri, Back from the Brink: Lessons from the Canadian Asset Backed Commercial Paper Crisis (Toronto: U of T Press, 2016)
  • Puri, Poonam, Anita Anand, Ron Daniels, Edward Iacobucci, Ian Lee, & Jacob Ziegel, Cases and Materials on the Law of Partnerships and Business Organizations in Canada, 6th ed. (Toronto: Carswell, 2016)
  • Puri, Poonam, “Governance in a Time of Crisis” in Ben-Ishai, ed, Dangerous Opportunities: Examining the Home Capital Crisis (U of T Press, 2021)
  • Veneris, Andreas, Fan Long, Andreas Park & Poonam Puri, “Central Bank Digital Loonie: Canadian Cash for a New Global Economy” (2021) Osgoode Legal Studies Research Paper
  • Anand, Anita, Stephen Choi, Adam C. Pritchard & Poonam Puri, “An Empirical Comparison of Insider Trading Enforcement in Canada and the United States” (2019) 57Intl Rev L & Econ 49
  • Puri, Poonam, “Securities Class Actions in Canada: 10 Years Later” in Jessica Erickson (Richmond), Sean Griffith (Fordham), David Webber (Boston) and Verity Winship (Illinois), eds, Research Handbook on Representative Shareholder Litigation (Edward Elgar, 2018)

Teaching Expertise (Selected)

  • Boards of Directors
  • Corporate Governance
  • Corporations
  • Corporate & White Collar Crime
  • Investor Protection
  • Mergers & Acquisitions
  • Securities Regulation

Twitter: @PPuri_Osgoode

LinkedIn: Poonam Puri

Osgoode Investor Protection Clinic

Research Interests: Corporate/Commercial Law

Pilkington, Marilyn L.

Marilyn Pilkington is Associate Professor and former Dean (1993-98) of Osgoode Hall Law School (York University). She joined the faculty in 1980 and retired in 2013. She is co-author (with Frank Iacobucci and Robert Prichard) of Canadian Business Corporations Law (Canada Law Book 1977), co-author of Evidence: A Canadian Casebook (2nd edn. 2006), and author of articles and reports on constitutional law, constitutional litigation, evidence, legal education and enforcement of securities laws. Prior to joining the Osgoode faculty, she served as law clerk to The Hon. Mr. Justice Judson, Supreme Court of Canada, and practised civil litigation with Tory Tory DesLauriers & Binnington (now Torys LLP).  She teaches mainly in the fields of constitutional law, constitutional litigation and evidence. She has also taught trial advocacy, civil procedure, legal profession and a seminar on the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Professor Pilkington has broad experience as a member of university policy bodies, professional regulatory bodies, public policy research institutes, search committees and boards of not-for-profit organizations.  She has served as an elected Bencher of the Law Society of Upper Canada (1999 to 2003), Chair of its Specialist Certification Board, Chair of its Discipline Appeal Panel, and a member of various policy committees and task forces.   She was appointed by the provincial government to the Ontario Council on University Affairs (advising the Minister of Colleges and Universities) and to the Commission on the Future Role of Universities in Ontario. She served for 16 years as a Director and Trustee of the Institute for Research on Public Policy, and she was a  member of the founding taskforce of the Ontario Justice Education Network.  She is a past Director of the Toronto City Mission, a former Governor of the Shaw Festival and a recently retired Trustee of the Royal Ontario Museum. In each of these capacities, she served as chair of the governance committee. She currently serves as a member of the three-person Independent Review Committee of Vanguard Investments Canada.

Ms. Pilkington is experienced as a litigator, adjudicator, and consultant. She has served as an international consultant on the reform of legal education, as an external reviewer of Canadian law school programs, as a consultant to the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee (on constitutional and dispute resolution issues pertaining to the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement), and as a consultant to the Law Society of Upper Canada, governments and law firms. She has contributed to law reform projects on Crown Liability and Commissions of Inquiry. She has adjudicated in the fields of human rights (federally and provincially), professional discipline and university discipline, and is appointed to the roster of candidates to serve on panels established under chapter 19 of the North American Free Trade Agreement.  She is also called upon from time to time to serve as independent chair of corporate and public meetings and to mediate or arbitrate disputes.   She has served as counsel to The Hon. Peter de C. Cory on his review of the Medical Audit System in Ontario and as his co-author on a study of Critical Issues in the Enforcement of Securities Law in Canada for the Task Force on the Modernization of Securities Law in Canada.

Under Marilyn Pilkington’s leadership as Dean, Osgoode Hall Law School restructured in response to significant government funding cuts. Enrolment in the LLB program was reduced to facilitate improvements to the program, and significant new initiatives and enrolments were developed at the graduate level, including the Osgoode Professional Development program for practising lawyers.  The OPD is a unique program responding to the need for advanced and specialist education beyond the JD and, in addition to a range of continuing legal education programs, offers part-time LLM programs in more than fifteen specialist fields.   During her deanship, substantial external funding was attracted to the Law School to support program development, facilities renewal, bursaries and new research initiatives.  Despite the deep financial cuts, no deficits were incurred and the academic budget was significantly expanded. This strategic development of the law school emerged from the prior work of the Special Committee on Academic Planning, which Professor Pilkington had chaired.

Mossman, Mary Jane

Professor Emerita Mary Jane Mossman joined the faculty at Osgoode Hall Law School in 1976-77, after several years as a faculty member in the Faculty of Law at the University of New South Wales. At Osgoode, she served as Associate Dean, Assistant Dean, Chair of Faculty Council, and Director of the Institute for Feminist Legal Studies, as well as numerous positions on Boards and committees at York University. Her research interests focus on women lawyers/legal professions; family law and economic dependency; property law and trusts; and access to justice and legal aid.

She has authored numerous scholarly articles and reports for governments and other organizations, and has been a Visiting Professor at a number of universities in Canada, the United States, Australia, France and Japan. In 2006, she published The First Women Lawyers: A Comparative Study of Gender, Law and the Legal Professions (Hart Pub 2006); and is currently authoring a study of women lawyers in Ontario 1890s to 1960s, as well as other writing projects. Her co-authored books include Families and the Law (2nd Captus ed 2015); Property Law: Cases and Commentary (3rd ed Emond Pub 2014); and Reconsidering Knowledge: Feminism and the Academy (Fernwood 2012).

Professor Mossman was awarded the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Medal for work with the Vanier Institute of the Family (2012); the Lexpert Zenith Award: Leadership for Change (2012); appointment as “University Professor” at York U (2007); the Bora Laskin Fellowship in Human Rights (SSHRC 2007); the Ontario Government Leadership in Faculty Teaching  Award (2007); an honorary doctorate by the Law Society of Upper Canada (2004); the Award of Excellence of the Canadian Association of Law Teachers (2004); the Medal of the Law Society of Upper Canada (1990); the Supporter of the Year award by the Advocacy Resource Centre for the Handicapped (1988); and the CBAO Distinguished Service Award (1987).

She has received research grants from SSHRC and the Canadian Bar Association Foundation for Legal Research, and was appointed the Gordon Henderson Chair in Human Rights (University of Ottawa 1995) and the Walter L Gordon Fellowship (York University 2004). She was admitted as a Barrister in New South Wales in 1975 and a member of the Bar of Ontario in 1977; and served as junior counsel in an Australian appeal to the Privy Council in 1978. From 1979-1982, she was on leave from Osgoode as the first Clinic Funding Manager for the Ontario Legal Aid Plan, and she has provided ongoing support to community legal clinics, including serving on several clinic Boards. Since 1997, she has chaired the Administrative Committee of the Unifor/CAW Legal Services Plan.

Mosher, Janet

Professor Mosher joined the faculty of Osgoode Hall Law School in 2001 after teaching at the Faculties of Law and Social Work at the University of Toronto, where she was also the Director of the Combined LLB/MSW program. Between 2001 to 2005 and 2011 to 2013 she was the Academic Director of Osgoode’s Intensive Program in Poverty Law at Parkdale Community Legal Services. Professor Mosher is currently editor-in-chief of Osgoode’s Journal of Law and Social Policy and has served as the English language editor of the Canadian Journal of Women and the Law.

Research Interests: Gender violence and legal interventions, access to justice for marginalized populations, welfare policy, poverty law, homelessness, legal aid, and clinical legal education

Teaching Areas: Domestic violence and law’s response, legal process, law and poverty, legal ethics, evidence

Recent Publications:
Take the Story, Take the Needs, and DO Something: Grassroots Women’s Priorities for Community-Based Participatory Research and Action on Homelessness (2012) (co-author)
Constructing Crime: Contemporary Processes of Criminalization (2010) (co-editor)
No Cherries Grow On Our Trees: A Brief by the Take Action Project, A Public Policy Initiative to Address Women’s Poverty and Violence Against Women (2008) (lead author)
“Accessing justice amid threats of contagion,” (2014) OHLJ
“Human Capital and the Post-scripting of Women’s Poverty,” in Beth Goldblatt and Lucie Lamarche (eds.), Women’s Rights to Social Security and Social Protection (2014)
“The Construction of “Welfare Fraud” and the Wielding of the State’s Iron Fist,” in Elizabeth Comack (ed.) Locating Law: Race, Class and Gender Connections (3rd ed.) (2014)
“From Research to Acton: Four theories and their implications for knowledge mobilization,” (2014) Scholarly and Research Communication (lead author)

Hutchinson, Allan C.

A member of Osgoode’s faculty since 1982, Professor Allan Hutchinson served as Associate Dean from 1994 to 1996 and later, in 2003, he was named Associate Dean (Research, Graduate Studies and External Relations). Professor Hutchinson is a legal theorist with an international reputation for his original and provocative writings. He was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 2004 and named a Distinguished Research Professor by York University in 2006.  His research interests are law and politics; legal theory; the legal profession; constitutional law; torts; jurisprudence; civil procedure; and racism and law. As well as publishing in most of the common-law world’s leading law journals, he has written or edited many books. Much of his work has been devoted to examining the failure of law to live up to its democratic promise. His latest publications are Evolution and the Common Law (Cambridge University Press, 2005) and The Companies We Keep: Corporate Governance for a Democratic Society (Irwin Law, 2006). In 2007, he received the University-wide Teaching Award and was a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School.

Research Interests: Public Law, Legal Profession, Legal Theory

Bhabha, Faisal

Faisal Bhabha is an Associate Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, Canada. He also serves as the Faculty Director of the Canadian Common Law LLM degree program. He has researched and published in the areas of constitutional law, multiculturalism, law and religion, disability rights, national security and access to justice. He teaches constitutional law, human rights, legal ethics, and appellate advocacy. Previously, he sat as Vice-chair of the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (2008-2011). He maintains a varied public and private law practice, appearing before administrative boards and tribunals and at all levels of court, including the Supreme Court of Canada. He advises and represents a variety of individuals and public interest organizations in matters pertaining to constitutional law and human rights. He has appeared as an expert witness before Canadian parliamentary committees and served as a member of the Equity Advisory Group of the Law Society of Ontario. He has lived and worked in the Middle East and South Africa, and has lectured and taught in many countries. He is currently a senior editor with the International Review of Human Rights Law.

Research Interests: constitutional law; equality and anti-discrimination; administrative law; legal ethics and professionalism; legal process; dispute resolution; legal education