Blaine Baker

Biography

Blaine Baker is a graduate of the Western Ontario and Columbia law schools, and was a Bigelow Fellow in Law at the University of Chicago. He is Professor of Law Emeritus at McGill University, where he has taught for the last thirty-five years. During that time he has also been a visitor at the Toronto, Western Ontario, and Osgoode Hall law schools, and Scholar-in-Residence at the Borden, Ladner, Gervais law firm. Professor Baker is primarily a Canadian legal historian, although he has taught Contracts and Administrative Process in almost every year of his appointment. He served two terms as Associate Dean of Law at McGill, and has four times been the recipient of University teaching excellence awards. He has also received publishing prizes from the Canadian Law and Society Association, the American Society for Legal History, the Canadian Association of Law Libraries, and the Canadian Historical Association. Professor Baker has been a director or editorial board member of the Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation, the Canadian Law and Society Association, Histoire sociale/Social History, the James McGill Society, the McGill Law Journal, the Montreal Bar, and the Wellington (Guelph) Law Association. His most recent book length publications, both by the University of Toronto Press, are (with Donald Fyson) Essays in the History of Canadian Law: Quebec and the Canadas (2013) and (with Jim Phillips) A History of Canadian Legal Thought: Collected Essays (2006). His most recent article-length publications are "Musings and Silences of Chief Justice William Osgoode: Digest Marginalia about the Reception of Imperial Law” (2016), 54 Osgoode Hall L. J. 741 and “Testamentary Archeology in Late-Victorian Ontario: William Martin’s Little, Posthumous Legal System” (2015), 30 Can. J. L. & Soc. 345. Professor Baker also acts per diem for the Attorney General of Ontario as a Superior Court Mandatory Mediator, and as a License Appeal Tribunal member and adjudicator. He continues to co-teach a course at McGill in most years. Blaine Baker is a graduate of the Western Ontario and Columbia law schools, and was a Bigelow Fellow in Law at the University of Chicago. He is Professor of Law Emeritus at McGill University, where he has taught for the last thirty-five years. During that time he has also been a visitor at the Toronto, Western Ontario, and Osgoode Hall law schools, and Scholar-in-Residence at the Borden, Ladner, Gervais law firm. Professor Baker is primarily a Canadian legal historian, although he has taught Contracts and Administrative Process in almost every year of his appointment. He served two terms as Associate Dean of Law at McGill, and has four times been the recipient of University teaching excellence awards. He has also received publishing prizes from the Canadian Law and Society Association, the American Society for Legal History, the Canadian Association of Law Libraries, and the Canadian Historical Association. Professor Baker has been a director or editorial board member of the Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation, the Canadian Law and Society Association, Histoire sociale/Social History, the James McGill Society, the McGill Law Journal, the Montreal Bar, and the Wellington (Guelph) Law Association. His most recent book length publications, both by the University of Toronto Press, are (with Donald Fyson) Essays in the History of Canadian Law: Quebec and the Canadas (2013) and (with Jim Phillips) A History of Canadian Legal Thought: Collected Essays (2006). His most recent article-length publications are "Musings and Silences of Chief Justice William Osgoode: Digest Marginalia about the Reception of Imperial Law” (2016), 54 Osgoode Hall L. J. 741 and “Testamentary Archeology in Late-Victorian Ontario: William Martin’s Little, Posthumous Legal System” (2015), 30 Can. J. L. & Soc. 345. Professor Baker also acts per diem for the Attorney General of Ontario as a Superior Court Mandatory Mediator, and as a License Appeal Tribunal member and adjudicator. He continues to co-teach a course at McGill in most years.

Research Interest

Canadian Constitutional Law Charter of Rights Comparative Constitutional Law Equality and Anti-Discrimination Law Law and Religion