Samuel Beswick
Assistant Professor
LLM, SJD (Harvard), LLB(Hons), BCom (Auckland), Admitted as a Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand
- Office:
Allard Hall, room 444
- Phone: 604 827 0865
- Email: beswick@allard.ubc.ca
Profile
Assistant Professor Samuel Beswick is a private law scholar with primary research interests in the areas of torts, unjust enrichment, limitations, remedies, and privacy. His current research concerns the temporal scope of judicial changes in the law. Dr. Beswick has published his research in leading common law journals, and has presented at workshops and conferences across North America and in the United Kingdom. He is the editor of the open access coursebook, Tort Law: Cases and Commentaries (2021 CanLIIDocs 1859). He has held teaching positions at Harvard Law School, King’s College London, and the University of Auckland.
Dr. Beswick is a 2021-23 Green College Leading Scholar. He studied at Harvard as a Frank Knox Memorial Fellow and a Peter Brooks Saltonstall Memorial Scholar. He wrote his dissertation under Professor John C.P. Goldberg and received the Irving Oberman Memorial Prize in Constitutional Law. His thesis was favourably cited in a 2020 judgment of the United Kingdom Supreme Court. Dr. Beswick was also Deputy Executive Editor of the Harvard National Security Journal and President of the SJD Association. At Auckland, he wrote his dissertation under Associate Professor Scott Optican and received the New Zealand Ministry of Justice Article Prize. He was also an Editor-in-Chief of the Auckland University Law Review and graduated a Senior Scholar in Law.
Prior to joining Allard Law, Dr. Beswick was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Law School’s Project on the Foundations of Private Law, practised in the Solicitor’s Office of HM Revenue & Customs (London, UK), practised as a litigator at Meredith Connell (the Office of the Crown Solicitor for Auckland), and was a judicial clerk in the High Court of New Zealand.
Courses
Publications
| Samuel Beswick “Error of Law: An Exception to the Discoverability Principle?” Full text: (2021) 57:2 Osgoode Hall L.J. 295-341 SSRN Abstract |
| Samuel Beswick “Prospective Overruling Offends the Rule of Law” (September 2021) NZLJ 261-267 UBC Library Location SSRN Paper |
| Samuel Beswick “Prospective Overruling Unravelled” (2022) 41:1 CJQ 29-53 Westlaw Article SSRN Paper |
| Douglas C. Harris & Samuel Beswick “Reflections on Building and then Teaching in a HyFlex Classroom at Allard Hall” Full text: (2021) 79:1 Advocate 75-79 UBC Library Location Allard Research Commons SSRN Paper |
| Samuel Beswick “The Overpaid Tax Litigation: Roadblocked” Full text: (2021) 84:5 Mod. L. Rev. 1105-1121 SSRN Abstract |
| Samuel Beswick Tort Law: Cases and Commentaries Ottawa: CanLII, 2021 Online Access (with full-text) (2021 CanLIIDocs 1859) Allard Research Commons SSRN Paper |
| Lionel Smith & Samuel Beswick “Unjust Enrichment: Principle or Cause of Action?” in Continuing Legal Education Society of British Columbia, Expert Evidence in British Columbia Civil Proceedings, Vancouver: Continuing Legal Education Society of British Columbia, 2021 SSRN Paper |
| Samuel Beswick “Discoverability Principles and the Law's Mistakes” (2020) 136 L.Q. Rev. 139-164 UBC Library Location SSRN Abstract |
| Samuel Beswick “Retroactive Adjudication” Full text: (2020) 130:2 Yale LJ 276-545 UBC Library Location Allard Research Commons SSRN Paper |
| Samuel Beswick “The Discoverability of Mistakes of Law” Introduction: (2019) 58 LMCLQ 112-137 SSRN Abstract |
| Samuel Beswick & William Fotherby “Surveilling the Stopgap” (December 2011) NZLJ 404-411 UBC Library Location SSRN Paper |
| Samuel Beswick “Tenant Fees Act 2019: A Welcome Reform” (2019) 23:3 Landlord & Tenant Rev 79-81 SSRN Paper |
| Samuel Beswick & William Fotherby “The Divergent Paths of Commonwealth Privacy Torts” (2018) 84 Sup. Ct. L. Rev. (2d) 225-267 UBC Library Location SSRN Paper |
| Samuel Beswick “Tenant Fees Bill: Good Intentions - Weak Protections” (2018) 22:6 Landlord & Tenant Rev 203-207 SSRN Paper |
| Samuel Beswick “The Decline of the Fish/Mammal Distinction?” Full text: (2017) 165 U Pa L Rev Online 91-97 SSRN Abstract |
| Samuel Beswick & William Fotherby “Don't Tell Me What the Papers Say: PJS v News Group Newspapers Ltd” (2016) 5 J Civ Lit & Prac 212-220 SSRN Abstract |
| Samuel Beswick “Enforcing a Holding Deposit Agreement” (2015) 22:3 Landlord & Tenant Rev 88-91 Allard Research Commons SSRN Paper |
| Samuel Beswick “Holding Deposit Agreements: Pre-Tenancy Obligations and Rights” (2019) 23:3 Landlord & Tenant Rev 79-81 Allard Research Commons SSRN Paper |
| Samuel Beswick “'Losses in Any Event' in the Case of Damage to Property” Full text: (2015) 35:4 Oxford J Legal Stud 755-775 SSRN Abstract |
| Samuel Beswick “Privacy: Rights, Remedies and Reform” (May 2015) NZLJ 166 UBC Library Location SSRN Paper |
| Samuel Beswick “From Foundations to Finish? The Continuing Duty Doctrine and Limitations” (2013) NZL Rev 505-520 UBC Library Location SSRN Paper |
| Samuel Beswick “Two Spying Tales” (July 2013) NZLJ 213-214 UBC Library Location SSRN Paper |
| Samuel Beswick “For Your (Government's) Eyes Only” (July 2013) NZLJ 213-216 UBC Library Location SSRN Paper |
| Samuel Beswick “Perlustration in the Pathless Woods: Hamed v R” Full text: (2011) Auckland UL Rev 291-299 SSRN Paper |
| Samuel P. Beswick “Targeted Visual Surveillance in New Zealand: An Analysis and Critique of the Search and Surveillance Bill” Full text: (2010) NZ L Students' Rev 239-266 SSRN Paper |
Organization Affiliations
- Centre for Business Law
Research Interests
- Courts, litigation and access to justice
- Jurisprudence, legal theory, and critical studies
- Legal education
- Tort law
How is the retrospective nature of judge-made law compatible with the rule of law?