Indigenous Legal Studies Faculty and Staff
Indigenous Legal Studies Committee
Johnny Mack
Assistant Professor
Co-Academic Director, Indigenous Legal Studies
- Phone: 604 827 4823
- Email: mack@allard.ubc.ca
Professor Johnny Mack is from the Toquaht Nation (Nuu-chah-nulth) and is Assistant Professor at UBC Allard School of Law. From 2014-2018 he was jointly appointed across First Nations and Indigenous Studies and Allard Law at UBC. His research investigates the legal relationship between Indigenous and settler peoples in contemporary settler states, particularly Canada, as well as Indigenous constitutionalism, subjectivity, critical theory, and legal pluralism.
- Centre for Business Law
- Indigenous Legal Studies
Robert Clifford
Assistant Professor
Co-Academic Director, Indigenous Legal Studies
- Email: clifford@allard.ubc.ca
Robert is WSÁNEĆ and a member of the Tsawout First Nation, his home community; he carries the name YELKATŦE, which was passed to him by his late grandfather, Earl Claxton Sr. His PhD research uses community participation methodologies to explore the ways WSÁNEĆ laws are generated by and reflect the values, philosophies, lands, and worldviews of the WSÁNEĆ people.
- Centre for Law and the Environment
Andrea Hilland, KC
Assistant Professor
- Phone: 604 827 3929
- Email: hilland@allard.ubc.ca
- Centre for Feminist Legal Studies
- Centre for Law and the Environment
- Indigenous Legal Studies
Salima Samnani
Lecturer
Co-Legal Services Director - Indigenous Community Legal Clinic
- Email: samnani@allard.ubc.ca
Salima Samnani is a Kenyan Indo-Canadian Muslim immigrant. Her experience as a litigator and as a lecturer focuses on public law and civil law including family, child protection, and employment law. Salima’s research, areas of expertise, and advocacy focus mainly on access to justice, anti-racism, clinical legal education, and education for self-represented and underrepresented litigants.
- Centre for Feminist Legal Studies
- Indigenous Community Legal Clinic
- Indigenous Legal Studies
Kristofer Charlebois
ILSA Co-President
2L Student
- Indigenous Legal Studies
Brooklyn Fowler
ILSA Co-President and ILS Student Programming Assistant
2L Student
- Indigenous Legal Studies
ILS Faculty
Gordon Christie
Professor
- Phone: 604 822 9872
- Email: christie@allard.ubc.ca
Professor Christie has a LL.B. from the University of Victoria, and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has taught in universities in Canada and the United States, in Faculties of Law, and Departments of Philosophy and Indigenous Studies. Most recently he was an Assistant Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School (1998 - 2004), where he also acted as Director of the Intensive Program in Aboriginal Lands, Resources and Governments.
- Indigenous Legal Studies
Johnny Mack
Assistant Professor
Co-Academic Director, Indigenous Legal Studies
- Phone: 604 827 4823
- Email: mack@allard.ubc.ca
Professor Johnny Mack is from the Toquaht Nation (Nuu-chah-nulth) and is Assistant Professor at UBC Allard School of Law. From 2014-2018 he was jointly appointed across First Nations and Indigenous Studies and Allard Law at UBC. His research investigates the legal relationship between Indigenous and settler peoples in contemporary settler states, particularly Canada, as well as Indigenous constitutionalism, subjectivity, critical theory, and legal pluralism.
- Centre for Business Law
- Indigenous Legal Studies
Robert Clifford
Assistant Professor
Co-Academic Director, Indigenous Legal Studies
- Email: clifford@allard.ubc.ca
Robert is WSÁNEĆ and a member of the Tsawout First Nation, his home community; he carries the name YELKATŦE, which was passed to him by his late grandfather, Earl Claxton Sr. His PhD research uses community participation methodologies to explore the ways WSÁNEĆ laws are generated by and reflect the values, philosophies, lands, and worldviews of the WSÁNEĆ people.
- Centre for Law and the Environment
Patricia M. Barkaskas (on leave)
Associate Professor
Academic Director, Indigenous Community Legal Clinic
- Phone: 604 822 5629
- Email: barkaskas@allard.ubc.ca
Patricia M. Barkaskas is Métis from Alberta. Her research focuses on the intersection of justice and law, including access to justice, clinical legal education, and decolonizing and Indigenizing law. She is particularly interested in examining the value of Indigenous pedagogies in experiential learning, clinical legal education, and skills-based legal training, and disrupting the normative violence of colonial legal education.
- Centre for Feminist Legal Studies
- Indigenous Legal Studies
Andrea Hilland, KC
Assistant Professor
- Phone: 604 827 3929
- Email: hilland@allard.ubc.ca
- Centre for Feminist Legal Studies
- Centre for Law and the Environment
- Indigenous Legal Studies
Michael Jackson, KC
Emeritus Professor of Law
- Email: jackson@allard.ubc.ca
Michael Jackson has been involved in the teaching and advocacy of human rights for over thirty years, specializing in the areas of prisoners rights and Aboriginal rights. His courses on these subjects were the first to be introduced in a Canadian law school. Professor Jackson is a member of the bar of British Columbia and has represented prisoners and First Nations in landmark cases before the Supreme Court of Canada, including the Delgamuukw and Haida Nation cases.
ILS Instructors
Aara Johnson
Director, Public Legal Education & Information Sectoral Planning
- Phone: 604 827 5336
- Email: ajohnson@allard.ubc.ca
- Allard School of Law
Jocelyn Stacey
Associate Professor
ILS Academic Leadership Certificate Faculty Lead
- Phone: 604 822 8326
- Email: stacey@allard.ubc.ca
Jocelyn Stacey is Associate Professor at the Peter A. Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia. She researches environmental crises and the visible and invisible ways in which law creates, regulates and prevents these events.
- Centre for Feminist Legal Studies
- Centre for Law and the Environment
- Indigenous Legal Studies
Salima Samnani
Lecturer
Co-Legal Services Director - Indigenous Community Legal Clinic
- Email: samnani@allard.ubc.ca
Salima Samnani is a Kenyan Indo-Canadian Muslim immigrant. Her experience as a litigator and as a lecturer focuses on public law and civil law including family, child protection, and employment law. Salima’s research, areas of expertise, and advocacy focus mainly on access to justice, anti-racism, clinical legal education, and education for self-represented and underrepresented litigants.
- Centre for Feminist Legal Studies
- Indigenous Community Legal Clinic
- Indigenous Legal Studies
ILS Adjunct Professors
Nigel Baker-Grenier
Adjunct Professor
- Indigenous Legal Studies
Maxime Faille
Adjunct Professor
- Email: mfaille@cochranesinclair.ca
- Indigenous Legal Studies
Kate Gunn
Adjunct Professor
- Indigenous Legal Studies
Darwin Hanna
Adjunct Professor
- Indigenous Legal Studies
Bruce McIvor
Adjunct Professor
- Indigenous Legal Studies
Karenna Williams
Adjunct Professor
- Indigenous Legal Studies
Staff
Dalia Al Houseini (on leave)
Indigenous Legal Studies Programs Coordinator
- Phone: 604.827.4720
- Indigenous Legal Studies
- Student Affairs Office
Vernon Black
Legal Assistant
- Phone: 604 827 3832
- Email: vblack@allard.ubc.ca
- Indigenous Community Legal Clinic
- Indigenous Legal Studies
Brooklyn Fowler
ILSA Co-President and ILS Student Programming Assistant
2L Student
- Indigenous Legal Studies