Who are we?
The Centre for Feminist Legal Studies team includes the Chair in Feminist Legal Studies, Director, Steering Committee, and Student Coordinator.
Chair in Feminist Legal Studies
The Faculty's endowed Chair in Feminist Legal Studies, established in 1992, plays an integral role in reinforcing and strengthening feminist legal studies in the Faculty and helps foster and support scholarship and learning directed toward the ongoing process of social change in relation to the position of women in Canadian society.
Professor Susan B. Boyd was the first incumbent of the Chair, and was also Director of the Centre for Feminist Legal Studies from 1997 until 2012. She retired in 2015 and continues to be involved in the Faculty and the CFLS as Professor Emerita.
Professor Debra Parkes is the current Chair in Feminist Legal Studies, beginning her chairship in July 2016. She served as Director of the CFLS from January 2017 to June 2021.
Director
The Director is responsible for the overall direction, budget, and operation of the Centre for Feminist Legal Studies and its activities. Although much of the day to day workload of operating the Centre is facilitated by the Student Coordinator and student volunteers, the Director actively supervises and provides direction to these students; organizes events; chairs monthly Steering Committee meetings; answers questions from students, faculty and the public; and hosts visiting scholars. The Director also reports on the Centre’s activities and promotes its interests alongside the Steering Committee.
The Centre welcomes Professor Régine Tremblay as the new Director of the Centre as of July 2024.
Régine Tremblay joined Allard Law in 2017. Her areas of expertise include family law, matrimonial property law, private law, comparative law, family mediation, reproduction and law, and critical theories, including feminism and queer theories. She holds a BCL and an LLB from the Faculty of Law at McGill University and an LLM and an SJD from the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto. She is a member of the Quebec Bar since 2011 and a member of its Comité consultatif en droit de la famille since 2018. She is the Director of the Centre for Feminist Legal Studies, and, alongside Professor Erez Aloni, the co-editor of the Canadian Journal of Family Law. She is the Vice President of the Association des juristes d’expression française de la Colombie-Britannique, a full member of the Paul-André Crépeau Centre for Private and Comparative Law (McGill University), a researcher with the Groupe de réflexion en droit privé (UQAM), and sits on the editorial board of the Canadian Journal of Women and the Law.
Her research has been published in English and French in publications such as the Supreme Court Law Review, the Canadian Journal of Family Law, and the Canadian Journal of Women and the Law. She coauthored the Private Law Dictionary of the Family, 2nd edition, and the Dictionnaire de droit privé: Les familles, 2ème édition. She is a contributor to the McGill Companion to Law, the Elgar Encyclopedia of Comparative Law, the Jurisclasseur: Personnes et famille (QC), and is the co-editor of Les intraduisibles en droit civil (Les éditions Thémis) and House Rules: Changing Families, Evolving Norms, and the Role of Law (UBC Press). Her research has been funded by institutions including the Law Foundation of British Columbia and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Insight and Connection).
Steering Committee
The Steering Committee is comprised of the Director, Student Coordinator, Graduate Student Representative and faculty members. It provides advice, support, and direction to the Directors and Student Coordinator in running the Centre.
Current Steering Committee Members:
Régine Tremblay (Director)
The Honourable Lynn Smith, OC, KC
Tiffany Chang (J.D. Representative)
Sofia Cornejo (Graduate Student Representative)
Student Coordinators
The Student Coordinators of the CFLS assist the Director in planning the weekly lectures and other events, publicize CFLS activities via email and social media, organize joint events with other student groups, and serve as a contact for visitors of the Centre. Additional duties include maintaining the Centre's space, coordinating the Centre's volunteers, and conducting occasional research for the Centre or the Director.
The current Student Coordinator is Tiffany Chang (she/her). Tiffany is a third year student at the Peter A. Allard School of Law. In addition to her work with the CFLS, she is a clinic head for the Law Students' Legal Advice Program's Animal Law Clinic. Tiffany looks forward to seeing everyone at upcoming events!
