Research Faculty Directory

Dennis Pavlich is a professor in the Allard School of Law at UBC. A graduate of Witwatersrand University and Yale Law School, Professor Pavlich has been an academic for over 30 years and on three occasions has received awards for teaching excellence, including the University's Killam Teaching Prize and the Faculty of Law’s George Curtis Teaching Award. Professor Pavlich teaches courses on property law, the law of trusts and historical comparative law. He has also lectured extensively in the field of education law.

Dr. Maziar Peihani is appointed to the Lawson Lundell UBC Professorship of Business Law. His teaching and research focus is on financial and business law, with his current areas of research including banking regulation, resolution of cross-border bank failures, sovereign debt restructuring, and disclosure and governance of climate-related financial risks. Professor Peihani ‘s research has appeared in the Harvard International Law Journal and the Canadian Foreign Policy Journal.

Ben Perrin researches and teaches in the areas of criminal law and international law. He joined UBC in 2007 after serving as a law clerk at the Supreme Court of Canada and advising judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and Special Court for Sierra Leone. Ben was lead criminal justice advisor and in-house legal counsel to the Prime Minister of Canada.

Dr. Graham J. Reynolds teaches and researches in the areas of copyright law, intellectual property law, property law, intellectual property and human rights, and technology and access to justice. His current research focus is the intersection of intellectual property and human rights, as well as the relationship between intellectual property and social justice.  

Supriya Routh is an Associate Professor at the Allard School of Law. His research interests include theory of labour and employment law, legitimacy of law-making for sustainable livelihoods, social justice and global value chains, postcolonialism and informal workers in the Global South, human rights and international labour law, and workers’ collective action. His socio-legal research agenda straddles the disciplines of law, political philosophy, and sociology.

Dr. Russo obtained his LLB, LLM and PhD degrees from the Allard School of Law.  His research has been primarily in the area of immigration and labour/employment law and he has published several peer-reviewed articles in this field.  He joined UBC as a part-time faculty member in 2017 and was appointed a full-time Faculty Lead Lecturer for the LLMCL program in 2018.  He has subsequently guided the teaching for the Distance Learning and LLMCL programs as well as teaching in the first-year J.D. program.  He has also designed and taught online courses in in Torts and Public Law.

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.

Galit A. Sarfaty holds a Canada Research Chair in Global Economic Governance and is an Associate Professor with tenure at the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia. She holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, a Ph.D. and M.A. in Anthropology from the University of Chicago, and an A.B. summa cum laude from Harvard University.

Dr. Janis Sarra served as UBC Presidential Distinguished Professor from 2014 to 2019, an appointment by the President to recognize a faculty member that has made outstanding contributions as a scholar and academic leader. Prior to this appointment, Dr. Sarra served as Director of the Wall Institute for Advanced Studies at UBC. Dr. Sarra is Professor of Law at the Peter A. Allard School of Law and founding Director of the National Centre for Business Law.