Schulich School of Law
HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA | CANADA B3H 4R2 | +1 (902) 494-3495

Philip Girard

B.A. (Brock), LL.B. (McGill), LL.M. (U. Calif., Berkeley), Ph. D. (Dalhousie) 

Professor of Law, History and Canadian Studies
University Research Professor

Telephone: (902) 494-2814
E-mail: philip.girard@dal.ca

Biography: Clerked for Mr. Justice W.Z. Estey of the Supreme Court of Canada. Taught at the University of Western Ontario Faculty of Law before coming to Dalhousie in 1984. Served as Acting Dean of the Faculty (1991-1993) and (part-time) as Legal Research Counsel to the Law Reform Commission of Nova Scotia (1995-96). James Lewtas Visiting Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, 1993-94. Visiting Professor, Indian Law Institute, New Delhi, India, 1997.  President, Canadian Association of Law Teachers, 2003-04. Associate Dean Graduate Studies & Research (Law), 2002-2006. James Lewtas Visiting Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School, 2011-12. Associate Editor, Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History, 2011-12.

Teaching subjects:

Property in its Historical Context; Equity and Trusts; Canadian Legal History; Pension Law. 

Publications:

  • Lawyers and Legal Culture in British North America:  Beamish Murdoch of Halifax (Toronto:  University of Toronto Press for the Osgoode Society, 2011)
  • "Rethinking the 'Nation' in National Legal History: A Canadian Perspective" (2011) 29 Law & History Review (with Jim Phillips)
  • "A Certain Mallaise: Harrison v. Carswell, Shopping Centre Picketing, and the Limits of the Postwar Settlement" in Judy Fudge and Eric Tucker, Work on Trial: Cases in Context (Toronto: Irwin Law for the Osgoode Society, 2010) (with Jim Phillips)
  • "Liberty, Order, and Pluralism: the Canadian Experience", in Jack P. Greene, ed., Exclusionary Empire: English Liberty Overseas, 1600 to 1900 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009)
  • "Stratification, Economic Adversity, and Diversity in an Urban Bar: Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1900-1950" in Constance Backhouse and W. Wesley Pue, eds., The Promise and Perils of Law: Canadian Lawyers in History (Toronto: Irwin Law, 2009) (with Jeffrey Haylock)
  • "Politics, Promotion, and Professionalism: Sir Wilfrid Laurier's Judicial Appointments," in Jim Phillips, R. Roy McMurtry and John T. Saywell, eds., Essays in the History of Canadian Law, vol. X, A Tribute to Peter N. Oliver (Toronto: University of Toronto Press for the Osgoode Society, 2008)
  • Courts, Communities and Communications: the Nova Scotia Supreme Court on Circuit, 1816 - 1850," in Hamar Foster, Ben Berger and Andrew Buck, eds., The Grand Experiment: Law & Legal Culture in British Settler Societies (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press for the Osgoode Society, 2008 (with Jim Phillips)
  • "British Justice, English Law, and Canadian Legal Culture," in Phillip Buckner, ed., Canada and the British Empire (Oxford University Press 2008).
  • "The Independence of the Bar in Historical Perspective: Comforting Myths, Troubling Realities," in In the Public Interest: The Report and Research Papers of the Law Society of Upper Canada's Task Force on the Rule of Law and the Independence of the Bar (Toronto: Irwin Law, 2007)
  • Who’s Afraid of Canadian Legal History?” (2007) 57 University of Toronto Law Journal 727-753. 
  • Bora Laskin:  Bringing Law to Life (University of Toronto Press for the Osgoode Society 2005) (winner of 2006 Chalmers Award, awarded by the Champlain Society to the best book in Ontario history)
  •  “No Place Like Home:  The Search for a Legal Framework for Cohabitants and the Family Home in Canada and Britain” (2005) 30 Queen’s Law Journal 715 (with Heather Conway)
  • The Supreme Court of Nova Scotia, 1754-2004: From Imperial Bastion to Provincial Oracle (Toronto: University of Toronto Press for the Osgoode Society 2004). (co-edited with Jim Phillips and Barry Cahill)
  • “The Supreme Court of Nova Scotia:  Confederation to the Twenty-First Century” in Girard, Phillips & Cahill, The Supreme Court of Nova Scotia, 1754-2004
  • "Land Law, Liberalism, and the Agrarian Ideal: British North America, 1750-1920" in John McLaren, A.R. Buck and Nancy E. Wright, eds., Despotic Dominion: Property Rights in British Settler Societies (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2004). 
  • “Judging Lives: Judicial Biography from Hale to Holmes” (2003) 7 Australian Journal of Legal History 87
  • “‘I will not pin my faith to his sleeve’: Beamish Murdoch, Joseph Howe, and Responsible Government Revisited” (2001) 4 Journal of the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society 1-24
  • “From  Preacher to Planter to Pariah: The Vicissitudes of the Rev. James Murdoch,” in Margaret Conrad, ed., Planter Links (Fredericton: Acadiensis Press, 2001)
  • Philip Girard "History and Development of Equity" in M. Gillen and F. Woodman, eds. The Law of Trusts: A Contextual Approach (Emond-Montgomery, 2000) (2nd edition 2007)
  • “Victorian Philanthropy and Child Rescue: the Career of Emma Stirling in Scotland and Nova Scotia, 1860-95,” in Marjory Harper and Michael E. Vance, eds., Myth, Migration and the Making of Memory: Scotia and Nova Scotia c. 1700-1990 (Halifax and Edinburgh: Fernwood, 1999)
  • “Taking Litigation Seriously: The Market Wharf Controversy at Halifax, 1785-1820” in G. Blaine Baker and Jim Phillips, eds. Essays in the History of Canadian Law, vol. VIII: In Honour of R.C.B. Risk (Toronto: University of Toronto Press for the Osgoode Society, 1999)
  • “The Maritime Provinces, 1850-1939:  Lawyers and Legal Institutions” (1996) 23 Manitoba Law Journal 380-405
  • “The Making of a Colonial Lawyer:  Beamish Murdoch of Halifax, 1822-1842,” in Carol Wilton, ed., Inside the Law:  Canadian Law Firms in Historical Perspective (Toronto:  University of Toronto Press for the Osgoode Society, 1996)
  • “Children, Church, Migration and Money:  Three Tales of Child Custody in Nova Scotia,” in Hilary Thompson, ed., Children's Voices in Atlantic Literature and Culture:  Essays on Childhood (Guelph:  Canadian Children's Press, 1995)
  • “The Supreme Court of Nova Scotia, Responsible Government, and the Quest for Legitimacy, 1850-1920” (1994) 17 Dalhousie Law Journal 429-457
  • “Why Canada Has No Family Policy:  Lessons From France and Italy” (1994) 32 Osgoode Hall Law Journal 579-611
  • “Themes and Variations in Canadian Legal Culture: Beamish Murdoch and his Epitome of the Laws of Nova Scotia” (1993) 11 Law & History Review 101 (winner of the 1994 Surrency Prize awarded by the American Society for Legal History)
  • “Married Women's Property in Nova Scotia, 1850-1910,” in Janet Guildford and Suzanne Morton, eds., Separate Spheres: Woman's Worlds in the 19th Century Maritimes (Fredericton:  Acadiensis Press, 1994) (with Rebecca Veinott)
  • “The Roots of a Professional Renaissance: Lawyers in Nova Scotia 1850-1910” (1991) 20 Manitoba Law Journal 148; also appeared in Dale Gibson and W.W. Pue, eds., Glimpses of Canadian Legal History (Winnipeg: Legal Research Institute, 1992)
  • Essays in the History of Canadian Law: Volume III, Nova Scotia (co-edited with Jim Phillips)
  • “Married Women’s Property Law, Chancery Abolition, and Insolvency Law:  Law Reform in Nova Scotia, 1820-1867” in Girard & Phillips, eds., Essays in the History of Canadian Law:  vol. III, Nova Scotia
  • “‘His life was one continual warfare’: John Thomas Bulmer, Lawyer, Librarian and Social Reformer” (1990) 12 Dalhousie Law Journal 376-405
  • “Some Preliminary Observations on the Rise and Fall of Urban Justice in Halifax” (1988) 8 Nova Scotia Historical Review 57-71
  • “From  Subversion to Liberation: Homosexuals and the Immigration Act 1952-1977” (1987) 2 Canadian Journal of Law and Society 1-27
  • “The Protection of the Rights of Homosexuals Under the International Law of Human Rights: European Perspectives” (1986) 4 Canadian Human Rights Yearbook 3-24
  • “Sexual Orientation as a Human Rights Issue in Canada 1969-1985” (1986) 10 Dalhousie Law Journal 267-281
  • “Concubines and Cohabitees: A Comparative Look at ‘Living Together’” (1983) 28 McGill Law Journal 977-1014
  • “Good Faith in Contract Performance: Principle or Placebo?” (1983) 5 Supreme Court Law Review 309-327
  • “An Expedition to the Frontiers of Nuisance” (1980) 25 McGill Law Journal 565-597
  • Dr. Girard’s doctoral dissertation, “Patriot Jurist:  Beamish Murdoch of Halifax, 1800-1876,” received the John Bullen Prize from the Canadian Historical Association for the best thesis in any historical field completed at a Canadian university

Other Publications:

Entries for the Dictionary of Canadian Biography on Henry Pryor (1808-1892), Robert Sedgewick (1848-1906), J.T. Bulmer (1846-1901), Sir Robert Weatherbe (1834-1915), Sir Wallace Graham (1848-1917), William Bruce Almon Ritchie (1860-1917), Sir Charles Townshend (1844-1924), Richard Chapman Weldon (1849-1925), James Wilberforce Longley (1849-1922)(with Barry Cahill), Edmund Leslie Newcombe (1859-1931), Benjamin Russell (1849-1935), G. Frederick Pearson (1868-1938)(with Barry Cahill)

Entries for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (U.K.) on Emma Stirling (1838-1907), Sir Lyman Poore Duff (1865-1955).

Editor of the Dalhousie Law Journal, a refereed academic journal, 1997-2000; 2006-10

Courses: