Gerard Kennedy, B.A. (Hons.) (Toronto), J.D. (Queen's), LL.M. (Harvard), Ph.D. (Osgoode)

Area of Study / Keywords

Law Procedural Law Civil Procedure Courts Constitutional Law The Legal Profession Administrative Law

About

Gerard Kennedy joined UofA Law in July 2023, having previously been a faculty member at the University of Manitoba's Faculty of Law for over three years. He researches the role of courts in society, specifically how different actors and institutions within or adjacent to the legal profession uphold the rule of law and facilitate access to justice. He principally does this through analyzing civil justice and procedure and administrative law and procedure, frequently with a comparative lens. His scholarship has been published in the Manitoba Law Journal, the Osgoode Hall Law Journal, the Queen’s Law Journal, the Alberta Law Review, the Supreme Court Law Review, and the Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice, among elsewhere. He is the current (co-)author of The Charter of Rights in Litigation: Direction from the Supreme Court of Canada; The Civil Litigation Process, 9th edition; and Boundaries of Judicial Review: The Law of Justiciability in Canada, 3rd edition.

Professor Kennedy received his Juris Doctor at Queen’s University, where he was the sole recipient of the Dean’s Key in his graduating class. He then clerked at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice before earning a Masters of Law at Harvard Law School as a Frank Knox Memorial Fellow. His doctoral studies at Osgoode Hall Law School were supported by a Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Scholarship and a SSHRC Joseph-Armand Bombardier CGS Doctoral Scholarship. As a doctoral student, he held scholarship-supported visiting positions at NYU School of Law and the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for Procedural Law.

Professor Kennedy’s interests in the role of courts in society, and specifically civil and administrative justice, were largely inspired by his four years as a litigator at a national law firm. He has remained an active member of the legal profession, as a member of the bars of Ontario and Manitoba. He has contributed to numerous blogs aimed at practitioners, notably the Manitoba Access to Justice blog, which he co-edits, and the blog for Advocates for the Rule of Law, where he is acting as Executive Director. He has given numerous continuing professional development presentations for organizations as diverse as The Advocates' Society, American College of Trial Lawyers (Manitoba chapter), and the Manitoba Council of Administrative Tribunals, among many others. He has been a frequent volunteer at pro bono legal clinics, even after leaving full-time practice. His commitment to pro bono work was recognized by the 2016 Young Advocates’ Society Commitment to Pro Bono Award. 

A believer in connections between the academy, the bar, and the public, Professor Kennedy has given dozens of media interviews and has published opinion pieces in the forums such as The Hub, Policy Options, the National Post, and The Walrus.

An educator at heart, Professor Kennedy had extensive teaching experience prior to joining the academy full-time in 2020. As a doctoral student and full-time practicing lawyer, he has taught or co-taught twelve different courses between Queen’s University’s Faculty of Law and the University of Toronto’s Department of Political Science. In addition, he has served a coach for moot teams at both U of T, Queen’s, and Robson Hall.

Research

• Civil Litigation and Procedure
• Constitutional Law
• Administrative Law
• The Legal “Profession”

Books

• Public Law, 5th ed (Emond Montgomery, 2025) (with Malcolm Lavoie, Philip Bryden, Dwight Newman & Leah West) (forthcoming)
• The Boundaries of Judicial Review: The Law of Justiciability in Canada, 3d ed (Toronto: Thomson Reuters, 2024) (with Lorne Sossin) (forthcoming)
• The Civil Litigation Process in Canada, 9th ed (Emond Montgomery, 2022) (with Janet Walker, Erik Knutsen, & Catherine Piché)
• The Charter of Rights in Litigation: Direction from the Supreme Court of Canada, loose‑leaf (Toronto: Thomson Reuters, 2020) [updated semi-annually] 

Articles

• “Council of Canadians with Disabilities: Another Reminder to Resolve Cases on their Merits” (2023) ___ Supreme Court Law Review (2d) ___ (forthcoming)
• “International Law and Section 33: Legally Not Relevant, Politically Very Much So” 17:2 Journal of Parliamentary and Political Law ___ (forthcoming) (with Mark P. Mancini)
• “De Jure Submission and De Facto Courteous Regard: Places for Two Types of “Deference” Post-Vavilov” (2022) 106 Supreme Court Law Review (2d) 383/2 Dicey Law Review 37
• “Glover v Progressive Conservative Party of Manitoba: Courts Deferential in Reviewing Internal Party Affairs – Even When They’re ‘Contracts’” (2022) 16 Journal of Parliamentary and Political Law 519
• “The Rules-Standards Debate and Summary Procedures: A Case for More Rules” (2022) 47(1) Journal of Legal Philosophy 24
• “Nevsun, Atlantic Lottery, and the Implications of the Supreme Court of Canada’s 2020 Motions to Strike Decisions on Access to Justice and the Rule of Law” (2021) 71 University of New Brunswick Law Journal 82
• “Wither the Divisional Court? Looking at the Past, Analyzing the Present, and Querying the Future of Ontario’s Intermediate Appellate Court” 53:1 (2021) Ottawa Law Review 93
• “Hryniak Comes to Manitoba: The Evolution of Manitoba Civil Procedure in the 2010s” (2021) 44:2 Manitoba Law Journal 36
• “The Alberta Court of Appeal’s Vexatious Litigant Order Trilogy: Preserving Access to the Courts, Respecting Statutory Language, and Hopefully Not to a Fault” (2021) 58:3 Alberta Law Review 739
• “Narrative, Interrupted: Reflections on a First Semester as a New Law Professor Like No Other” (2020) 25(4) Lex Electronica: Law and Learning in the Time of Pandemic - A Collage (edited by Shauna Van Praagh and David Sandomierski)
• “The 2010 Amendments and Hryniak v Mauldin: The Perspective of the Lawyers Who Have Lived Them” (2020) 37 Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice 21
• “Final v. Interlocutory Civil Appeals: How a Clear Distinction Became so Complicated—Its Purposes, Obfuscation and a Simple Solution?” (2020) 45(2) Queen’s Law Journal 243
• “When Vavilov Makes Judicial Review More Difficult: Findings of Fact in a Statutory Appeal” (27 April 2020) Intra Vires (Canadian Bar Association Administrative Law Section Publication) (with Alyssa Clutterbuck)
• “Justiciability, Access to Justice, and Summary Procedures in Public Interest Litigation” (2019) 20 Supreme Court Law Review (2d) 119 (with Lorne Sossin)
• “Rule 2.1 of Ontario’s Rules of Civil Procedure: Responding to Vexatious Litigation While Advancing Access to Justice?” (2018) 35 Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice 242
• “Public Inquiries’ Terms of Reference: Lessons from the Past – And For the Future” (2018) 41(1) Manitoba Law Journal 317/18 Underneath the Golden Boy 317
• “Jurisdiction Motions and Access to Justice: An Ontario Tale” (2018) 55(1) Osgoode Hall Law Journal 79
• “Justiciability, Access to Justice & the Development of Constitutional Law in Canada” (2017) 45(4) ANU Federal Law Review 707 (with Lorne Sossin)
• “Pragmatic and Logical: The Supreme Court of Canada’s White Burgess Decision” (May 2016) 5(2) Commercial Arbitration and Litigation Review 23
• “Glen Grove: Distinguishing Agency and Privity as Bases to Hold Non-Parties Liable to Contracts” (April 2016) Toronto Law Journal (with Mary Paterson)
• “Tanudjaja v. Canada (Attorney General): Distinguishing Injusticiability and Deference on Motions to Strike” (2015) 44 Advocates’ Quarterly 391 (with Mary Angela Rowe)
• “Ontario Court of Appeal Divided on Permissibility of Hearings Outside Ontario in Multi-Jurisdictional Class Actions” (August 2015) 4 Commercial Arbitration and Litigation Review 33 (with Christopher P. Naudie)
• “R. v. P.C.: Accused Does Not Have Right to State-Funded Counsel for a First Appeal – Necessarily” (October 2014) Toronto Law Journal
• “Dilollo (Re): Ontario Court of Appeal Holds that Limitation Period for Preference Motion Is Not Suspended Pending Appeal of Bankruptcy Order” (2014) 29 National Creditor-Debtor Review 28 (with Mark A. Gelowitz)
• “Persisting Uncertainties in Appellate Jurisdiction at the Supreme Court” (2013) 100 Criminal Reports (6th) 96 

Blog Editor

• Access to Justice Blog, University of Manitoba Faculty of Law, August 2022 – Present

Book Reviews

• “Different Ways to Get to ‘Everything’?: Review of Judicializing Everything?: The Clash of Constitutionalisms in Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom by Mark S Harding” (2023) 54:1 Ottawa Law Review 153
• “Timely, And Looking Forward to Volume Two: Book Review of Seven Absolute Rights: Recovering the Historical Foundations of Canada’s Rule of Law, by Ryan Alford” (2021) 101 Supreme Court Law Review (2d) 305
• "Book Review of In Search of the Ethical Lawyer: Stories from the Canadian Legal Profession, edited by Adam Dodek & Alice Woolley" (2018) 35 Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice 177

Book Chapters

• “Rule 2.1” in Civil Procedure and Practice in Ontario (CanLII, 2021) [updated semi-annually]
• “Accountability and Transparency in Canadian Civil Justice” in Accountability e Transparência da Justiça Civil Uma Perspectiva Comparada (São Paulo: Thomson Reuters, 2019)

LAW 450 - Administrative Law

Designed to provide an understanding of the legal constraints courts have placed on the behavior of administrative tribunals and government departments. Topics to be discussed: What is Administrative Law? How the courts supervise the acts and decisions of administrative bodies. Pitfalls to be avoided by administrative officers: errors of fact and law; excesses of discretion; breach of natural justice. How administrative acts and decisions may be attacked by an aggrieved citizen: remedies. Appeal and review, time limits, locus standi, choice of remedy, procedure. How to avoid attacks by aggrieved citizens. The practical outcome; strength of review. Recent trends in Administrative Law in Canada.

LAW 452 - Civil Procedure

The fundamentals of the traditional litigation process (under the Rules of Court and applicable statutes) and current issues including access and reform.

LAW 599 - Seminars on Specialized Legal Topics

These seminars will cover specialized topics of emerging importance in the law at a senior level. The particular topic covered would vary dependent on the availability of Faculty with necessary teaching competence, student interest, and the needs of the legal profession. Sections may be offered at an increased rate of fee assessment; refer to the Tuition and Fees page in the University Regulations sections of the Calendar.

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