Student Essay Prize Winners
Roderick A. Macdonald Graduate Student Essay Prize
2026
Mees Brenninkmeijer (Doctor of Civil Law candidate, McGill University), ‘On the Future of Legal Education: Why Teaching Must Be Interactional’
2025
Sophie Marois (PhD candidate, University of Toronto), “White Terrorism on Trial: Anti-Muslim Violence, Canadian Counterterrorism, and the Legal Governance of Hate” Honourable Mentions: Yukiko Kobayashi Lui (SJD candidate, University of Toronto), “User/Payor: Workfare Discipline in Child Support” Kaitlyn Cumming (PhD candidate, University of British Columbia Allard School of Law), “Opening the Gates of Social Closure: Strategies for Incorporating Participatory and Reflexive Research Strategies into the Study of Legal Contexts”
2024
Olaoluwa Oni (PhD student, Osgoode Hall Law School), “The Transit Visa: International Law, Language, And More, More, More Borders”
2023
Liam Michaud (PhD student, York University), “Prosecuting Overdose: The Use of Manslaughter Charges and Enhanced Penalties Against People Who Use, Share, and Sell Drugs” Honourable Mention: Josh Lamers (PhD student, York University), “Reading Black Death into Ontario’s Coronial Context: Black Child Welfare Survivors and Family Policing as Death-Making”
2022
Eduardo Gutierrez Cornelius (PhD student, University of Toronto), “Discursive Mismatch and Globalization by Stealth: The Fight Against Corruption in the Brazilian Legal Field” Honourable Mention: Liam Michaud (PhD student, York University), “Therapeutic Surveillance in Emerging Canadian Drug Policy”
2019
Daniel del Gobbo, “Negotiating Campus Sexual Violence”
2018
Isabelle Lefroy, "Interpreting Totems: Cultural Appropriation on the Pacific Northwest Coast”
2017
Eliza Bateman, “The Unrighteous Will Not Inherit the Kingdom of God: Ex-Gay Christian Communities, Reparative Therapy and Religious Law”
Honourable Mention: David Sandomierski, “Theory and Practice, Together at Last: A Heretical, Empirical Account of Canadian Legal Education”
2016 (Joint Winners)
Évelyne Jean-Bouchard, “Pour une approche féministe du pluralisme juridique: le jeu des lois révisité” Daniel Huizenga, “Articulations of Aboriginal Title, Indigenous Rights, and Living Customary Law in South Africa” Honourable Mention: Odelia R. Bay, “Battling the Warrior-Litigator: An Exploration of Chronic Illness and Employment Discrimination Paradigms”
2015
Rebecca Bromwich, “Re-Reading the Ashley Smith Case: Necropolitical Exclusion and Multiple Agencies” Honourable Mentions: Yael Machtinger, “Socio-Legal Gendered Remedies to Get Refusal: Top Down, Bottom Up” Cindy Gagnon, “L’instauration du Programme des travailleurs agricoles saisonniers (PTAS): Les pratiques canadiennes remises en question sous l’angle de la ‘vulnérabilisation’ des travailleurs étrangers”
