New from UTP: Violence, Order, and Unrest: A History of British North America, 1749–1876, ed. Mancke, Bannister, McKim and See

Looks like quite a bit of legal history in this new collection from the University of Toronto Press: Violence, Order, and Unrest: A History of British North America, 1749–1876. Edited by Elizabeth Mancke, Jerry Bannister, Denis McKim, and Scott W. See. From the publisher:

This edited collection offers a broad reinterpretation of the origins of Canada. Drawing on cutting-edge research in a number of fields, Violence, Order, and Unrestexplores the development of British North America from the mid-eighteenth century through the aftermath of Confederation. The chapters cover an ambitious range of topics, from Indigenous culture to municipal politics, public executions to runaway slave advertisements. Cumulatively, this book examines the diversity of Indigenous and colonial experiences across northern North America and provides fresh perspectives on the crucial roles of violence and unrest in attempts to establish British authority in Indigenous territories. In the aftermath of Canada 150, Violence, Order, and Unrest offers a timely contribution to current debates over the nature of Canadian culture and history, demonstrating that we cannot understand Canada today without considering its origins as a colonial project.

Ian Bushnell

The Osgoode Society joins with the extended academic community of Windsor Law school in mourning the death of law professor emeritus Ian Bushnell.

Ian died on May 14th. He was the author of a legal history for the Osgoode Society,  The Federal Court Of Canada: A History, 1875-1992 (Toronto: The Osgoode Society and University of Toronto Press, 1997) and a study of the Supreme Court of Canada for McGill-Queen's University Press, The Captive Court: A Study of the Supreme Court of Canada (1992).

New from McGill-Queen's UP: Cahill, Professional Autonomy and the Public Interest The Barristers' Society and Nova Scotia's Lawyers, 1825–2005

New from McGill-Queen's University Press, Barry Cahill, Professional Autonomy and the Public Interest:The Barristers' Society and Nova Scotia's Lawyers, 1825–2005

Formed in 1825, the Nova Scotia Barristers' Society is the second-oldest law society in common-law Canada, after the Law Society of Ontario. Yet despite its founders' ambitions, it did not become the regulator of the legal profession in Nova Scotia for nearly seventy-five years.

In this institutional history of the Nova Scotia Barristers' Society from its inception to the Legal Profession Act of 2005, Barry Cahill provides a chronological exploration of the profession's regulation in Nova Scotia and the critical role of the society. Based on extensive research conducted on internal documents, legislative records, and legal and general-interest periodicals and newspapers, Professional Autonomy and the Public Interest demonstrates that the inauguration of the Nova Scotia Barristers' Society was the first giant step on the long road to self-regulation. Highlighting the inherent tensions between protection of professional self-interest and protection of the larger public interest, Cahill explains that while this radical innovation was opposed by both lawyers and judges, it was ultimately imposed by the Liberal government in 1899.

In light of emerging models of regulation in the twenty-first century, Professional Autonomy and the Public Interest is a timely look back at the origins of professional regulatory bodies and the evolution of law affecting the legal profession in Atlantic Canada.

McCoy, Four Unruly Women: Stories of Incarceration and Resistance from Canada’s Most Notorious Prison

New from UBC Press:

Four Unruly Women: Stories of Incarceration and Resistance from Canada’s Most Notorious Prison by Ted McCoy of the University of Calgary Law and Society Program

Bridget Donnelly. Charlotte Reveille. Kate Slattery. Emily Boyle. Until now, these were nothing but names marked down in the admittance registers and punishment reports of Kingston Penitentiary, Canada’s most notorious prison.

In this shocking and heartbreaking book, Ted McCoy tells these women’s stories of incarceration and resistance in poignant detail. Locked away from male prisoners in dark basement wards, these women experienced isolation and segregation, along with the worst elements of prison life – starvation, corporal punishment, sexual abuse, and neglect. Yet they met these challenges with resistance and resilience.

Although the four women served sentences at different times over a century, they shared experiences that illuminate how the most marginalized elements in society – the poor, the sick, and the disadvantaged – reckoned with poverty and crime and grappled with the constraints placed on them by shifting notions of punishment and reform.

The inhumanity suffered by these four women stands as profoundly disturbing evidence of the hidden costs of isolation, punishment, and mass incarceration.

Harry W. Arthurs to be speaker at Osgoode Society AGM June 19th

The Osgoode Society Annual General Meeting will be held in the Museum Room at Osgoode Hall on June 19th at 5:30 pm.

Harry Arthurs will be the speaker. (Bring your copy of his book, Connecting the Dots: the Life of an Academic Lawyer to be autographed.)

If you aren't a member already, buy a membership (or renew) and get your copy of the book for free!

Just published: Connecting the Dots: the Life of an Academic Lawyer by Harry W. Arthurs

Just published (by McGill-Queen's University Press) Harry W. Arthurs memoir, Connecting the Dots: the Life of an Academic Lawyer. This is the Osgoode Society Members' book for this year.
Here's the publishers' blurb:
Harry W. Arthurs is a name held in high esteem by labour lawyers and academics throughout the world. Although many are familiar with Arthurs's contributions and accomplishments, few are acquainted with the man himself, or how he came to be one of the most influential figures in Canadian law and legal education. 

In Connecting the Dots Arthurs recounts his adventures in academe and the people, principles, ideas, motivations, and circumstances that have shaped his thinking and his career. The memoir offers intimate recollections and observations, beginning with the celebrated ancestors who influenced Arthurs's upbringing and education. It then sweeps through his career as an architect of important reforms in legal education and explores his research as a trailblazing commentator on the legal profession. Arthurs analyzes his experiences as a legal theorist and historian and his pivotal role as a discordant voice in debates over constitutional and administrative law. Along the way, he muses on the intellectual projects he embraced or set in motion, the institutional reforms he advocated, the public policies he recommended, and how they fared long term.

Framed with commentary on the historical context that shaped each decade of his career and punctuated by moments of personal reflection, Connecting the Dots is a humorous, frank, and fearless account of the rise and fall of Canadian labour law from the man who was at the centre of it all.