The Muriel St. John Award for Women’s Legal Issues was first offered in 2011 to a Juris Doctor student at the University of Manitoba who submitted the best research paper of publishable quality, pertaining to women’s legal issues.

“My award has been going on for over ten years and it is the first time that the winner is a man. I welcome him as we need more men to support women’s legal issues,” said St. John.

Laferriere-Enns’s paper, “Decoding Deepfakes: Understanding non-consensual synthetic intimate images on the basis of sexual integrity” was written for Law, Technology and the Future, taught by Dr. Katie Szilagyi, who recommended the paper for the award.

“Chad’s paper was thoroughly researched, exhibiting clarity of thought and strong writing,” Dr. Szilagyi noted. “I was tremendously impressed with his ability to apprehend a complicated technological issue, explain it in a straightforward manner, and then offer meaningful commentary from both legal and societal perspectives.”

Dr. Szilagyi awarded Laferriere-Enns the class’s highest grade for his excellent paper, and given the perfect subject matter fit, thought it also warranted nomination for this prize. “Knowing Chad for the past three years, I was not surprised that he took such a strong feminist point of view in his writing. The work contributes to an ongoing conceptualization of an emerging technology that disproportionately impacts women’s equality rights. I thought it was a perfect candidate for the award.”

The work contributes to an ongoing conceptualization of an emerging technology that disproportionately impacts women’s equality rights. I thought it was a perfect candidate for the award. – Dr. Katie Szilagyi

Laferriere-Enns’s paper stands out for its quality of writing and depth of research, but also for a few other aspects including a statement of positionality of the author, an unusual but thoughtful and practical deviation from a traditional academic paper. Laferriere-Enns opted to include a Positionality Statement after his experience taking the course Race, Racism and the Law with Professor Amar Khoday where students were encouraged to write a bit of themselves into the paper to explain their perspective on a topic that would otherwise seem inappropriate for them to speak on with any authority.

“I am a young, cisgender, straight, white man and have lived a life filled with the privilege. Therefore, I occupy a position in this issue as someone who attempts to listen and learn to the best of my abilities,” Laferriere-Enns wrote in his statement, “I have never experienced the kind of sexualization women are subjected to daily, let alone in the unique forum that is the online world. It is for this reason I have attempted to defer, where possible, to the analysis of women who have spoken on this issue. I hope that in doing so that my own analysis may strike closer to the real heart of this issue, that men feel entitled to make and share intimate images of women.”

In conversation with St. John who makes a practice of meeting personally with recipients of her award, Laferriere-Enns further explained, “I was inspired to write my paper by the women who educated me on the topic in the first place. I had heard of deepfakes before, but it wasn’t until Dr. Katie Szilagyi and a guest speaker, Dalhousie University Assistant Professor Suzie Dunn, taught us about the ways technology is weaponized against women that I felt compelled to learn more. The topic was easy for me to pick up and write about as a man who fears virtually nothing online. It is the women who write on these topics while facing violence daily who are truly deserving of praise.”

The topic was easy for me to pick up and write about as a man who fears virtually nothing online. It is the women who write on these topics while facing violence daily who are truly deserving of praise. – Chad Laferriere-Enns [JD/2024]

Left to right: Dr. Katie Szilagyi, Muriel St. John, Chad Laferriere-Enns. Photo by Christine Mazur.

Laferriere-Enns said his topic was inspired in part by troubling occurrences he has seen arising in current-day social media environments where a popular YouTuber’s image was used without her consent to create “deepfake pornography.” In this case, her face was superimposed over a previously existing pornographic video to create realistic footage constituting what is called “non-consensual synthetic intimate images” (NSII). Laferriere-Enns’ paper explored what laws, if any, protect a woman’s rights not to have her image exploited in this manner, as well as the attitudes that condone or ignore the idea that there might be anything wrong or inappropriate with such activity.

He examined the development of case law over the past 40 years that grew to acknowledge the idea of a person’s sexual integrity and laws around sexual assault, concluding that the law “should prioritize the victim’s interest in protecting their autonomy and sexual integrity over the accused’s liberty of action” (Laferriere-Enns). The issues being encountered with this new technology boils down to an age-old problem, Laferriere-Enns concludes: “In part, men feel entitled to make and share intimate images of women because they do not respect women’s sexual integrity. One step in the right direction will include educating and ingraining an appreciation and reverence for sexual integrity in both law and society.”

St. John, who reads every paper that wins her award, remains on top of current laws affecting women’s rights, long after having retired from her position as Law Librarian at Robson Hall where she worked for 12 years. “Civil society is looking forward to the passing of Bill C-63 Online Harms Act which, according to the Legis info is ‘in progress’ at Second Reading as of September 23, 2024,” she said. “It would create a Digital Safety Commission of Canada, the position of Digital Safety Ombudsperson of Canada and the Digital Safety Office of Canada. This bill identifies and provides definitions for seven types of harmful content including “intent content communicated without consent” of which Chad’s paper is about.”

Szilagyi joined the Faculty of Law in 2021, and brings to the University of Manitoba, an unprecedented research focus on Law and Technology. She studies the intersection of technology law and legal theory with artificial intelligence, focusing on transdisciplinary research, combining her educational backgrounds in engineering and law with her experience in legal practice. Szilagyi holds a BSc in Engineering, as well as JD, LLM, and PhD degrees in law. Recent research projects include smart agriculture; social robotics; science fiction and the law; ethical frameworks for automated mobility; and conceptualizing the impacts of generative AI on the law. At Robson Hall, she teaches Property Law, and an upper-year seminar of her own design titled Law, Technology, and the Future.

Szilagyi received several independent nominations from students for The Barney Sneiderman Award, and those nominations came with multiple excellent letters of support. The selection committee notes that one student wrote:  “Dr. Szilagyi is nothing short of an exceptional educator. She is dedicated to exceptional pedagogy and diversity of curricula, encouraging students’ curiosity, and enriching and elevating students to their full potential.” Another stated, “On a personal note, Dr. Szilagyi made me love the law. I came to law school for the sole purpose of graduating, practicing and getting on with my life.  As a result of Dr. Szilagyi’s instruction, I now look forward to a career filled with studying, learning, and expanding my understanding of the law and all of its histories, philosophies and intricacies.”

Upon receiving the award, Szilagyi shared some thoughts on teaching that demonstrate how her own love for the law translates to her students: “Teaching law students is a fantastic job,” she explained. “I love meeting students at the very beginning of their legal careers and coasting on their wave of enthusiasm as they discover law’s possibilities and prevailing stories for the first time.

“As legal educators, we have an unparalleled opportunity to help shape the next generation of legal thought. I particularly appreciate the chance to explore emerging societal issues with students through the lens of law and technology. In my classes, we discuss novel technological issues ripped from the headlines, combined with philosophy and legal theory. I hope my students enter their careers with an understanding of how law, policy, and regulation intersect with technological development.

“While it was wonderful to be recognized with this award, the real honour is that my students took the time and energy to nominate me. I am grateful for the recognition!” – Dr. Katie Szilagyi

Slonosky is a practicing professional instructor and supervising lawyer on the L. Kerry Vickar Business Law Clinic management team. He brings to the Faculty of Law, years of practice experience as well as a deep commitment to experiential learning and professionalism that ensures the best possible training for Manitoba’s future generation of business lawyers. A graduate of the UM Faculty of Law himself, Slonosky holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) degree (1976), and an LLB (1979), as well as an MSc in Telecommunications from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He practiced law for nearly 40 years as an in-house corporate lawyer before joining the business clinical team at the Faculty of Law in 2021.

One of Slonosky’s nominators for the Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence for Sessional Instructors noted that his  “contributions to student development extend far beyond the classroom. Through my work, I’ve had the opportunity to develop skills in networking, public speaking, and representing our clinics in media interviews.”

Another letter of support mentioned, “his dedication to public service through the profession is unparalleled, and his work with students will undoubtedly instill these same values in future generations of lawyers.” 

Upon receiving the award, Slonosky thanked the Dean, the Faculty, and law students for the recognition. “It is a unique and  rewarding opportunity to be able to contribute to educating students participating in the L. Kerry Vickar Business Law Clinic and the Manitoba Legal Clinic for the Arts. With these clinics, we have created a learning environment that emulates a teaching law firm where students gain opportunities to experience actual legal practice with live-clients. Here, they develop practical skills and knowledge not acquired in other courses that are relevant in practice, so they are prepared, confident and will be superior performers during their articling year and future legal careers.” 

“The real award is being able to help students to become the best lawyers of tomorrow and serve pro bono clients who cannot afford legal assistance remotely across all of Manitoba today!” – Nick Slonosky

According to Slonosky, the clinical experiences he works to provide for students, are “all about personal growth, learning, acquiring knowledge where every student and all our clients are on their own unique journey towards success.”

Slonosky shared that in the past year, the clinics’ 22 externship students had a record-setting number of clients and performed a record number of pro bono hours. “We all learned a great deal together while helping others who cannot afford legal services,” he said.

The Faculty of Law is very proud of these two excellent instructors.

In seeking to further the understanding of the human experience of coerced and forced ignorance on social, human rights and criminal justice related topics, the editors of this book have drawn together scholars from multiple disciplinary fronts. As a whole, the book argues that people in our social world are forced or coerced through either implicatory or interpretive denial that is normalized through specific cultural and social mechanisms by which we refer to as non-knowledge or agnosis.

This book’s focus fills a gap in scholarship examining how human victimization and power intersect through the systematic orchestration of forced ignorance and doubt upon daily human life. The chapters examine the ways in which people find themselves in social spaces without empirical clarity and understand that absence as satisfaction, stability, or perhaps even pleasure. This book seeks to make visible the role of ignorance in governing society, highlighting how the late modern human experience in a post-World War II human rights era subsumes, subverts, and sublimates the complex relationship between knowledge and denial; and that the empirical gulf between knowledge and resistance may indeed breed complicit bliss.

The book includes chapters written by other UM Faculty of Law affiliated scholars including: Assistant Professor Martine Dennie, author of “You Just Roll with the Punches”: The Production of Ignorance in Professional Ice Hockey“; Gacek and Jochelson with former Associate Professor David Ireland [JD/2010; LLM/2014] (now a Manitoba Provincial Court judge), co-authors of “Gone, but Not Forgotten: The Agnotological Necropolitics of Inquest Fatality Reports“; Shawn Singh [JD/2022] and Assistant Professor Brandon Trask [JD/2012], co-authors of “Faded by Design: Manufacturing Agnosis of Settler-Colonialism in an Era of Indigenous Truth and Reconciliation in Canada“; Dr. Katie Szilagyi, author of “Fragmenting Epistemologies: Toward Philosophical Foundations for Machine Learning in Law“; and finally Shawn Singh and Brandon Trask individually with papers titled “Shortfalls of the Bioethical Approach to COVID-19: Vaccine Hesitancy, the Right to Choose and Public Health Management in Canada” (Singh); and “Call It Democracy: The Slippage Amongst Rights, Laws, and Values in Canada During the Pandemic Era” (Trask).

Upon the release of Justice in the Age of Agnosis Jochelson and Gacek addressed some questions regarding the need for this book at this time in this era of widespread access to information and widespread ignorance and misinformation.

What inspired you both to join forces to publish a book on this topic?

Gacek: During the height of the pandemic I watched how various conspiracy theorists seemed to be gaining traction on social media. I, like the rest of the world, was concerned about the uncertainties of Covid-19, but I was also alarmed with how misinformation was being weaponized to attack scientists, academics, and health care practitioners. Speaking to Richard on these topics, we agreed that this production of non-knowledge, or the avoidance of knowledge, seemed to leach into other areas of our social world – like how those who are climate change deniers could also potentially deny the benefits of vaccines, or believed that if they ‘did their own research’ on vaccines they would end up realizing a ‘New World Order’ was coming to replace them (i.e., where we see inklings of white nationalist thought).

[W]e felt it necessary to question whether ignorance was indeed blissful, or if the production of non-knowledge or said avoidance would worsen the conditions of already marginalized populations more so than the privileged. – Dr. James Gacek, Department of Justice, University of Regina

As an academic I’m not immune to hate mail on my justice research and teachings, but even I couldn’t believe the correspondence I received during the pandemic, with the rationales some individuals used to suggest the examples above were facts! Climate change denial, anti-vax conspiracy, white nationalism… the list goes on, but how firmly rooted these perspectives are in these people is where the ruminations on the book began. These people, whether they peddle in ignorance claims or are victims to said claims (or both), exist, and Richard and I became fascinated with them. [This was] where we set out to conceive the book.

Richard and I have worked on projects for a few years now, and given our interdisciplinary research relationship, we felt it necessary to question whether ignorance was indeed blissful, or if the production of non-knowledge or said avoidance would worsen the conditions of already marginalized populations more so than the privileged. Agnotology – the study of ignorance, misinformation, and following on, conspiracy—is a new area for us, but it is where we felt we needed to be having this discussion alongside other pertinent and cognate disciplines like law, socio-legal studies, criminology, and criminal justice (among others). Our discussion slowly evolved into where we assert in the book we are living in now: the Age of Agnosis; the political warfare and weaponization of non-knowledge and avoidance of knowledge to harm people in our world.

Jochelson: I was interested in the seeming disconnect between empiricism and the growing spiritual claims of both the left and right of the political spectrum. This is something I had commented on in 2016 upon USA presidential elections and it was a good example of how the left reacted to that election almost spiritually in its conception of repugnancy of the result. I noted that the left was making claims that were echoing some of the right’s moralistic reasoning during the 1980s.

There seems to be a late modern anxiety about waiting for science, law or disciplinary skill to yield a final result, and we seem to be advocating, shouting down and calling out each other, increasingly and at times, in a vacuum of empirical findings. In other words, in a state of ignorance. – Dr. Richard Jochelson, Dean of Law, University of Manitoba

I had always viewed the left of the spectrum as prizing evidence-based practice. In the intervening years, spiritual polarization between left and right has increasingly mobilized social movements. The Pandemic is a good example, with true believers on both sides of the political spectrum.  There seems to be a late modern anxiety about waiting for science, law or disciplinary skill to yield a final result, and we seem to be advocating, shouting down and calling out each other, increasingly and at times, in a vacuum of empirical findings. In other words, in a state of ignorance. 

What audience can benefit from the knowledge contained in this book and how?

Gacek: A wide range of readers can benefit from this book! Of course, we know undergraduate and graduate students, but also scholars, policy workers, and community activists would benefit from a fresh lens on world issues like what we incorporate here. Justice impacts all in society, but not all equally; how ignorance, misinformation, and conspiracy not only takes root but insidiously pervades our world needs to be further understood.

Jochelson: Agnosis knows no politics. From political actors through to people with main character syndrome, I think readers should challenge their views by reading the book, which contains views across a reasoned political spectrum.

What solutions to the problems of oppression and ignorance does this book offer?

Gacek: It would be easy for us to say that education, like sunlight, would be the best disinfectant to shine light upon what we don’t know – but as agnosis teaches us, the politics of ignorance is profitable. Our contributors, in various ways, demonstrate that it is not just education that we need; we need compassion and empathy for the marginalized; strong legal mechanisms to hold those tasked in the political and private spheres accountable, especially those who peddle in hate and conspiratorial claims; and better ways to reconcile with traumatic histories that still play into contemporary realities for many marginalized groups in society.

Jochelson: I think we need to return to evidence-based practice whether it is the fuel that drives advocacy, social movements or law reform. We need to learn to drop straw person arguments and tether ourselves to the technologies of something more objective than blind belief or wilful spiritualism.

Do the ideas presented in this book scratch the surface of this area of legal research or is there more work to be done in this area?

Gacek: Our book endeavours to challenge readers on how they gain their knowledge of the world, on how we think about accountability for ignorance production, and on the longstanding harms marginalized peoples continuously face because of agnosis. The potential to have a more informed and empathetic world is real, and our book is a starting point for this discussion.

Jochelson: I think it is an opening salvo. I would challenge all social science, humanities and socio-legal scholars to ask themselves about the objective foundations of their arguments. To the extent that their labour is emotional or spiritual, an objective tethering point ought to at least frame the analysis so we engage in critical analysis apprised of the best information.

The course and all students involved in Desautels Centre-related activities fall under the supervision of Dr. Virginia Torrie, Associate Dean (Juris Doctor Program). “The Desautels Review is an excellent opportunity for students to learn about the mechanics of scholarly publishing. It is also great to see students actively involved with the Desautels Centre – it is a unique experience for them to be involved with building something with both academic and scholarly dimensions.”

Students currently enrolled in the Desautels Review course are close to publish the inaugural issue, and are thankful for the dedication and guidance of the new editorial board consisting of professors, alumni and internationally-respected legal scholars. The Review’s rolling call for submissions accepts academic articles focusing on the integration of business, law, and the humanities as they apply to family-controlled and other private enterprises in Canada.

“What we learned at school is not just some text, but a useful tool to solve problems in daily life.” – Xiyuan Feng, 2L

Xiyuan Feng is a second-year law student currently engaged in doing work for the Desautels Centre. “Through this work, I found so much fun in commercial law,” said Feng. “I am very grateful for the opportunity of sitting in the commercial symposium, which introduced so many interesting ideas and inspired me to explore more afterwards. Through writing the blogs, I start to think how to use the law to help people.”

To encourage law students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, and early-career practitioners across Canada to conduct research in this area of law, the Review launched two paper competitions. The deadline for doctoral candidates is February 28, 2022, and the deadline for JD students is June 17, 2022.

A National Business Law Network is emerging through the Centre’s initiatives, and law students at Robson Hall are forming clinical connections through the L. Kerry Vickar Business Law Clinic. Conference and research opportunities are starting to be announced, and the Faculty can already boast the formation of a Desautels Research Cluster consisting of Professors Jennifer Schulz and Darcy MacPherson, Associate Professor Virginia Torrie, and Assistant Professors Bruce Curran, Krish Maharaj, and Katie Szilagyi.

The Desautels Centre will host visiting scholar Dr. Matthew J. Bellamy, an associate professor at Carleton University, on January 25, 2022 at 12:00 p.m. as the inaugural speaker for the Annual Desautels Lecture Series. Dr. Bellamy will discuss parts of his new book, Brewed in the North: A History of Labatt’s in a talk titled “Family Firm to Managerial Enterprise: Three Generations of Labatt’s and the Bootlegging Manager-Entrepreneur Who Saved the Brewery from Prohibition.”

The Desautels Centre’s mandate is to integrate the disciplines of law, business and the humanities as they apply to family-controlled and other private enterprises.

Follow the Desautels Centre and the Desautels Review on Twitter @DesautelsCentre and @DesautelsReviewand on LinkedIn at The Marcel A. Desautels Centre for Private Enterprise and the Law and Desautels Review of Private Enterprise and the Law.

Meanwhile, the boxy pile of concrete still stood as it has for 52 years, with Professor John Irvine pacing its halls preparing his lectures, while other faculty and staff popped in and out on occasion, all masked and waving greetings, relieved to see actual people in-person. Dr. Richard Jochelson, once installed as the new Dean, became a stalwart fixture in the big corner office. And things began to change.

Looking back over 2021, here is a list of significant evidence of changes coming to Robson Hall with related UM Today stories, heralding a bright future:

Answering the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Call to Action #28

1. Formation of the Truth & Reconciliation Action Team 
2. Passing of the mandatory upper-year course, “Indigenous Methodologies and Perspectives” 
3. Hiring of alumnus Marc Kruse as Indigenous Student Support Coordinator
4. Ongoing updates to Law course calendar to reflect commitment to CTA 28 on a course-by-course level 
5. Call for applications for an Indigenous Professor (please share job posting)
6. Development of a new Indigenous Clinical Experience 
7. Improved 1L orientation to include CTA 28 and legal ethics content
8. Hosted a second session of the Indigenous People and the Criminal Justice System workshop for practicing bar plus 40 law students 
9. Sponsored about 30 students to attend the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice’s Indigenous Peoples and the Law conference

See UM Today Stories:

• Faculty of Law introduces new Indigenous Student Support Coordinator
• Faculty of Law takes major steps to answer Call to Action 28
• Faculty of Law to offer new mandatory Indigenous course

Expanding Clinical Learning Opportunities, Business Law, and Bilingual program

1. Increased investment in the L. Kerry Vickar Business Law Clinic
2. Developing Room 113 (former storage room) into a new clinical space
3. Expanding the Desautels Centre for Private International Law to include blogs, case reporter, peer reviewed journal, conference and paper sponsorship and student support
4. Passing of a concentration in Private Enterprise & the Law
5. Passing of a concentration in Access to Justice Bilingual program
6. Expanding the University of Manitoba Community Law Centre (UMCLC)
7. Addition of a net year’s worth of four full-time staff forming a clinical team of instructors and professors

See UM Today Stories:

• Faculty of Law moves forward with plans for Desautels Legal Research Fund
• Kerry Vickar Business Law Clinic goes virtual
• Legal Help Centre unites law students, alumni for common goals
• Achieving access to justice through language
• Access to Justice French Endowment Fund established to help train law students

Hiring new professors and staff

1. Two new professors were hired in the spring
2. In addition to the new Indigenous Student Support person, a new Admissions Officer was hired in the summer
3. Two new instructors were hired this fall
4. The search for the Mauro Chair in Human Rights and Social Justice has concluded and will be announced in the new year
5. It goes without saying but bears repeating that the Faculty appointed a new Dean of Law, Dr. Richard Jochelson, who took office on July 1, 2021.
6. The Faculty also appointed a new Associate, JD Program, Dr. Virginia Torrie, with Dr. Donn Short continuing in his term as Associate Dean, Research and Graduate Studies

See UM Today Stories:

• Faculty of Law welcomes Assistant Professors Martine Dennie and Katie Szilagyi
• An essential service: Robson Hall’s Admissions and Financial Aid office
• Familiar faces form new team at faculty of Law Dean’s Office
• Running down a dream of law school

 Administrative, Building, and Community Improvements

1. Four classrooms have been prepared with videoconferencing capabilities in anticipation of a partial return to in-person teaching and learning
2. Faculty council has completed an initial study of bylaws and is preparing them for modernization
3. Despite Labour Action and pandemic, the Faculty successfully preserved the schedule for Winter term to keep students on track for graduation and timely commencement of articles
4. Forging of strong links with the Law Society of Manitoba with announcements coming 
5. Ongoing provision of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) seminars with more planned for next term

Mental Health supports and initiatives

1. Ongoing – Student Counselling Centre services have provided two imbedded counsellors for law students to have one-on-one counselling appointment (virtual). When SCC counsellors were not, available, students were connected with Empower Me for virtual counselling support.
2. A Mindfulness presentation given virtually by Dr. Thomas G.W. Telfer of Western Law was part of the 1L Orientation on September 3.
3. A “Mask and Learn” lunchtime talk with Professor Brandon Trask took place September 14 on the topic of protecting one’s mental health as a lawyer. The in-person event featured tips for law students to carry into practice to guard their mental health and help reduce the overall stigma of mental health issues in workplace.
4. A Presentation by Shannon Daniels (therapist for MB Justice) and Carolyn Reimer (MB Crown Attorney) occurred October 22 over Zoom. Discussion was regarding general risks faced by law students and lawyers regarding mental health issues and stress, how to recognize the signs of stress and trauma, how stress/trauma impact your work, how to deal with stress, the competitiveness of law, imposter syndrome and how to deal with same.
5. Rebecca Bromwich, EDI manager at Gowling joined us via Zoom on November 23 to give a Mental Health First Aid presentation. This was an overview for students, staff and faculty of the basics of mental health, how to notice mental health issues in others, what to do/not do to provide assistance to someone who experiencing a mental health crisis.
6. Shannon Daniels and Carolyn Reimer returned virtually to give a presentation to Assistant Professor David Ireland’s Legal Profession and Professional Responsibility class at the end of term on December 10. Assistant Professor Brandon Trask moderated class discussion. The presentation included practical pointers for law students and lawyers to deal with stress and vicarious trauma related issues. 

Celebrating Accomplishments of Faculty, Students, and Alumni

1. In addition to online teaching, many professors have continued to publish their research throughout the pandemic
2. Students have persevered, competing in moot competitions online, and taking part in extracurricular academic and career-related activities to their benefit
3. We have been increasingly reaching out to our alumni to see what kind of impact their legal educations have had on their careers and their communities

See UM Today Stories:

Professors

• Law professors engage in cross-Canada collaboration on law and disability case book
• Supreme Court of Canada cites law professor’s book in key Human Rights Case
• UM Law Students’ Associate Dean (JD) behind globally-recognized law review
• New book fills gap in research on perpetrators of genocide
• Law Faculty members share knowledge in plain sight and plain language
• Law professor’s accessible first book earns global attention, local award nomination
• Law professor wins Law of Work best paper prize
• COVID and the Constitution

Students

• An education with impact
• What makes you stronger
• Shawn Singh and the President’s Student Leadership Program
• WFP: From the streets to the courtroom
• Manitoba Faculty of Law teams shine at fifth annual Canadian National Negotiation Competition
• Moot News: Team Manitoba takes 3^rd place in National 2021 Sopinka Cup
• Mooting Matters
• Manitoba’s Gale Cup Team places third after decade-long shutout
• Rising to the Charter Challenge
• Celebrating Faculty of Law class of 2021 graduates

Alumni

• Living with law and art
• Memories of Robson Hall
• Delightful conversations and stirring memories: Law Homecoming 2021
• Faculty of Law alumna turns class assignment into TV script
• Alumnus creates scholarship for Black Law Students
• New scholarship fund to honour UM Law alumnus Darius Maharaj Hunter
• Faculty of Law congratulates Professor Emeritus Philip H. Osborne

Martine Dennie

Martine Dennie obtained a Juris Doctor degree at the Université de Moncton in New Brunswick, a Master of Arts in Sociology at Laurentian University in Sudbury (Violence in Hockey: A Social and Legal Perspective), and is currently completing a PhD in Sociology at the University of Calgary on The Legality of Violence in Ice Hockey: Risk Assumption and Consent in the Playing Culture of North American Hockey Leagues. Her work has been published in a number of peer-reviewed journals and she has given numerous conference publications on violence and liability in hockey. At the University of Calgary, she has been a research associate in the Department of Sociology where she taught courses in the Sociology of Law, and Socio-Legal Issues in Sport. She has also taught courses in Gender, Sexuality, and Sport and Socio-Cultural Aspects of Sports for Calgary’s Faculty of Kinesiology.

Katie Szilagyi

Katie Szilagyi comes to us from the University of Ottawa where she is completing a PhD in Law and Technology on Artificial Intelligence & the Machine-ations of the Rule of Law. Her area of specialty is law and technology, artificial intelligence, privacy law, and autonomous weapons. Originally a University of Manitoba alumna with a BSc in Biosystems Engineering, Ms. Szilagyi completed her Juris Doctor degree at the University of Ottawa with joint specializations in International Law and Technology, later obtaining her Master of Laws in the same from Tel Aviv University. Currently a Part-Time Professor at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law, she has taught courses in Contract Law, Privacy Law, Law and Technology, and Intellectual Property Advocacy. Szilagyi previously clerked at the Federal Court of Appeal in Ottawa and practiced litigation at a large national firm in Toronto. Her work has been published in a number of peer-reviewed journals and she has given presentations and guest lectures on various technological themes in the law at universities in Heidelberg, New Haven, Montreal, Prague, Rio de Janeiro, and Sao Paulo.