Michelle Lawrence
Associate Professor
Director, Access to Justice Centre for Excellence
Michelle Lawrence
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Michelle Lawrence |
Faculty of Law University of Victoria PO Box 1700, STN CSC Victoria, BC V8W 2Y2 Map |
I am the Director of the Access to Justice Centre for Excellence (“ACE”) at the University of Victoria. ACE is a research centre with a focus on applied research and practical scholarship. It seeks to provide provincial and national leadership in research and teaching related to access to justice.
My own research focuses on criminal law and evidence. I have a particular interest in the question of whether, or the extent to which, the law itself might operate as a barrier to access to justice for vulnerable populations. I have explored this question across different case types, including cases involving allegations of co-occurring substance use and mental disorder on the part of an accused person, cases of excess force on the part of police, and cases of sexual violence.
My work has been published in leading law and criminology journals, including the Canadian Bar Review, Canadian Criminal Law Review, Criminal Law Quarterly and Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice. I am on the editorial team for Canada’s first open-access casebook on criminal law, entitled Criminal Law: Canadian Law, Indigenous Laws & Critical Perspectives. In addition, I am a primary contributor to Canadian Criminal Jury Instructions. I previously contributed the sentencing law content to the Annual Review of Criminal Law.
I hold graduate degrees in law and criminology, including a Masters of Law from the University of Cambridge and Ph.D. (Criminology) from Simon Fraser University. I completed my doctoral work as a Trudeau Scholar.
Since joining the Faculty of Law in 2013, I have twice been honoured to receive the Terry J. Wuester Teaching Award. I have held two Associate Dean appointments. I also have served as chair of the UVic Senate Committee on Appeals and as Associate Director of the FREDA Research Centre on Violence Against Women and Children.
I previously practiced law as a partner at a national law firm. My practice was based in Vancouver and comprised a diverse range of matters, including civil disputes, complex regulatory proceedings and criminal litigation. I worked under the mentorship of leading litigator, Leonard T. Doust, Q.C. I currently sit as an Alternate Chair of the B.C. Review Board.
- BA – Western Ontario (1994)
- LLB – UVic (1998)
- LLM – Cambridge (2002) (Pegasus Scholar)
- MA (Criminology) – SFU (2009)
- PhD (Criminology) – SFU (2014) (Trudeau Scholar)
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Criminal Law: Canadian Law, Indigenous Laws & Critical Perspectives, Canadian Legal Information Institute, 2023 CanLIIDocs 316 (with B. Perrin, D. Milward & M. McCallum).
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Canadian Criminal Jury Instructions (Vancouver, BC: Continuing Legal Education Society of British Columbia) (with G. Ferguson and M. Dambrot) (2022 Update).
- “A Canadian Perspective” in M. van der Wolf, ed, Safeguarding the Quality of Forensic Assessment in Sentencing: A Review Across Western Nations (London, UK: Routledge, 2022) (with D. Morgan).
- Canadian Criminal Jury Instructions (Vancouver, BC: Continuing Legal Education Society of British Columbia) (with G. Ferguson and M. Dambrot) (2021 Update).
- Canadian Criminal Jury Instructions (Vancouver, BC: Continuing Legal Education Society of British Columbia) (with G. Ferguson and M. Dambrot) (2020 Update).
- Annual Review of Criminal Law 2019 (Toronto, ON: Thomson Reuters, 2020) (with S. Couglan & R. Currie) (responsible for Chapter 5 on Sentencing).
- “Similar Fact Evidence & Crime Linkage Analysis: In Search of an Empirical Foundation to Support the Identity Inference” (2019) 24 Cdn Crim LR 5.
- Annual Review of Criminal Law 2018 (Toronto, ON: Thomson Reuters, 2019 (with S. Couglan & R. Currie) (responsible for Chapter 5 on Sentencing).
- Annual Review of Criminal Law 2017 (Toronto, ON: Thomson Reuters, 2018) (with S. Couglan & R. Currie) (responsible for Chapter 5 on Sentencing).
- “Voluntary Intoxication and the Charter: Revisiting the Constitutionality of Section 33.1 of the Criminal Code” (2017) 40:3 Man LJ 389 (Inaugural Special Edition on Canadian Criminal Law).
- “From Defect to Dangerous: Has the Door Opened for Recognition of an Addition-based Defence in Canadian Criminal Law?” (2017) 59:4 Cdn J Crim & CJ 572.
- "Restitution & Restorative Justice: A Call for the Expansion and Increased Use of Criminal Restitution Orders at Sentencing” in J. Desrosier et al, eds., Réformer le droit criminel au Canada : défis et possibilités / Criminal Law Reform in Canada: Challenges and Possibilities (Toronto, ON: Thomson Reuters, 2017).
- Annual Review of Criminal Law 2016 (Toronto: Thomson Reuters, 2017) (with S. Couglan & R. Currie).
- Annual Review of Criminal Law 2015 (Toronto: Thomson Reuters, 2016) (with S. Coughlan & G. Ferguson).
- “Drug-Induced Psychosis: Overlooked Obiter Dicta in Bouchard-Lebrun” (2016) 32 CR (7th) 151.
- "Looking the Gift Horse in the Mouth: An Examination of the Canadian Approach to Criminal Restitution in cases of Sexual Violence" (2016) 20 C.C.L.R. 209.
- “Blurred Lines of Intoxication & Insanity: An Examination of the Treatment at Law of Accused Persons Found to have Committed Criminal Acts while in States of Substance-Associated Psychosis, where Intoxication was Voluntary” (2016) 93 Cdn Bar Rev. 1 (with S. N. Verdun-Jones).
- “Delusions of Justice: Results of Qualitative Research on the Management in British Columbia of Cases Involving Allegations of Substance-Induced Psychosis” (2015) 14 Crim LQ 499 (with S.N. Verdun-Jones).
- Criminal Law Process - LAW 102
- Legal Process - LAW 106
- Criminial Law II - Law 302
- Criminal Law Term - LAW 304
- Law, Theory & Practices of Sentencing - LAW 305
- Law of Evidence - LAW 309
- ACE Innovation Lab - Law 343