Patricia Cochran

Associate Professor

Patricia Cochran

Dr. Patricia Cochran joined the Faculty of Law, University of Victoria as Assistant Professor in 2014, where she has taught constitutional law, equality and human rights law, statutory interpretation and evidence law.   She has received graduate degrees in law and political theory, and continues to teach and research at the intersection of those disciplines.  Her research focuses on theories of judgment as a resource for thinking about the demands of law and justice in the context of pluralism, inequality and colonialism.

Prof. Cochran’s book, Common Sense and Legal Judgment: Community Knowledge, Political Power and Rhetorical Practice (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2017) is a critical and interdisciplinary engagement with questions of judgment, knowledge and rhetoric.  This interest in legal judgment, and particularly its relational aspects, has continued to inform Prof. Cochran’s research.  She is currently exploring these themes in a variety of subject areas including algorithmic decision-making, the relationship between jurisdictions in the provision of social services, and practices of multijural statutory interpretation.

Prof. Cochran has also practiced administrative and poverty law in British Columbia, and actively participates in social justice organizations on Vancouver Island.