Pascale Cornut St-Pierre is an Associate Professor at the Civil Law Section, specializing in corporate law, financial law and the sociology of law. Her research explores the impact of economic globalization on the law, the evolution of contractual techniques within the financial sector, and the nature and regulation of financial crimes. She has also made important contributions to studying the strategies that business communities use to develop and mobilize laws affecting their fields of activity. This work is both highly innovative and wholly relevant to current commercial practice. Professor Cornut St-Pierre’s scholarship is deeply interdisciplinary, engaging the fields of economic sociology, legal philosophy and political economy in addition to multiple sub-fields within law.
Professor Cornut St-Pierre is a co-director of the Observatoire pluridisciplinaire sur le devenir du droit privé at the University of Ottawa and an affiliate member of the Centre for Environmental Law and Global Sustainability. She is also an associate member of the Perelman Centre for Legal Philosophy at the Université libre de Bruxelles and an affiliate researcher with the Canadian Climate Law Initiative. Since 2021, she has been a member of the editorial board and responsible for French-language book reviews for the Canadian Journal of Law and Society | La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société. Before joining the Civil Law Section, Professor Cornut St-Pierre worked at the Collège universitaire de Sciences Po, in Paris, and at McGill University's Faculty of Law.
Professor Jennifer Quaid served in the role of Vice-Dean of Research for a three-year period beginning in July 2021. She guided researchers through the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic and helped to restore a sense of normalcy as the pandemic receded and our community returned to the uOttawa campus. Among her many roles and achievements, she notably oversaw the Section’s “Cycle annuel de conférences sur la recherche en droit” and organized the 2022 Autumn School on the Methodology of Research in Law. These events helped to bring researchers back together in Fauteux Hall after several long periods of isolation and virtual meetings. Most recently, she was involved in the scientific organization of the 2024 Acfas Conference, helping to ensure a rich program representing all sectors of research.
More recently, Professor Quaid has helped to establish several important partnerships that are facilitating exciting new possibilities for our researchers. In 2023, for example, she participated in the first “École internationale d’innovation juridique” in Lyon, France, fostering a fruitful partnership with the Faculté de droit Julie-Victoire Daubié de l’Université Lumière Lyon 2. Earlier this year, she oversaw the signing of an historic research agreement between the University of Ottawa and the Pan American Health Organization, which is creating new opportunities for Indigenous-led health research. And just last month, she welcomed a delegation from Legal Affairs Division of the Prime Minister’s Department of Malaysia and from the Universiti Malaya for an international discussion on the topic of prosecutorial discretion and independence.
The Civil Law Section extends its most sincere gratitude to Professor Quaid for her invaluable contributions as Vice-Dean and offers a warm welcome to Professor Cornut St-Pierre as she embarks on her new role.