Knutsen Applauds Queen's Law's "Standard of Care"

Photo By: Bernard Clark

Professor Erik Knutsen joined Queen's Law in 2006.

This is the first of a three-part series featuring new professors who joined Queen's Law in 2006.

A former professor and guest lecturer at American and Canadian law schools, Erik Knutsen brings a comparative perspective to his classes at Queen's.  Knutsen was a practising lawyer for firms in New York, Toronto and Thunder Bay, before returning to a career in academia at Florida State University in 2005.  He holds an LL.B. from Osgoode Hall Law School and an LL.M. from Harvard Law School. 

Knutsen emphasized the role of students in convincing him to make the transition from law firm associate to full-time professor. "I learn more in my classes from my students - with a question here or a thought there or a challenge there - than I would by reading 10 academic articles a day," he said.

Knutsen, who taught Torts and Civil Procedure in 2006-07, developed an interest in tort law because he is fascinated by stories of "the wrong people in the wrong places." However, in his first year as a professor at Queen's Law, he says that he saw lots of the right people in the right place.

"Queen's Law is a fabulous place with the most amazing people - everybody comes in thinking they're going to change the world, with an idea to change the world," he said. "And it makes this job the best job in the world."

Knutsen is equally impressed by the contribution of the administrative staff at Queen's Law. "Everybody cares and everybody has a personal touch. They help the faculty do their job a lot better."

In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Knutsen is currently immersed in a number of scholarly enterprises. By employing an inter-disciplinary framework that incorporates sociological and psychological data, he is studying tort lawsuits brought by motorists who are injured in motor vehicle collisions that resulted from police suspect apprehension pursuits. This project was selected by Dean William Flanagan for funding allocated through the BLG Research Fellowship. Knutsen is also researching how insurance should respond to complicated accident situations that are triggered by more than one cause. He has recently completed a draft of a new casebook, Canadian Insurance Law.

Queen's students are fortunate to have a professor with as much dedication and enthusiasm for his job as Erik Knutsen.

For more information about Professor Knutsen, see his faculty profile at http://law.queensu.ca/facultyAndStaff/facultyProfiles/knutsen.html.