Kong Impressed by Queen's Law's Collegiality

Photo By Bernard Clark

Professor Hoi Kong joined Queen's Law in 2006.

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

Queen's Law welcomed Hoi Kong, a former law clerk to Justices L'Heureux-Dubé and Deschamps of the Supreme Court of Canada, as a new faculty member in July 2006. With interests in municipal and constitutional law, Kong is completing J.S.D. requirements at Columbia University where he obtained an LL.M. degree.

After teaching as an Associate in Law from 2003 until 2006 at Columbia in New York City, the adjustment to small-town life was made much easier by the collegial environment Kong encountered when he arrived at Queen's Law.

"There's a real esprit de corps," he said of working on the Queen's Law faculty. "One of the things that really impressed me when I came to do my interviews here was how pleasant and nice the environment seemed to be. And it really has turned out to be that way."

Kong, who received LL.B. and B.C.L. degrees from McGill Law School before studying and teaching at Columbia, is amazed by the quality of student life he has witnessed at Queen's. "What has really struck me is how happy the law students are - it really seems like they genuinely like one another. They get along, they do things together."

As someone whose work encompasses several related fields, Kong is proud to be within a stone's throw of some of the best policy studies and urban and regional planning programs in North America. "It's a great intellectual community," he said. "There's a lot of richness here [at Queen's University]."

In terms of legal publications, Kong is keeping himself very busy, writing a number of papers related to constitutional law. He recently submitted an article about diversity in legal education, which adapts his constitutional law framework, and applies it to issues of multiculturalism and freedom of expression in the university setting. Also, he is currently writing a paper which explores some of the big issues in contemporary Canadian federalism.

Kong is relentless in his pursuit of excellence from his students. He comes to his classes prepared not just to teach, but to engage in meaningful discussion with his students. This dedication even extends outside of class time, where he encourages his students to get together with him for coffee to help them grapple with difficult concepts or just to chat about the law. "I think it's important to expect a lot of your students, and let them rise to it."