Welcome to Queen’s Law!
At Queen’s, we think small is beautiful: our LLM and PhD programs are intimate and friendly, which means our graduate students can enjoy meaningful, ongoing relationships with their supervisors, our other faculty members, and—perhaps most importantly—each other. Our size offers other advantages, too: most of our students live within walking distance from both the law school and Kingston’s charming downtown. Students find Kingston relatively free from distractions and comparatively affordable. For our mature students, it offers excellent public schools for your children and a greater range of work opportunities for spouses than you would expect for a city of its size. At the same time, we’re commuting distance from Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal, with their many cultural and academic offerings. Life at Queen’s means having the best of small-town living without sacrificing access to what big cities provide.
What isn’t small is the scope of expertise of our faculty. Our professors, ranging from world-renowned leaders in their fields to younger rising stars, represent a wealth of knowledge and experience. Queen’s Law is home to the leading Canadian research centre on labour and employment law (the Centre for Law in the Contemporary Workplace), an innovative program on legal and political thought (anchored by our Canada Research Chair in Public Law and Philosophy of Law), and two recently-endowed professorships in business law. Other professors conduct primary research, shape policy, and lead change through their own diverse research agendas. We have particular depth in philosophy of law/legal theory, labour and employment, public and constitutional law, international law, and business law, but our faculty can supervise graduate students working in a far wider range of subjects.
We support our students through to the completion of degrees and beyond, to put them on a path to future success. Queen’s Law offers guaranteed funding packages to all accepted students, and many of our domestic scholars are successful in applying for SSHRC and other national awards. We also assist our international students with applications for Ontario Graduate Scholarships and other awards. At Queen’s, the Law Faculty offers opportunities for some graduate students to teach JD or undergraduate courses, and provides seminars for graduate students on useful topics such as presenting your work at conferences and promoting your research through social media. The Law Faculty’s fabulous Graduate Program Coordinator, Dianne Flint, works full time supporting our graduate students. A newly-renovated dedicated graduate workroom, part of our Learning Commons, provides graduates students with space in the law school for work, socializing, and the occasional nap.
Beyond the Law Faculty, the Queen’s School of Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs, the Society of Graduate and Professional Students, the Centre for Teaching and Learning, the International Centre, and the Writing Centre all help to provide graduate students with the academic, financial, emotional, and social support they need to succeed. For example, the School of Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs offers its ever-popular “dissertation bootcamps” that help graduates students complete their theses on time while staying sane, and many Law Faculty graduate students take advantage of the Centre for Teaching and Learning’s many resources to help them build their teaching skills.
Graduates of our LLM and PhD programs have made their mark in legal scholarship, practice, and public service over the past four decades. Our graduates can be found on the law faculties of most Canadian universities and in law schools outside Canada as well. They work in private practice, as counsel to international organizations and NGOs, as legal and policy advisors to governments, and as mediators, arbitrators, and judges. Will you join their ranks?
I hope to see you in Kingston!
Joshua Karton, BA, JD, PhD
Associate Dean (Graduate Studies and Research)
