Professor Haak holds a BA(Hons) from Western University, an LLB from the University of New Brunswick, an MPhil from the University of St Andrews, Scotland, and a PhD from Queen’s University. Dr Haak’s research focusses on how the state contends with interests, rights, and values in tension. She is particularly interested in how courts and policymakers contend with women’s rights in tension, and in the intersection of law and evidence about the social world. For more than a decade, Professor Haak has closely examined Canada’s criminal prostitution laws and claims those laws violate sex workers’ rights. Her work on this subject has been cited by the Supreme Court of Canada and published in journals including the Supreme Court Law Review, the UBC Law Review, the Queen’s Law Journal, and the Canadian Journal of Women and Law. Her current SSHRC funded research project – Sex in the Age of Gender - looks at how the integration of gender (identity) into the human rights landscape in Canada may impact how we understand and protect women’s rights.

Professor Haak serves as co-director of Feminist Legal Studies Queen’s, an interdisciplinary research group that critically examines how legal systems and practices have excluded, devalued, or harmed women and other marginalized groups. She teaches Criminal Law, Constitutional Law, and Feminist Legal Studies. Her research and teaching draw on 20 years of practice experience as a commercial litigator and partner at a large multi-service law firm in Toronto. Professor Haak's research has been supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Canadian Bar Association Law for the Future Fund, and the Queen’s Law Research Fund. Her teaching at Queen’s has been recognized with the Queen’s University, Society of Graduate and Professional Students, John G. Freeman Faculty Excellence Award (2019) and the Stanley M Corbett Award for Excellence in Teaching (2024). 

Research

Dr Haak’s research is motivated by a concern over how law and policy in Canada contend with the different and at times divergent interests of individuals and groups in a diverse society. Differently situated individuals and groups increasingly make conflicting demands on the state, often framing demands in the language of rights. Legal decision makers, including judges and policy makers, make difficult choices between and among individuals and groups in a liberal and constitutional legal context. They increasingly rely on empirical and theoretical scholarship. Dr Haak’s research considers how substantive and procedural aspects of constitutional cases influence how legal decision makers reconcile interests, rights, and values in tension. Drawing on 20 years of practice experience, Dr Haak approaches her research through the conceptual and analytical lens of interest focussed legal problem-solving – an example of the study of law in context she calls “thinking like a practicing lawyer.”

Alongside her scholarly publications, Dr Haak's work has appeared in The Globe & Mail, National Post, Ottawa Citizen, CBC News, CTV News, and The Conversation. 

Articles

Selected Recent Presentations

  • “When Violence Against Women is Called Sex: Common Law Limits on Consent to Bodily Harm”, Joint Conference of the LEX Network, Violence Against Women and Girls Research Network, Feminist Legal Research and Action Network, and the Centre for the Study of Emotion and Law, University of Liverpool, UK, 2025
  • “Equality Unspoken: A Critical Examination of Constitutional Decisions on Criminal Prostitution Laws”, Multidimensional Equality: The 40th Anniversary of the Coming into Force of Section 15, College of Law, University of Saskatchewan, 2025
  • “Let’s Talk about Sex (and Gender)”, The Association for the Study of Law, Culture and the Humanities Annual Conference, Georgetown University, Washington DC, 2025
  • “Sex in the Age of Gender: Conceptual Clarity as a Foundation for Reconciling the Interests, Rights, and Experiences of Women, Transgender, and Gender Nonconforming People in Canada”, Joint Conference of the LEX Network, Violence Against Women and Girls Research Network, Feminist Legal Research and Action Network, and the Centre for the Study of Emotion and Law, University of Liverpool, UK, 2024
  • “Sex and the Status of Women”, Canadian Law and Society Association Annual Meeting, Université du Québec à Montréal, 2024
  • “Social Change, Times of Upheaval, and Legal Education”, Law and Society Association Annual Meeting, Denver, USA, 2024
  • “Thinking Like a Practicing Lawyer as a Legal Research Methodology”, Canadian Association of Law Teachers Annual Conference, University of New Brunswick, 2024
  • “Exploring Connections Between Research and Teaching in Criminal Law”, Canadian Association of Law Teachers Annual Conference, University of New Brunswick, 2024
  • “Whose (Vision of) Equality Matters (Most): Equality Arguments About the Constitutionality of Canada’s Criminal Commercial Sex Laws”, The Association for the Study of Law, Culture and the Humanities Annual Conference, University of Toronto, 2023
  • “The Commercial Exchange of Consent: Potential Implications of a Market for Sexual Touching on Criminal Sexual Assault Laws in Canada”, Canadian Law and Society Association Annual Meeting, Toronto, 2023
  • “Criminal Prostitution Laws and Sex Workers’ Rights: Rethinking the Analytical Distinction Between Section 7 and Section 1”, CLF Annual Symposium on Religion, Law and Human Rights, Peter A Allard School of Law, UBC, 2022
  • “From Bedford to NS: Revisiting the Constitutionality of Commercial Sex Laws in Canada”, University of British Columbia, Peter A Allard School of Law, UBC, Centre for Feminist Legal Studies, 2022 

Book Reviews

Research

  • Interests, Rights and Values in Tension
  • Women’s Rights
  • Sex Laws
  • Constitutional Law and Litigation
  • Human Rights Law