More than four years after his passing, Professor Arthur (Art) Cockfield, Law’93, continues to influence tax scholarship, legal education, and the broader tax community.
Last September, that influence brought together leading tax scholars from Canada, the United States, New Zealand, England, Portugal, and Poland for the Arthur Cockfield Memorial Symposium, “Tax Sovereignty in a Digital and Divided World,” held in Toronto.
Organized by Professor Jinyan Li, LLM’87, of Osgoode Hall Law School with an inter-university committee that included Queen’s Law professors Gail Henderson and Ivan Ozai, the symposium assembled academics, practitioners, policymakers, former students, colleagues, and family members to honour Cockfield’s legacy while exploring contemporary issues in international taxation.
The Scholar
Li, a long-time collaborator and friend, described Cockfield as “the man with big ideas,” noting that the symposium’s broad focus on tax sovereignty reflected his intellectual curiosity and expansive approach to scholarship.
Selected symposium papers will be published in a forthcoming special issue of the Canadian Tax Journal.
That approach helped make Cockfield one of the world’s leading tax scholars. In opening remarks, Dean Colleen M. Flood highlighted his internationally recognized work, which included his consultancy to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists in 2013 regarding tax haven data leaks that later became known worldwide through the Panama Papers. She also noted that his research was cited by the Supreme Court of Canada and that he advised organizations including the United Nations and international tax bodies.
Symposium presenter Kim Brooks, President of Dalhousie University and a former Queen’s Law colleague who joined the faculty as a tax law professor the same year as Cockfield, described him as a scholar whose work connected tax law to broader questions of trust, fairness, and cooperation.
“For him tax rules were never technical allocations,” Brooks said. “They were part of the infrastructure of trust that sustains peace.”
Crediting her former colleague and friend for having “an uncanny ability to see where the global conversation was going, years before it arrived,” Brooks cited his work on offshore tax leaks, tax competition, and the taxation of the digital economy. She noted that his scholarship showed how well-designed tax law can do more than raise revenue by helping build cooperation, fairness, and ultimately peace.
Heather Evans, then-Executive Director and CEO of the Canadian Tax Foundation, spoke of Cockfield’s commitment to fostering connections among scholars and practitioners. He co-led an annual symposium of tax academics from law, accounting, and economics across Canada and organized a scholarly panel at the Foundation’s annual conference to present the latest academic research to a practitioner audience.
“Art was very keen on building those bridges, not just across disciplines, but between the business community and the academic world,” Evans said. “He was an excellent ambassador.”
The teacher and mentor
Throughout his 21 years on the Queen’s Law faculty, Cockfield was a trusted and valued teacher and mentor to scores of JD and graduate students.
Dean Flood commented on his passion and innovation in research being matched by his passion for teaching, noting how he applied his novelist writing talent to his teaching by engaging students and helping them see law through the eyes of the people who were affected by it.
That approach influenced students like Kim Maguire, Law’08, now a tax partner at Osler’s Vancouver office and President of the International Fiscal Association (Canada). After taking his introductory taxation course, she reoriented her schedule to take more of his classes. “I was part of a superfan club that would hang out after class just to talk to him,” she recalled at the symposium dinner. “He was such an engaged professor, loved to chat with students, had such a passion for teaching, and opened up the world for us.”
Professor Gail Henderson, a colleague and friend who also served as an associate dean, commented on how Queen’s Law relied on Cockfield in many ways, including encouraging students to pursue careers in tax law. “Art was an incredibly talented teacher, his courses were always oversubscribed, and he supervised legions of graduate students.”
One of his first graduate students was Jonathan Farrar, LLM’06, now an accounting professor at Wilfrid Laurier University. “Art was approachable, kind, thoughtful, and a good listener,” Farrar said at the dinner. “He was very generous with his time and provided me with a lot of constructive feedback. Now that I have lots of graduate students of my own, I use him as a role model for how to treat them. I try to pay it forward because of Art.”
Cockfield shared with his family the joys of his role with students. “Art loved teaching and sharing his knowledge,” said his stepfather, Eric Costen. “So often he would tell you, ‘I have the best job ever’.”
The colleague and friend
Professor Catherine Brown (University of Calgary Law) was first impressed with her future research collaborator when Cockfield’s NAFTA Tax Law and Policy book was published in 2005, but she didn’t meet him until three years later at a conference he co-chaired to commemorate his late mentor, Professor Alex Easson. “The thing that struck me right away was that Art was both highly intelligent and deeply engaging,” she recalled at the symposium dinner. “He seemed to radiate a contagiously joyous spirit.”
As Professor Lori McMillan, Law’95, (Washburn University School of Law), put it, “If I had to use one word to describe Art, it would be sincere. That came through everything he did.” McMillan, whose career followed a similar path from Queen’s Law to practice at Goodmans and then academia, also noted how Cockfield was “very inclusive.”
Henderson commented on how Cockfield’s “fan club” extended far beyond the tax field to those in other areas of law and about his deep connections across Queen’s University. Despite all that, she said, “He was incredibly humble and could be even self-deprecating about his accomplishments.”
A legacy that continues
One of the most tangible expressions of Cockfield’s legacy is the Professor Arthur Cockfield Memorial Award in Law. Established by his colleagues, family, and friends, the award supports law students with demonstrated financial need and academic achievement.
For the inaugural recipient, Diana Begaliyeva, Law’25, who worked two part-time jobs to finance her legal education, the award provided vital financial relief, allowing her to focus more fully on her studies. Coincidentally, that included excelling in tax law, for which she earned the course prize for achieving the highest grade in her class.
In thanking her benefactors, Begaliyeva said: “Your collective generosity will also provide crucial support to future law students like myself. It’s inspiring to see such a strong community coming together to honour him in this way.”
The award, symposium, and ongoing work of students and scholars ensure that Cockfield’s influence continues to be felt at Queen’s Law and beyond.
Contributions to the Professor Arthur Cockfield Memorial Award in Law can be made online.
For more photos from the Cockfield Symposium dinner, please see the photo gallery.
Queen’s Law professors and symposium co-organizers Ivan Ozai and Gail Henderson at the symposium dinner with four members of Art Cockfield’s family: son Jack, mother Gale, son William, and stepfather Eric Costen.
By Lisa Graham