Queen’s Law is celebrating the achievements of three outstanding faculty members — Professors Kevin Banks, Lindsay Borrows, and Debra Haak — whose recent promotion and renewal decisions recognize their exceptional contributions to scholarship, teaching, and public engagement.
Effective July 1, Associate Professor Kevin Banks will receive full professor status, Assistant Professor Lindsay Borrows’ position as assistant professor will be renewed, and Assistant Professor Debra Haak will receive associate professor status.
“We are extremely proud of Professors Banks, Borrows, and Haak,” said Dean Colleen M. Flood. “Their academic achievements have been outstanding and, like our entire faculty community, the impact of their work extends far beyond the university.
Kevin Banks
Banks’ promotion to professor recognizes his significant contributions to labour and employment law scholarship, teaching, and institutional leadership.
An internationally respected scholar, Banks’ research focuses on the intersection of economic change, legal systems, and workplace governance. His published work spans Canadian and comparative labour law, international labour standards, and trade agreements, producing a significant body of influential scholarship including co-editing Canada’s only national labour law casebook. He also chaired a landmark international arbitral panel that issued the first-ever decision on labour obligations under a free trade agreement.
Banks’ research has been cited by the Supreme Court of Canada and leading scholars in Canada and globally. It has also informed employment standards changes in Ontario and federal initiatives addressing labour relations at West Coast ports. His scholarly reputation has been further recognized through his election to the National Academy of Arbitrators and his recent appointment to the International Labour Organization’s Committee of Experts, a prestigious global body overseeing the application of international labour conventions.
Beyond his scholarly work, Banks has played a leading role in advancing the field. He founded and led the Queen’s Centre for Law in the Contemporary Workplace for 15 years (2010–2025), securing more than $1.2 million in funding, organizing and hosting 20 conferences and workshops, many of which resulted in published collections of papers, and fostering national and international collaboration. Since 2014, he has also served as Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Labour and Employment Law Journal, one of the top-ranked journals in the discipline.
As an educator, Banks has taught extensively across core and specialized courses, supervised graduate students, coached Queen’s Law competitive moot teams, and consistently received strong teaching evaluations. He currently serves as Associate Dean, Faculty and Academic Policy.
Lindsay Borrows
Borrows’ renewal as assistant professor recognizes her growing impact as a scholar of Indigenous law and her contributions to research, teaching, and community engagement.
Borrows, who joined Queen’s Law in 2022, has developed a distinctive and interdisciplinary research program focused on the revitalization of Indigenous legal orders, particularly Anishinaabe law. Her work explores how law is grounded in relationships — with language, land, and more-than-human life — and how these traditions can inform contemporary legal systems. Her current research examines emerging questions at the intersection of Indigenous law and technology, including how legal systems change over time.
The inaugural holder of the Queen's Law Professorship in Indigenous Law & Governance (2025), Borrows was recently named a 2026–2028 CIFAR Global Scholar.
Borrows’ published work reflects both scholarly rigor and creative methodology. Her book Otter’s Journey Through Indigenous Language and Law uses storytelling to illuminate the connections between language renewal and legal resurgence. Her articles and chapters address themes such as environmental governance, humility and respect as legal principles, and the role of plants and ecological knowledge in shaping legal traditions. Her scholarship is widely used in law and interdisciplinary courses, underscoring its influence on teaching and learning across institutions.
In addition to her academic publications, Borrows has contributed to publicly engaged scholarship, including reports, podcasts, and digital resources such as an Indigenous Constitutions database. Her work is deeply rooted in collaboration with Indigenous communities and organizations, reflecting a commitment to accessible and community-informed research. Since 2014, she has co-facilitated various “on-the-land” community-engaged Anishinaabe Law Camps in partnership with law schools and communities across Ontario. She is also collaborating on a multi-year project with the Kingston Native Centre and Language Nest to support the development of the Kingston Indigenous Legal Centre, advancing community-led models of justice and healing.
Borrows is currently advancing a doctoral project that develops practical methodologies for revitalizing Indigenous legal systems in contemporary contexts.
Read more about Lindsay Borrows.
Debra Haak
Haak’s promotion to associate professor recognizes her expanding national profile as a legal scholar and her impact on public policy and constitutional debate.
Her research is characterized by a commitment to connecting legal rules with real‑world social conditions, particularly in areas where the rights and interests of differently situated women are in tension. She is a leading scholar on Canada’s criminal prostitution laws. Her work has helped clarify key legal concepts and informed ongoing debates about how to reconcile competing rights, interests, and values in a complex and changing society. Colleagues across disciplines have recognized the intellectual depth, originality, and societal relevance of her work.
Haak has established a robust and influential body of research at the intersection of constitutional law, equality rights, criminal law, and feminist legal theory. Her work has been published in leading law journals and presented at over 30 academic conferences across Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Italy. Her scholarship has been cited by leading experts in the fields of criminal, constitutional, and public law, as well as by courts and government bodies, including the Supreme Court of Canada. She has served as an expert witness for the Attorney General of Canada and provided written submissions to multiple Parliamentary and Senate committees on issues including human trafficking, medical assistance in dying, and online harms legislation.
Her current research on the legal and policy implications of sex and gender in Canada has attracted competitive national funding totalling close to $50,000 from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC; Insight Development Grant) and the Canadian Bar Association (Law for the Future Fund).
Haak is a dedicated educator whose teaching is marked by intellectual rigor, thoughtful engagement, and a commitment to fostering an inclusive and supportive learning environment. She has been recognized with the Stanley M. Corbett Award for Excellence in Teaching and the John G. Freeman Faculty Excellence Award.
Beyond her scholarly and teaching contributions, Haak is co-director of Feminist Legal Studies Queen’s. She is also an active public commentator, frequently contributing to national media outlets such as CBC, CTV, The Globe and Mail, and The Conversation.