Queen’s Law is reshaping how students learn about Indigenous laws, legal traditions, and justice. Informed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Call to Action #28 – and by a growing demand for reconciliation grounded in education, respect, and Indigenous-led action – the school is expanding its curriculum with new and evolving course offerings. From a new mandatory first-year course to land-based law camps and reconciliation-focused seminars, these offerings prepare future lawyers for inclusive, community-informed practice grounded in Indigenous legal orders.
A new foundation for first-year students
Beginning in January 2026, all first-year JD students at Queen’s Law will complete a mandatory course: Indigenous Peoples, Law, and Reconciliation. The course responds directly to the TRC’s Call to Action #28, which urges law schools to require education in Aboriginal law and provide skills-based training in intercultural competency, conflict resolution, human rights, and antiracism.
Covering both legacy and reconciliation themes, the course explores Indigenous legal traditions, colonial policies of dispossession and assimilation, constitutional and treaty rights, self-determination, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). It draws on case studies from child and family services, criminal law, and environmental law, and encourages the development of cross-cultural competency, deeper understandings of racism, and intercultural skills.
Four Queen’s Law professors will each teach a section of the course: Kimberly Murray, Queen’s National Scholar in Indigenous Legal Studies; Lindsay Borrows, Queen’s Law Professor in Indigenous Law and Governance; Mark Walters, a leading scholar in public and constitutional law whose work on Aboriginal rights has been cited by the Supreme Court of Canada; and Hugo Choquette, an instructor of Aboriginal law in both the JD and undergraduate Certificate in Law programs.
“The two phases of the course – legacy and reconciliation – follow the work of the TRC, first examining and understanding how the colonial and Canadian legal systems have negatively impacted Indigenous Peoples, and then exploring how Indigenous laws and legal orders can provide solutions and create a path to reconciliation” explains Murray. “The course encourages students to engage in ongoing dialogue about distinct legal orders, lived experiences, and the broader process of reconciliation.”
Learning law on the land
This fall, Professor Lindsay Borrows will launch the Anishinaabe Law Field School, taught in partnership with an Anishinaabe First Nation. The course begins with a four-day land-based law camp held on that Nation’s reserve, followed by a semester-long group project to create an online database of Anishinaabe legal resources to support the development of a tribunal for the partner First Nation – part of a rare and emerging model of Indigenous legal revitalization in Canada.
Students will collaborate with community leaders, knowledge-keepers, and legal database experts. The course is supported by the Law Foundation of Ontario to promote Indigenous legal revitalization and train future professionals in an Indigenous law-informed practice.
Previously, Borrows offered Learning Anishinaabe Law from the Land, a land-based intensive held at Neyaashiinigmiing or Elbow Lake near Kingston. There, students used Indigenous legal methods to draw out law from nature.
Watch the video below to see how Borrows first introduced on-the-land learning to Queen’s Law students in 2022 – and how the experience shaped their understanding of Indigenous laws and reconciliation. (Video produced by Stefan Strangman)
“My courses advance reconciliation by introducing students to the revitalization and application of Indigenous laws in Canada,” says Borrows. “The TRC reminds us that reconciliation includes restoring our relationship with the Earth and more-than-human beings. Through land-based learning, students build the capacity to support Indigenous-led legal resurgence in their future work.”
Lawyering for reconciliation
In January 2025, after joining Queen’s Law, Professor Kimberly Murray introduced Lawyering for Reconciliation. The seminar will run again in 2025–26, giving upper-year JD students the chance to explore how legal professionals can better support reconciliation.
The course covers TRC Calls to Action relating to the legal profession, as well as findings from major public inquiries [like the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls]. Students examine whether legal rules and processes – such as professional codes of conduct and civil litigation procedures – support or hinder reconciliation. Readings include case studies, court submissions, and discipline decisions, and students hear directly from Indigenous claimants and counsel.
“Upon completion of this course, students will be able to critically assess reconciliation efforts within the legal system and consider what their role can be to further truth, justice and reconciliation within Canada.”
Deepening the learning across programs
Aboriginal Law, a longstanding JD and graduate-level elective, continues to provide foundational learning. Taught in recent years by Professors Mark Walters, Law’89, and Hugo Choquette, Law’05, LLM’10, PhD’17, the course examines Indigenous legal rights and their interpretation under section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982. Topics include land and natural resource rights, self-government, and treaty interpretation, with a focus on legal pluralism and international comparisons.
Aboriginal Child Welfare, an upper-year JD course taught by lawyer Sarah Clarke, examines the historical and ongoing overrepresentation of Indigenous children in foster care. Students study recent reforms such as An Act respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and families and gain tools for child protection advocacy.
Since its launch in 2017, the undergraduate Certificate in Law has included a course on Aboriginal Law, taught by Choquette. It introduces students to the legal and political dynamics shaping Crown-Indigenous relations in Canada and explores reconciliation through the lens of UNDRIP, the TRC, and modern treaty law.
With these course offerings – and more on the horizon – Queen’s Law is ensuring that students graduate with the cultural awareness, legal knowledge, and professional readiness to support reconciliation and serve Indigenous communities across Canada.