Stephen Alexander Smith
Stephen Alexander Smith was a Canadian legal scholar and writer.
Early life and education
Smith was born in Toronto and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Queen's University at Kingston in 1981. Thereafter, he received a law degree from the University of Toronto and then a DPhil from Balliol College, Oxford under the supervision of Joseph Raz.Legal career
In 1989, he served as a law clerk for Brian Dickson when he was Chief Justice of Canada.Academic career
As an academic, Smith focused on torts law.He was a former faculty member of St Anne's College, Oxford. He joined McGill University's McGill [University Faculty of Law|Faculty of Law] in 1998 as an associate professor and was promoted to a full professor in 2004. In 2009, he was named a James McGill Professor in the faculty.
Awards and recognition
In February 2008, Smith received a Killam Research Fellowship from the Canada Council for the Arts for his project "Court Orders and the Replication, Transformation and Creations of Rights".He was named New Zealand Law Foundation Distinguished Fellow of 2017 and visited all six New Zealand law faculties in the fall of 2017.
In 2020, he was named to the Royal Society of Canada.
Personal life and death
Smith was married and had 3 children, including Michael Law-Smith, who served as law clerk to Chief Justice Richard Wagner at the Supreme Court of Canada and teaches criminal law at the University of Ottawa.Smith died on November 29, 2022, at the age of 64.
Publications
- Contract Theory
- Atiyah's Introduction to the Law of Contract, 6th ed
- ''Rights, Wrongs, and Injustices: The Structure of Remedial Law''