Joel Bakan

Born in Lansing, Michigan, Joel Bakan moved in 1970 with his parents to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, where he graduated from Eric Hamber Secondary high school. He went on to earn a BA at Simon Fraser University (1981), and then, as a Rhodes Scholar, a BA in law from Oxford University in 1983. After receiving a Canadian law degree at Dalhousie University (1984), he served as Law Clerk to the Supreme Court of Canada for Chief Justice Brian Dickson in 1985, and then went to Harvard where he completed master's degree in law (1987). He was assistant professor at Toronto's Osgoode Hall Law School for two years when he returned to Vancouver to join the Faculty of Law at the University of British Columbia as an Associate Professor. Today, Professor Bakan teaches Constitutional Law and theory at UBC.