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Director, Law and Economics Programme, University of Toronto
Expertise
Education

LL.B., University of Canterbury, New Zealand

LL.M., University of Adelaide, South Australia 

Summary

Michael J. Trebilcock graduated from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand in 1962 with an LL.B. and completed his LL.M. at the University of Adelaide in 1965.  He joined the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto in 1972. He was selected as a University Professor in 1990.  

 

Professor Trebilcock specializes in Law and Economics, International Trade Law, Competition Law, Economic and Social Regulation, and Contract Law and Theory. 

He was a Fellow in Law and Economics at the University of Chicago Law School in 1976, a Visiting Professor of Law at Yale Law School in 1985 and 2005, and a Global Law Professor at New York University Law School in 1997 and 1999. He will be a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School in 2011-2012.  In 1987 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. In 1999, Professor Trebilcock received an Honorary Doctorate in Laws from McGill University and was awarded the Canada Council Molson Prize in the Humanities and Social Sciences. In the same year (1999) he was elected an Honorary Foreign Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2002 Professor Trebilcock was elected President of the American Law and Economics Association. In 2007 he was the recipient of the Ontario Attorney General's Mundell Medal for contributions to Law and Letters. In 2010, he was the recipient of the Ontario Premier's Discovery Award for the Social Sciences.

 

Professor Trebilcock has published on many subjects and has won awards for his work, including in 1989 the Owen Prize by the Foundation for Legal Research for his book, The Common Law of Restraint of Trade, which was chosen as the best law book in English published in Canada in the past two years.  Since 1989, he has authored The Limits of Freedom of Contract and co-authored The Regulation of International TradeExploring the Domain of Accident Law: Taking the Facts Seriously; The Making of the Mosaic: A History of Canadian Immigration Policy;Economic Shocks: Defining a Role for GovernmentThe Law and Economics of Canadian Competition Policy; and  Rule of Law Reform and Development: Charting the Fragile Path of Progress (co-authored with Ron Daniels). In 2008, he undertook a review of the Legal Aid Program in Ontario for the Attorney-General.