Professor Stephanie Ben-Ishai is a Distinguished Research Professor and Full Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, where she engages in research and teaching on bankruptcy, contract, commercial law, and financial crises. She has authored or co-authored nine books and more than 50 refereed articles, including seminal and innovative texts on bankruptcy and contract law. She holds her LLB from Osgoode Hall Law School, and her LLM from Harvard Law School, where she studied as a Fulbright Scholar and SSHRC Doctoral Scholar as well as receiving the American Bankruptcy Institute Medal of Excellence on graduation.
Professor Ben-Ishai has been nationally and internationally recognized as an expert in each of her research areas. She has been consulted by private actors, governments and self-regulatory institutions, and served as a Scholar in Residence with the Law Commission of Ontario. Her work has been cited by every level of Canadian court and she has given expert testimony to Canadian and American courts. Professor Ben-Ishai’s research has been consistently funded by research grants, including four major Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) grants as Principal Investigator; other significant grants have been provided by the Law Foundation of Ontario, the Law Commission of Canada, Industry Canada, and the Schulich School of Business National Research Program in Financial Services and Public Policy.
An active participant in domestic and international professional committees, research networks and law reform efforts, Professor Ben-Ishai also serves as Co-Founder and Editor of the Insolvency Institute of Canada Law Journal, established in 2011. To date, she has held visiting professorships at eight law schools in four countries, and has served as an INSOL International Scholar, Distinguished Fulbright Fellow, Sprout Fellow in Canadian Studies and the Thomas Feeney Visiting Professor of Business Law. Her research contributions have been presented at conferences around the world to lay audiences, lawyers, judges and academic colleagues from a wide range of academic disciplines.
Professor Ben-Ishai has taught courses across the private law curriculum in multiple formats (online, video conference, seminar, lecture and small group) of varying lengths and intensity across Canada, in the United States, Europe, Australia and New Zealand at the undergraduate law and social science and graduate levels. She also serves as the Academic Director of the Osgoode Business Clinic, which provides legal advice to small businesses which might not otherwise be able to afford legal services.
At Osgoode, Professor Ben-Ishai has held a number of senior administrative responsibilities, including as Director of the graduate programs in Bankruptcy and Banking and Finance Law. She has chaired almost every major Law School committee, including, most recently, the Faculty Recruitment Committee and Faculty Council, served on the University Senate and as a Director of Parkdale Community Legal Services.
Professor Ben-Ishai has supervised graduate level research in bankruptcy, banking, contracts, corporate/commercial law, and financial regulation. She is willing to read novel proposals in this area from strong students interested in working with her.
Research Interests: Corporate/Commercial Law
Graduate Research Supervision (LLM, PhD): Professor Ben-Ishai has supervised graduate level research in bankruptcy, banking, contracts, corporate/commercial law, and financial regulation. She is willing to read novel proposals in this area from strong students interested in working with her.