Kathryn Chan
Professor
Accepting graduate students
- Contact:
- Office: FR 220 kmchan@uvic.ca
- Credentials:
- B.Mus Hons. (McGill), JD (U of T) LLM Hons. (McGill), D.Phil (Oxon.)
- Area of expertise:
- Not-for-profit law, law and religion, constitutional law
- Related links:
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Biography
Kathryn Chan is a Professor in the Faculty of Law and (as of July 2025) the director of the Faculty’s Graduate Studies Program. She researches and teaches in the areas of not-for-profit and charity law, constitutional law, administrative law, and law and religion.
Dr. Chan’s research interests include the regulation of civil society, the intersection of law and religion, legal pluralism, and the public law-private law divide. Her book The Public-Private Nature of Charity Law was published in 2016 by Hart Bloomsbury. Her paper “” received the CALT Scholarly Paper Award in 2015. She has published in a number of leading law journals, including the University of Toronto Law Journal, the Canadian Bar Review and the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion.
Dr. Chan joined the Faculty of Law in 2013. Prior to beginning doctoral studies at the University of Oxford as a Trudeau Foundation Scholar, she practiced not-for-profit and charity law at a boutique law firm in Vancouver. She is a past member of the Canadian Bar Association charity law executive, a frequent lecturer at continuing legal education events, and an associate of to the Law Commission of Canada. During the 2022-23 academic year, she served as Acting Director of UVic’s Centre for Studies in Religion and Society. In 2023 she received the UVic Law Students’ Society Terry J Wuester Award for excellence in teaching.
Education
- BMus (Honours), McGill University
- JD, University of Toronto
- LLM (Honours), McGill University
- DPhil (law) (Oxon.)
Selected books
- The Public-Private Nature of Charity Law
Selected publications
- Kathryn Chan, “The Registered Charity Appeals Process: More Reasons (and a few Proposals) for Reform” (2024) 72:2 Cdn Tax J 359
- Kathryn Chan, “Time for a Pluralist Approach? Judicial Review of Non-State Decision Makers in Canada” (2024) 74 U. Toronto LJ 243 (published on advance access 6 October 2023).
- Kathryn Chan, “Religious Institutionalism: A Feminist Response” (2021) 71 U. Toronto LJ 443.
- Kathryn Chan & Howard Kislowicz, “Divine Intervention, Part II: Narratives of Norm Entrepreneurship in Canadian Religious Freedom Litigation” (2021) 44:2 Dal LJ.
- Kathryn Chan, “The Advancement of Religion as a Charitable Purpose in an Age of Religious Neutrality" (2017) 50:3 UBC Law Review 579.
Recognition and Awards
- 2023 UVic Law Students’ Society Terry J Wuester Award for excellence in teaching.
Graduate supervision
Prof. Chan is interested in supervising graduate students working in the areas of not-for-profit law, charity law, and law and religion.