Professor Christopher Essert was appointed Dean of the Henry N.R. Jackman Faculty of Law beginning February 2026. Professor Essert previously served as the Associate Dean of the JD Program from 2020 to 2025.

Professor Essert’s research focuses on private law, property and tort theory, and legal and political philosophy. As a NSERC and SSHRC funded researcher, Professor Essert is the author of more than thirty articles, editor of two different collections, co-author of the main Canadian textbook in tort law, and author of a monograph, Property Law in the Society of Equals (OUP 2024). He has published articles in Philosophy & Public Affairs, Legal Theory, Law & Philosophy, Jurisprudence, the McGill Law Journal, and the University of Toronto Law Journal.

Prior to joining the University of Toronto in 2018, Professor Essert was at the Queen’s University Faculty of Law. He also served as a Visiting Academic at Auckland Law School (2024) and a Visiting Professor at UCLA School of Law (2017). Professor Essert received his LLM and JSD from Yale Law School, his JD from the University of Toronto, and his BA from McGill University.

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