Research grants

Our grants support and encourage legal writing that is of value to Canadian lawyers, notaries and judges in their day-to-day work in the law and in the administration of justice. Our grants are generally in amounts greater than $5,000 and less than or equal to $15,000.

We provide funds for legal research that falls into three broad categories:

1. 1Research and writing that emphasizes the statement of existing rules of law, which is often called doctrinal research.
2. 2Research that relates to the workings of the legal system.
3. 3Research that relates to developments in fields peripheral to legal doctrine, such as criminology, psychology, psychiatry, sociology and economics, and their relationship to rules of law.

Over the past five years, the Foundation has sponsored research into the following areas of the law:

• Criminal law
• Evidence and procedure
• Contracts (including general law of obligations)
• Constitutional (including equality)
• Administrative law (including political systems)
• Family law (including social status)
• Torts
• Courts and administration of justice (including general review of cases)

Over the past two years, the Foundation has indicated to applicants that it is particularly interested in practical legal research and analysis concerning access to justice issues, Indigenous legal issues and family law.