News

The Schulich School of Law welcomed Kevin Berk and Sean Farmer (LLB '11) earlier this year as Purdy Crawford Fellows in Business Law for the 2024-25 academic year.

Purdy Crawford Fellows contribute to teaching in the JD program, advancing their research, and participating in the intellectual life of the law school in a way that supports their development as scholars and teachers.

Get to know Kevin Berk

Kevin Berk is a doctoral candidate at the Schulich School of Law. His PhD thesis focuses on the intersection between environmental, treaty, and property law, with a particular focus on the role of Nova Scotian private property owners in achieving reconciliatory and environmental objectives in Mi’kma’ki.

While serving as a Purdy Crawford Fellow, Berk is teaching Business and Environmental Law, as well as Legal Research and Writing for the 2024-2025 academic year.

Tell us about your academic and legal background.

I completed my JD at the University of Windsor’s Faculty of Law in 2019, followed by my LLM at Osgoode Hall Law School in 2020. I began my doctoral studies at the Schulich School of Law in 2020, where I was also appointed as a Schulich Fellow during the 2023-2024 academic year.

What appealed to you about doing an academic teaching Fellowship at the Schulich School of Law?

I have been teaching at Dalhousie University since I began my PhD in 2020, during which I have had the opportunity to teach a wide variety of courses including undergraduate, first-year law, upper-year law, intensives, moot competitions, and most recently with the Purdy Crawford Fellowship, a seminar course.

I have found my experiences in the classroom to be immensely rewarding. The process of developing course materials and interacting with students has been invaluable for my academic progress. Much of what will become my final dissertation stems from ideas that I was able to explore more deeply while teaching.

A doctoral candidate’s work can often feel solitary, but teaching has afforded me the chance to connect to the law school community outside of the boundaries of my research. I have cherished the privilege of working with five classes of bright, kind, and dedicated Schulich Law students.

What will you be working on while you are here?

I am currently working on my doctoral thesis and consolidating research that I have done in my capacity as a research fellow at Schulich Law’s Marine & Environmental Law Institute. The most advanced of these projects covers the application of the internationally recognized right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment to the Canadian context with a focus on combatting climate misinformation from Canadian oil and gas businesses.

Get to know Sean Farmer

Sean Farmer taught the Purdy Crawford Business Law Seminar class in the fall term, which introduced students to critical approaches in law and technology and covered special topics at the intersection of business law, technology, and the environment. He is currently teaching Business Associations in the winter term.

Tell us about your academic and legal background.

I have a BSc (Hons) in Biology from the University of King’s College, an LLB from the Schulich School of Law ('11), and an LLM in Law and Technology from the University of Ottawa.

Presently, I am a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa. My research interests explore intersections of law, technology, and society. My doctoral research focuses on the relationship between digital infrastructure (such as data centres) and the environment. This research builds on ideas I developed in my 2023 article “The Stone in the Cloud: Planning the Resource Demands of the Data Centre Industry Through Land Use Law,” which was published in the UBC Law Review.

I also practiced corporate and commercial law for seven years in Halifax and was called to the Bars of Nova Scotia and Ontario in 2012 and 2015, respectively.

What appealed to you about doing an academic teaching Fellowship at the Schulich School of Law?

I have a strong connection and fondness for this city and campus as I was born in Halifax and am a Schulich Law alumnus. I received an excellent legal education at Dal and welcomed the opportunity to contribute to the community that helped prepare me for a successful legal career.

My goal is to teach, and I knew I could learn to be a better teacher from the experienced faculty and the engaged, bright students at the Schulich School of Law. I greatly appreciated the experience.

What will you be working on while you are here?

In the fall semester, I designed and delivered the Purdy Crawford Business Law Seminar. It was a great exercise to expand my technology and environmental research into business law contexts while utilizing my corporate and commercial legal experience.

Additionally, I co-wrote a paper with my doctoral supervisor, Professor Elizabeth F Judge, which we presented in November at the 2024 IEEE World Forum on the Internet of Things in Ottawa. This paper explored anticipated legal issues related to the transportation of unaccompanied children in autonomous vehicles.

This semester, in addition to teaching Business Associations, I have been furthering my doctoral research on digital infrastructure as well as developing research on the relationship of science fiction and the law.