A Brief History of the Canadian Journal of Family Law


A crowded office with little more than a desk was the inauspicious beginnings of the Canadian Journal of Family Law at its new home at the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia. In 1982, the Journal moved from the Osgoode Hall Law School at the invitation of UBC's Law School.

The Canadian Journal of Family Law's purpose is to create an interdisciplinarian journal that publishes academic articles on a broad range of family law issues. Moreover, the Journal is national in its scope and has published articles in both English and French. The Journal also offers the opportunity to read papers presented at regional conferences on family law.

In the first year at UBC, Professor MacDougall and a group of law students, including James Fraser, Juliet Balfour, and Carmel Wiseman, concentrated their efforts on the publication of the next volume of the Journal, and with building up the editorial board.

The goal was to have the Journal become student run. In the early years, Professor MacDougall dedicated a lot of time to the establishment of this goal. Gradually, student editors took over the operation of the Canadian Journal of Family Law, and it remains a student publication to the present day. The aim of the Journal was to publish two issues per year and with only occasional delays in publication, the Journal has continued with this program.

Two years after a conversation between Professor Graham Parker and a second-year law student, Gene Colman, concerning the lack of an interdisciplinarian Canadian journal on family law, the first volume of the Journal was published in 1978 at Osgoode Hall. The Journal began its life at Osgoode Hall supported by Professor Howard Irving, but eventually moved to law offices and was edited by Gene Colman.

As the first family law journal in Canada, the Journal has succeeded in filling a necessary spot in Canadian publishing. This has been reflected in the Journal's subscription list, which includes all Canadian law schools, many court libraries, as well as numerous family law firms. In addition, the Journal has been successful internationally, with libraries subscribing from Asia, the United States, Australia, and Europe. Moreover, the Journal can now be accessed through a variety of online legal database services, such as Quicklaw and Lexis/Nexus.

Over the years, the Canadian Journal of Family Law has provided a meeting place for academics and professionals from a variety of disciplines to discuss and debate family law issues. The Journal remains dedicated to publishing articles that bring the leading edge of judicial and policy discourses in Canadian family law to our readers.

By Mandy Sigurgeirson, Senior Editor (1998-99)

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