Paul Daly
Paul Daly
Chair in Administrative Law and Governance




Biography

Paul Daly has won global recognition for his scholarship in the broad field of public law, the study of the norms and institutions of government. In particular, Professor Daly is an internationally established expert on the administrative state, which churns out thousands of decisions every day – touching all aspects of ordinary citizens’ lives, from life-or-death immigration decisions, to compensation for workers injured on the job, all the way to the content of cable television.

Using the resources of his University Research Chair in Administrative Law & Governance, Professor Daly will work to further enhance the relationship between the administrative state, individuals and the courts, understand the proper role of artificial intelligence in administrative law, and scrutinize the nature of legal controls on public power exercised by private entities such as Google and Facebook.  

Professor Daly’s academic work has regularly been cited by Canadian courts and administrative tribunals — his award-winning blog, Administrative Law Matters, was the first ever blog cited by the Supreme Court of Canada. Fluent in French and English, Professor Daly is a highly sought-after public speaker and has spoken at a wide variety of academic conferences, professional development programmes and judicial education seminars, and is an accomplished media performer (Globe and MailToronto StarRadio Canada and The Economist).

Professor Daly completed his law studies at University College Cork (where he also worked as a journalist for local and national media and produced two popular non-fiction books) before attending the University of Pennsylvania Law School (LLM) as a Fulbright scholar and completing his doctorate at the University of Cambridge (PhD) as a National University of Ireland Travelling Scholar and a Modern Law Review Scholar.

At the Université de Montréal (2012-2016), Professor Daly was successively Assistant Professor, Associate Dean and Associate Professor, before moving to the University of Cambridge (2016-2019) as a Senior Lecturer in Public Law and the Derek Bowett Fellow in Law at Queens’ College, Cambridge. At Cambridge he was also (2017-2019) Deputy Director of Graduate Studies. In addition, he has held visiting positions at Harvard Law School (visiting researcher), the University of Ottawa (replacement professor) and Université Paris II Panthéon-Assas (visiting professor). A member of the New York and Ontario bars, he articled at Lerners LLP in Toronto.

Notable Publications

A Theory of Deference in Administrative Law: Basis, Application and Scope (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2012)

The Canadian Constitution in Transition (University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 2019) (co-editor, with Richard Albert and Vanessa MacDonnell)

The Dunsmuir Decade/Les 10 ans de Dunsmuir (2018) Special Issue of Canadian Journal of Administrative Law & Practice (co-editor, with Léonid Sirota)

« Reprendre le contrôle : ironies et ennuis » (2018) 51 Revue juridique Thémis 159-188

“Administrative Law: Characteristics, Legitimacy, Unity” in Mark Elliott, Jason Varuhas and Shona Stark eds., The Unity of Public Law? Doctrinal, Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives (Hart Publishing, Oxford, 2018) 99-119

“A Pluralist Account of Deference and Legitimate Expectations” in Matthew Groves and Greg Weeks eds., Legitimate Expectations in the Common Law World (Hart Publishing, Oxford, 2017), 101-120

“Administrative Law: A Values-Based Approach” in John Bell, Mark Elliott, Jason Varuhas and Philip Murray eds., Public Law Adjudication in the Common Law World: Process and Substance (Hart Publishing, Oxford, 2016), 23-44

“The Language of Administrative Law” (2016) 94 Canadian Bar Review 519-544

“Deference on Questions of Law” (2011) 74 Modern Law Review 694-720

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