Reakash Walters is an Assistant Professor at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law(Common Law Section).
She is also a Research Fellow at Harvard Law School’s Center to End Mass Incarceration. Before her appointment, Professor Walters served as the inaugural Stuart Delisle Criminal Law Research Fellow at Queen’s Faculty of Law.
Professor Walters’ research examines race in criminal legal institutions with a focus on evidence law, criminal procedure and prison law. Her research considers how the organizational mechanisms that shape criminal legal institutions affect systemic inequality. Walters’ research has been published or is forthcoming in the McGill Law Journal, Dalhousie Law Journal, Canadian Historical Review and Canadian Journal of Women and the Law, among others. She teaches Criminal Law, Punishment and Imprisonment, Sentencing and Critical Race Theory.
Professor Walters graduated from the University of Ottawa’s English common law program and served as a law clerk to Justice Sheilah Martin at the Supreme Court of Canada. She completed her Master of Laws at Columbia Law School with High Honors as a Fulbright Scholar. She is presently completing her doctoral studies at Berkeley School of Law as an SSHRC Doctoral Fellow and Hildebrand Graduate Research Fellow.
Professor Walters is called to the Bar of Ontario and worked as a criminal lawyer before attending graduate school. Walters has appeared before all levels of court including the Supreme Court of Canada in R v Bilinski (on reserve) for the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund and in R v Beaver for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.