Professor Laverne Jacobs draws on her expertise in the fields of administrative law and administrative justice (including structures of governance), human rights and equality law, law and disability. , and qualitative research methodologies to develop theoretical and practical suggestions for addressing experiences of inequality faced by members of the disability community. She has published and presented widely in her fields, both in Canada and internationally.
Dr. Jacobs takes an interdisciplinary approach to her research, using qualitative empirical research methods from the social sciences. She is particularly interested in ethnography and legal anthropology, and in the intersection of law, norms and informal order.
Dr Jacobs was named the inaugural Fulbright Visiting Research Chair in Canadian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2014, and, while holding this Chair, conducted the first stage of a multi-year research study on disability rights and administrative law regulation.
In addition to being a Fulbright scholar, Professor Jacobs has been the recipient of a number of research awards including a SSHRC Insight Development Grant, a SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship, and a Young Academics’ Scholarship from Cambridge University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She has been a Visiting Scholar at Cornell University Law School and at the Center for the Study of Law and Society at the University of California, Berkeley. She received University of Windsor Faculty Recognition Awards for Excellence in Scholarship and Research in 2010 and 2014.
Outside of the University, Dr. Jacobs has served on the Board of Directors of the Income Security Advocacy Centre , the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice, where she sits on the Administrative Tribunals Committee, and Beyond Disability of Windsor-Essex. Dr. Jacobs has held public appointments as a member of the Advisory Council to the Ontario Minister responsible for the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005, and as a part-time member of the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario.
Professor Jacobs teaches Administrative Law, and a seminar in Law, Disability & Social Change (Comparative and Transnational Perspectives) at the JD level. At the graduate level she teaches Research Methods, the Graduate Seminar and co-teaches Law Teaching in the Diverse Classroom.
Dr. Jacobs is a former Editor-in-Chief of the Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice. She is the 2018 recipient of the University of Windsor's Mary Lou Dietz Equity Leadership Award and of a University of Windsor Teaching Excellence Award (2018). In 2019, she was honoured with the Windsor Essex County Accessibility Award. In 2021, she received the Touchstone Award from the Canadian Bar Association for her equality work respecting people with disabilities.
Dr. Jacobs supervises graduate students in the areas of law, disability and social change; administrative justice; government transparency; government accountability and public law.
You may read more about Dr. Jacobs and her work here.