BC Law professor Richard Albert was honored at the annual meeting of the American Society of Comparative Law (ASCL) in Dallas, held October 1-3, 2015, for his service as Chair of the ACL’s Younger Comparativists Committee from February 2011 to October 2015. The ASCL announced an annual scholarship in Albert’s name.
During his time as Chair, Albert created the Younger Comparativists Committee Global Conference, which has become the premier event for younger comparative law scholars from all over the world. Last year’s conference drew over 100 scholars. “Younger comparative law scholars owe a huge debt of gratitude to Professor Albert for his vision, leadership, and the tremendous amount of time and energy he spends to keep younger comparative law scholars connected and engaged with the larger comparative law community,” said Professor Ozan Varol of Lewis & Clark Law School, a member of the YCC Board and host for last year’s YCC Global Conference (see earlier story). Under Albert’s leadership, the YCC has expanded its reach by holding other national conferences as well as smaller workshops in addition to the annual conference, which have attracted strong participation from a wide variety of new and younger comparative law scholars from dozens of countries. Among its other initiatives, the YCC has pioneered a mentorship program pairing senior and junior scholars in the ASCL, it has created a scholarship exchange to help support the development of comparative law scholarship, and it has established three advisory groups to help foster the next generation of leaders in the field.
“Richard’s accomplishments as Chair of the YCC have been nothing short of extraordinary,” said Varol. “As younger comparative law scholars, we’re all standing on the shoulders of Richard Albert and owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude for working tirelessly to highlight our work.”
Albert is a constitutional law professor at BC Law, where he specializes in constitutional law and comparative constitutional law. His research focuses primarily on comparative constitutional change, including both formal and informal constitutional amendment. In 2010, he received the Hessel Yntema Prize from ASCL, given annually to a scholar under the age of 40 to recognize “the most outstanding article” on comparative law. He has published peer-reviewed papers on comparative constitutional change in the American Journal of Comparative Law, the International Journal of Constitutional Law, the McGill Law Journal and the Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence.
Albert recently joined the editorial board of the peer-reviewed American Journal of Comparative Law (AJCL) as Book Reviews Editor. Prior to joining BC Law in 2009, Albert was a law clerk to the Chief Justice of Canada, the Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin.
Founded in 1951, ASCL is the leading organization in the United States promoting the comparative study of law. ASCL is a thriving organization of more than 100 institutional sponsor members, both in the United States and abroad, and a growing number of individual members. It publishes The American Journal of Comparative Law and holds annual meetings and other scholarly conferences at which comparative law scholars present research and critically examine important legal issues from a comparative perspective. Each year, the Society’s Yntema Prize recognizes exceptional publications on comparative law by younger scholars.