Professor J.C. Smith is an Professor Emeritus at the Allard School of Law. He holds a BA (1953) from Brigham Young University, an LLB from UBC (1960) and an LLM from Yale University (1961). Professor Smith joined the Faculty in 1961, where he has held the titles of Instructor (1961-1963), Assistant Professor (1963-1966), Associate Professor (1966-1969), Professor (1969-1995), and finally Professor Emeritus (1995 – present). He was called to the Bar of BC in 1965. From 1989 to 2002, Professor Smith was the Director of the Artificial Intelligence Research Project at UBC’s law school.
Professor Smith has led a distinguished career as both an inspirational educator and an accomplished researcher. He has taught torts, property, jurisprudence, and evidence. In 1995, Professor Smith was the recipient of the George Curtis Memorial Award for Teaching Excellence. Through the lens of legal theory, Professor Smith has a researched a wide variety topics, ranging from bioethics, to psychoanalysis, to artificial intelligence. For his outstanding contributions to his field of research, Professor Smith has been awarded the Killam Research Prize (1987) and the Alumni Award for Research by the Allard Law Alumni Association (2007).