The Queen’s community is remembering Art Cockfield, Professor and Associate Dean (Academic Policy) in the Faculty of Law, who died on Sunday, Jan. 9. He was 54.

Dr. Cockfield was one of the world’s leading tax law scholars, a policy consultant, and an innovative instructor.

After completing his undergraduate studies at Western University, Cockfield attended Queen’s Law, earning his LLB in 1993. He would later earn a Master of the Science of Law (JSM) and Doctor of the Science of Law (JSD) from Stanford University.

Dr. Cockfield returned to Queen’s as a faculty member in 2001 as a Queen’s National Scholar.

“For the many, many graduates of our law school who had the great fortune to learn law from Professor Cockfield, and for Art’s former classmates, this news will be very difficult to understand and process. Art was a mainstay of our law school,” says Mark Walters, Dean, Faculty of Law. “Art was one of the world’s leading tax law scholars and his work on comparative and international tax law was truly innovative and extremely influential. He was a loyal and dedicated teacher who cared deeply for his students. Art was cherished as a mentor and a friend to so many of us.”  

Prior to joining Queen’s, Cockfield worked as an articling student and associate lawyer for Goodmans LLP in Toronto. He has worked at the University of West Indies in Barbados and at U.S. law schools, most recently as a Fulbright Visiting Chair in Policy Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.

During his career, Dr. Cockfield served as a legal and policy consultant to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the United Nations, the Department of Justice, the Department of Finance, the Advisory Panel on Canada’s System of International Taxation, the National Judicial Institute, the Office of the Auditor General of Canada and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner.

To learn more about Dr. Cockfield and his impact at the university, read this article published by Queen's Law.

A family obituary is also available online.