Donald Crawshaw offers endowment to make academic position possible
The University of Toronto (U of T) Faculty of Law has announced its new Donald R. Crawshaw Chair in Private Law, with Professor Peter Benson appointed as the inaugural chairholder.
Donald Crawshaw, Benson’s classmate at U of T, offered the financial support that made the new chair possible in an effort to improve the law school’s private law scholarship, according to a news release.
Benson, who has been teaching for four decades, is a scholar of contract law and contract theory, a substantive area of private law. His teaching and writing centres on contract law, contract theory, and private law theory.
The Belknap Press, an imprint of Harvard University Press, published his book, Justice in Transactions: A Theory of Contract Law, in 2019.
“As the inaugural chairholder, Peter will continue shaping the field of contract law and contract theory,” said Jutta Brunnée, dean, university professor, and James Marshall Tory dean’s chair, in the law school’s news release. “This chair is a platform to drive forward groundbreaking work.”
“Contracts involve promises or exchanges,” Benson added. “What we owe each other. What notion or notions of justice inform contract law? How do contracts relate to the market? How does contract law link up with larger issues of social justice and distributive justice? I find these questions and contract law itself truly, endlessly, interesting.”
Benson graduated from U of T’s law school, clerked for late Chief Justice Bora Laskin at the Supreme Court of Canada, taught at McGill University's Faculty of Law for 13 years, began teaching at U of T’s law school in 1998, and became a full professor in 2000.
According to the news release, Benson regularly teaches an introductory course on the justice theory of John Rawls, a late US political philosopher with whom he studied at Harvard University’s graduate law program.
“It’s a kind of intellectual therapy for me because Rawls’ work is so careful, so exceptionally deep and systematic,” Benson said in the news release. “He helps us to think about the most fundamental concepts that we take for granted in liberal democracy.”
Benson regularly supervises student-directed research papers on private law topics. In the news release, he expressed gratitude about how the chair financing would help student researchers interested in private law topics.
In the news release, Benson shared that his emeritus colleagues – who all became university professors at U of T law school – Michael J. Trebilcock, Ernest J. Weinrib, and the late Stephen Waddams most influenced his work.
“From Michael I learned the great importance of comparing carefully and systematically different theoretical approaches to law and to contract law in particular,” Benson said. “Stephen taught me all I know about contract law. Ernie, in my view, is the greatest theorist of private law of our times.”
In the law school’s news release, Benson said he was honoured to be the first appointee of the private law chair established by Crawshaw.
“Don was the Angus MacMurchy Gold Medalist, standing first in our graduating year,” Benson said. “It's very special to have that connection. Even if it's not contractually binding, the chair is my promise: I will do my very best to make myself worthy of it.”
“I am delighted my esteemed classmate Peter [Benson] will be first holder of the new chair,” Crawshaw said. “Over the years, quite a number of his students joined my firm, and they without exception have commented on how much they learned from him and enjoyed his class.”
According to the news release, Crawshaw graduated from U of T’s law school in 1982 and deferred his articles to study in Columbia Law School’s LLM program.
Upon joining Sullivan & Cromwell in New York City, US, Crawshaw assisted cross-border clients and focused his practice on federal securities laws, especially in the capital markets, investment management, and commodities and derivatives areas. Though he retired as a firm partner in 2024, he continues to advise as of counsel.
“Of course, I never had the chance to be taught by [Benson], but I am grateful for the excellent legal education I received at U of T,” Crawshaw said. “I am very pleased to support the Faculty of Law, financially.”
“We are deeply grateful to Donald Crawshaw for his vision in establishing this endowed chair in private law,” Brunnée said. “His generous gift solidifies our position as a global leader in this foundational area of law.”
