Ed Béchard-Torres

Ed Béchard-Torres is an assistant professor in the Lincoln Alexander School of Law. His research focusses on how courts contribute to economic transformation in Colombia, South Africa and India. He is particularly interested in how critical and progressive constitutional projects influence corporate and commercial law. His research also considers how social entrepreneurship can be nurtured in Canadian law. He is broadly interested in the relationship between law and political economy.

Prior to joining the Faculty, Béchard-Torres was a Scholar in Residence at New York University’s Center for Human Rights and Global Justice. He is currently completing a DCL at McGill University’s Faculty of Law, where he has taught contract law, and where his research has been supported by a Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. He holds an LLM from the University of Cambridge, and an LLB and a BCL from McGill. He is from Montreal and is Venezuelan-Canadian.

Béchard-Torres clerked for Justice Suzanne Côté at the Supreme Court of Canada, and for Justice Pierre Dalphond at the Quebec Court of Appeal. He has also practiced commercial litigation in leading firms in Quebec, appearing before various levels of court. In 2018, he assisted the amici curiae in the landmark Vavilov and Bell appeals before the Supreme Court.

In 2022, Béchard-Torres was appointed by the Honourable Pablo Rodriguez to the Human Rights Expert Panel of the Court Challenges Program (CCP) for a term of 3.5 years. The Expert Panel is responsible for allocating funding to support groundbreaking human rights litigation in cases of national importance.