Skip to main content
LSU Law Logo

French Influences on the Civil Law in English to be the topic for the Tucker Lecture, April 10

The Center for Civil Law Studies (CCLS) of the LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center will present the 37th John H. Tucker, Jr. Lecture in Civil Law on Thursday, April 10 at 6:00 p.m. in the McKernan Auditorium at the LSU Law Center. Judge Nicholas Kasirer of the Court of Appeal of Quebec will present, “That Montreal Sound: The Influence of French Legal Ideas and the French Language on the Civil Law Expressed in English.” Drawing on insights taken from scholarship in comparative law, legal bilingualism and translation studies, the speaker seeks to evaluate the variable character of the phenomenon on the Civil Law in English within the French legal tradition.

A reception will follow the lecture. To register, please email ccls@lsu.edu or call 225-578-7831.

Nicholas Kasirer is a graduate of University College (B.A. (hons)) at the University of Toronto, McGill University (Bachelor of Civil Law and Bachelor of Laws) and the Université de Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne) (D.E.A. 3e cycle). A member of the Bar of Québec since 1987, he was appointed to the Court of Appeal on July 29, 2009.

Judge Kasirer began his career as a law clerk to Justice Jean Beetz of the Supreme Court of Canada. In 1989, he joined the Faculty of Law at McGill University and was appointed the James McGill Professor of Law in 2002. In 2003, Nicholas Kasirer was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Law at McGill and served in that position until his appointment to the bench in 2009.

Over the course of his career, he was awarded several prizes including the Prix de la Fondation du Barreau, the Hessel Yntema Prize of the American Society of Comparative Law, the David Johnston Medal from McGill University and the John W. Durnford Teaching Prize from its Faculty of Law. He was elected a Titular Member of the International Academy of Comparative Law in 2006 and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Sherbrooke in 2012. Justice Kasirer is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

The LSU Law Center’s Tucker Lecture Series is held each year in honor of Colonel John H. Tucker, Jr., a notable legal scholar and philanthropist. Professor Olivier Moréteau, Director of the Center of Civil Law Studies and Russell B. Long Eminent Scholars Academic Chair, guides the series. The CCLS was established in 1965 to promote the study of the civil law system – its history, structure, and principles. The mission is to facilitate a better understanding of civil law jurisdictions in Louisiana and continental Europe and Latin America. The CCLS also promotes legal education by sponsoring foreign students who wish to avail themselves of the opportunity to study a mixed legal system and American students who wish to expose themselves to other legal systems.

The 37th John H. Tucker, Jr. Lecture in Civil Law will be the keynote of a two-day international conference organized by the CCLS on April 10-11, discussing, in English and in French, The Louisiana Civil Code Translation Project: Enhancing Visibility and Promoting the Civil Law in English. This event, sponsored by the Partner University Fund, will attract world specialists of jurilinguistics. The Tucker Lecture and the conference papers will be published in the Journal of Civil law Studies.

Back