Janis Sarra

Dr. Janis Sarra’s research and teaching interests are in the areas of corporate finance, banking law, corporate governance, securities law, contracts, commercial insolvency law, and law and economics. Dr. Sarra was appointed UBC Presidential Distinguished Professor in 2014 for a five-year term.  The UBC Presidential Distinguished Professor is awarded to a professor who has made outstanding contributions as a scholar and academic leader. Prior to this appointment, Dr. Sarra served as Director of the Wall Institute for Advanced Studies at UBC. Dr. Sarra is Professor of Law, at the Peter A. Allard School of Law and founding Director of the National Centre for Business Law. She served as Associate Dean of the Allard School of Law until 2007, with oversight of development, strategic planning, alumni relations and communications. In 2004, she was awarded the title of Distinguished University Scholar for her scholarship in corporate and securities law.  She has published twelve books in corporate, securities, commercial insolvency, corporate governance and financial services law, and more than one hundred refereed articles. She has been cited extensively by Canadian courts at the superior court and appellate levels.  She is currently a director of Assuris, the British Columbia Law Institute, and the International Insolvency Institute. She is author of numerous reports on climate change, including: Fiduciary Obligations in Business and Investment: Implications of Climate Change, 2018 (CCLI, Oxford);  Time to Act, Response to questions posed by the Expert Panel on Sustainable Finance on Fiduciary Obligation and Effective Climate-related Financial Disclosures, co-author with C. Williams, 2019; and The Anthropocene in the Time of Trump, Financial Markets, Climate Change Risk and Vulnerability, 2018.  She is a member of the Canadian Delegation to the UN Commission on International Trade Law WG V.