Nicholas Bala
Faculty of Law
Queen's University
Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Area of expertise: criminal justice, child welfare law, child witnesses, and child maltreatment
Nicholas Bala has been a Professor at the Faculty of Law, at Queen's University in Kingston, Canada, since 1980, and was a Visiting Professor at McGill, Duke and the University of Calgary. He teaches Family and Children's Law, and has won teaching awards at the Faculty of Law at Queen's University in 1992 and 1998. He is presently Associate Dean at the Faculty of Law.
Professor Bala's primary research interests are: child welfare law, child abuse and child witnesses in the criminal justice system; family violence; the best interests of children; and parental rights and responsibilities after divorce; the legal definition of the family; the Canadian Charter of Rights and the family; juvenile justice; and child and spousal support obligations. He has published extensively on these topics, and his work is regularly cited by the courts, including the Supreme Court of Canada. He frequently presents at continuing education programs for judges, lawyers, doctors, police, psychologists and other professionals, as well as at academic and law reform conferences. Professor Bala is a member of the National Judicial Institute Curriculum Planning Committee for Child Witnesses and High Conflict Parental Separations.
He has written or co-authored 12 books and over 90 articles and book chapters. He recently published Youth Criminal Justice Law, and co-authored Testifying on Behalf of Children: A Handbook for Canadian Professionals, and Canadian Child Welfare. Professor Bala has written or co-authored a number of reports for governments in Canada, including reports on: Ontario's Child Abuse Register (1988); the reform of the Canada's Divorce Act to deal more effectively with family violence (1998, for Status of Women Canada); allegations of sexual abuse when parents have separated (2001, for Justice Canada); Yukon Family Violence Prevention Act, (2002), Ontario's Office of Child and Family Service Advocacy (2004).
He has served on the Board of a number of community and children's organizations, and presently serves on the Executive Committee of the Canadian Research Institute for Law & the Family, at the University of Calgary, and is a volunteer at the Frontenac Youth Diversion project.
