Gil Lan

Gil Lan is an associate professor in the Lincoln Alexander School of Law at Toronto Metropolitan University and the Law and Business Department at the Ted Rogers School of Management (TRSM) where he teaches business law.  He is also a Council Member of the Canada-China Institute for Business Development at TRSM. He received his B.Sc. from the University of Toronto and his LL.B., LL.M. and Ph.D. from Osgoode Hall Law School. In addition to teaching at Toronto Metropolitan University, Lan has lectured at Osgoode Hall Law School where he has taught Business Associations and, since 2008, he has taught in the LL.M. program for International Business Law. 

Lan is an avid speaker and his presentation venues have ranged from academic conferences sponsored by universities and academic organizations in Canada, the U.S., and China to profession-oriented events sponsored by organizations such as the Ontario Bar Association and the Association of Chinese-Canadian Lawyers of Ontario. 

His research centres on corporate-commercial law with a focus on international perspectives as well as the law’s potential to promote social goals and innovation. His specific interests include comparative law approaches, international business law, corporate governance, government regulation of business, social enterprise, law and development, and Chinese law.

Lan’s research has addressed issues such as how China managed to accomplish phenomenal economic growth after 1979 without a strong Western-style property regime, how Canada’s foreign investment laws could be improved, and the inter-relationship between corporate law structures and ascending innovative entrepreneurship models such as social enterprise. In his presentations and guest lectures, he has addressed a range of topics including corporate governance in different countries, the Chinese legal system, social entrepreneurship and legal structures, diversity in the legal profession, and barriers facing immigrant entrepreneurs.

In 2013, Lan was a recipient of the Dean’s Teaching Award at TRSM, andin the summer of 2014, he received the Hoeber Memorial Award – Outstanding Article, from the Academy of Legal Studies in Business, for his comparative law article on China and the U.S.