Richard Owens

Expert Overview

Richard Owens is a Munk senior fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and a retired lawyer who specialized in business and commercial law, regulation of financial institutions, intellectual property and technology.

Owens conducted his practice with three of Canada’s leading law firms. He is past chair of the board of directors of the University of Toronto Innovations Foundation, and a past member of the advisory committee to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. He has been a member of the board of the Centre for Innovation Law and Policy at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law and served as a director of the International Technology Law Association.

Owens has sat on a range of boards or advisory boards for companies and not-for profit enterprises. He was for many years an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, where he taught courses on the law of information technology and electronic commerce, innovation law and policy, intellectual property, digital content and the creative economy, and the law and policy of biotechnology. He also served as the executive director of U of T’s Centre for Innovation Law and Policy.