Judy Fudge first studied philosophy (McGill BA Hons, York MA) and then turned to law (Ll.B, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University; D Phil, University of Oxford. She began her academic career in Canada, where she was Professor at Osgoode (1987-2006) and Lansdowne Chair in Law at the University of Victoria (2007-2013), before moving to England to teach at the University of Kent (2013-2018). She is Professor emeritus of Labour Studies at McMaster University, which she joined in July 2018,
Judy has held visiting professorships and fellowships at several universities and institutes. She was a visiting professor at the Institute for Research on Migration, Ethnicity and Society (REMESO) at Linköping University (Sweden) and the NORMA research environment at the University of Lund University (Sweden), as well as Braudel Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence. In 2014-15, she was a fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Nantes, France and in 2018, she was the Guest of the Director at Re:Work: IGK Work and Human Lifecycle in Global History Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
In 2013, Judy was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and in 2014, she received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Law at the University of Lund. In 2019 she received the Bora Laskin Award for her distinguished contribution to Canadian Labour Law; and in 2025 was awarded the Bob Hepple Award for Lifetime Achievement in Labour Law by the Labour Law Research Network.
