Professor Coyle joined the Faculty of Law in 2000. His primary research interests relate to aboriginal rights and dispute resolution theory.

In 2004 he was commissioned by the Ipperwash Inquiry to write its background research paper on Aboriginal land claims and treaty rights in Ontario. In the past four years he has been invited twice by the Senate Standing Committee on Aboriginal Peoples to present submissions to the Committee on land claims reform. In 2005, together with a group of academics from across the country, he received a five-year SSHRC grant to investigate the negotiation of Aboriginal governance.

He has been the recipient of a UWO international research grant to investigate the role of power relations in indigenous dispute resolution, and in 2008 he was named the first MacCormick Fellow by the University of Edinburgh Law School. In 2011 Michael received a three-year SSHRC research grant to investigate the legal paradigms that might be applied to govern the modern implementation of historical treaties. In 2017 he received another SSHRC grant to synthesise the published literature on the revitalization of Indigenous legal orders in Canada.

Professor Coyle has published many articles on the status of treaties and systemic issues relating to the negotiated settlement of Indigenous rights claims. Along with John Borrows, he is the co-editor of The Right Relationship: Reimagining the Implementation of Historical Treaties (U of T Press, 2017).