Brief Biographical Note of Justice John I. Laskin

Graduated from University of Toronto Law School 1969; Civil and public law litigation practice 1971-1994; Practised at Fasken & Calvin, Laskin, Jack & Harris and Davies, Ward & Beck; Member of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal; Counsel to several Commissions of Inquiry; Legal Counsel for Canadian Jewish Congress, Ontario Region; Fellow, American College of Trial Lawyers. Appointed to the Court of Appeal for Ontario, January 1994; Instructor in and co-chair of the annual Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice Judgment Writing Seminar; Chair of the National Judicial Institute Appellate Judgment Writing Seminar, 2004; Instructor in decision writing at various seminars for judges and members of administrative tribunals; Instructor in National Judicial Institute program on Oral Judgments; Instructor in Ontario Centre for Advocacy Training programs on written and oral advocacy; Speaker on appellate advocacy at numerous law conferences; international teaching of advocacy, judgment writing and judicial education: Hong Kong (1996), Albania (2003), The Hague (2005), New Mexico (2005), Barbados (2005), Arusha, Tanzania (2006), China (2001, 2005-7), Articles: A View from the Other Side: What I Would Have Done Differently If I Knew Then What I Know Now, The Advocates’ Society Journal, Vol. 17, No. 2, May 1998; Forget The Windup and Make the Pitch: Some Suggestions for Writing More Persuasive Factums, The Advocates’ Society Journal, Vol. 18, No. 2, August, 1999; What Persuades (or What’s Going on Inside the Judge’s Mind), The Advocates’ Society Journal, Vol. 23, No. 1, June 2004; How to Write a Persuasive Factum: A Judge’s View, in Advocacy & Taxation in Canada (2004), ch. 1.