EVENT DATE: March 14, 2018
TOPIC: Access to Justice in Canada

The Honourable Thomas Albert Cromwell, a Kingston native, earned a music degree (1973) and a Law degree (1976) from Queen’s, and a graduate law degree from Oxford (1977). From 1979 to 1982 he practised law in Kingston and Toronto, and taught at Queen’s Law School. He taught law at Dalhousie University for thirteen years between 1982 and 1997.

After eleven years on the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal, he was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada in 2008 and served for eight years until his recent retirement. He has chaired the Chief Justice of Canada’s Action Committee on Access to Justice in Civil and Family Matters since 2009.

Justice Cromwell was first recipient of the Louis St. Laurent Award from the Canadian Bar Association, and has received four honorary doctorates in law. An award in his name was established by Queen’s Law in 2015. In December, 2017, Justice Cromwell was made a Companion of the Order of Canada. He is now Senior Counsel with the law firm Borden Ladner Gervais.

Supreme Court decisions affect Canadians in many ways. Bring yourquestions about them, as Justice Cromwell discusses his time on the Supreme Court and his interest in access to justice as the biggest single problem faced by our legal system today.