Thomas Cromwell

Senior counsel, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP

A former Supreme Court justice, Thomas Cromwell has served as chairman of the chief justice of Canada’s Action Committee on Access to Justice in Civil and Family Matters, from which he will be departing this year. He is frequently heard at conferences and on podcasts across Canada and he recently joined Arbitration Place. In January, he was inducted into the Order of Canada. Cromwell sat on the Supreme Court of Canada from 2008 to 2016 and on the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal from 1997 to 2008. Prior to his appointment to the bench, Cromwell was executive legal officer to chief justice Antonio Lamer from 1992 to 1995. He has practised law in Toronto and Kingston, Ont., and he has taught at the Faculty of Law at Dalhousie University. While at Dalhousie, he was a labour arbitrator and vice chairman of the Nova Scotia Labour Relations Board. Cromwell is the recipient of four honorary doctorates in law and is an honorary fellow of Exeter College, Oxford and the American College of Trial Lawyers.

 WHAT VOTERS HAD TO SAY:

“Tom Cromwell excels at everything he does. Having had an outstanding career as an academic and jurist, he is now leading efforts meaningfully to reform access to justice in Canada. Access to justice is something that a lot of lawyers like to talk about, but Tom is trying assiduously to make it happen.”