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Influence beyond
partisanship
By Tim Wilbur
n this issue, we unveil the ninth annual Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers list (p. 24).
As I read feedback from our voters, I was also closely following the news of the
confirmation debates in the United States — where the merits of President Don-
ald Trump's Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh are being hotly debated. At
press time, the confirmation hearing timeline was still up the air, but it is set to be
a contentious and polarized debate. Kavanaugh's pros and cons are being framed as
though he is a sports star — can he help his team win or lose this zero-sum game?
The contrast with Canada, as exemplified by many of the winners on our list, was
striking. We have winners from all areas of practice, including private firms and aca-
demics, but the most votes came for those who wield the most influence: the lawyers in
our judicial and legislative branches. And the votes they received from our readers was
rarely about partisanship.
Our most popular winner was Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Abella. While Abella
does not shy away from political debates — her speech to a U.S. audience denouncing
"narcissistic populism" or her warnings to an audience in Israel about diminishing the
power of its Supreme Court were clearly political — her influence for our readers was
overwhelmingly about her advancement of the law through her judgments.
Thomas Cromwell, a former Supreme Court judge, was our top vote-getter in the
"Changemaker" category. While his many accomplishments on the bench were no
doubt top of mind for many voters, he has been actively working on access to justice
and advocating for smart adoption of technology since his retirement in 2016. He
speaks publicly about the many issues facing our justice system and how incremental,
not revolutionary, solutions will be what really make a difference to people's lives.
Yasir Naqvi, the former attorney general of Ontario, also understood the importance
of incrementalism when he launched a plan to modernize Ontario's justice system with
his Digital Justice Action Plan. While not as revolutionary as some techno-evangelists
may have wanted, his initiatives are having a positive effect. Now that litigants can file
civil claims online and the government can correspond with potential jurors by email
and text, more small-scale initiatives should be taken up by Ontario's new government
— despite its different political mandate — to keep the positive momentum.
While Canadians can be proud that our legal system is not as partisan as that of our
neighbour to the south, this comes with one big drawback — a lack of transparency.
While the debate about Supreme Court judges in the U.S. is polarized, it is also in the
public space. Canadians, on the other hand, rarely hear public debates about our justice
system, which also means they know very little about how it works.
That is why statements about the need for transparency at the Supreme Court of
Canada couldn't come at a better time, voiced by Chief Justice Richard Wagner, who
is also a winner on our Top 25 Most Influential list. While Wagner may discover
that with transparency comes controversy, as it often does in the U.S., he will have
the confidence of many of our readers, given their votes of support.
Let's hope that he, like all of our winners, will continue to influence our
justice system in a way that transcends partisanship and is about much more than a
zero-sum game.
I
