Canadian Lawyer

Regional wrap-up Central Irving was a 'real lawyer' M ontreal litigation boutique Irving Mitchell Kalichman and Quebec's pro bono legal community are among those mourning the loss of Colin K. Irving. Irving, who died suddenly but peacefully on June 11 in Montreal at the age of 78, did not care for retirement following an accomplished law career that saw him argue 25 times before the Supreme Court of Canada in seminal cases like the Repatriation Reference, RJR-Macdonald Inc. v. Canada, and Bank of Montreal v. Bail ltée. Instead, in recent years he spent tireless hours, including a chunk of most Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, working on cases from two legal aid clinics in Montreal, the Mile End Legal Clinic and Tyndale St-Georges Community Centre's free legal information clinic. He founded the latter one as part of his personal mission to increase access to justice for those intimidated or hindered by the cost or process of the court system. "Ordinary people can't afford to go to trial and it's a problem for us all," Irving said in 2010 as he accepted Pro Bono Québec's inaugural Médaille de Saint-Yves recognizing his "outstanding contribution." He was also honoured with the Excellence in Advocacy award during the Canadian Civil Liberties Association's annual gala held this past May in Toronto. "He went to the wall for everyone," said Geeta Narang, the Montreal lawyer who founded the Mile End Legal Clinic. "He sat down with each client and he treated everyone like they were God for that period, and their problem was absolutely central, and I saw him put hours and hours of research into people who had squeegee tickets or library fines. He was a real lawyer in the old sense, that you must tell the client what their rights and possibilities are, but once you have 8 august 2013 www.CANADIAN received their instructions you will do anything for the client and use all your abilities to have their point of view explained to a court and he did it for everyone." Two other high-profile pro bono wins marked his quest for justice and made a big difference in the lives of others. In 2004, Irving was the lead counsel who obtained a favourable judgment from the Quebec Court of Appeal in the Hendricks case (La Ligue catholique pour les droits de l'homme v. Hendricks) that legalized gay marriage in Quebec. In the 1980s, there was the victorious fight before the Supreme Court to end the miscarriage of justice against Janise Marie Gamble, a young woman sentenced to life in prison for the first-degree murder of a police officer despite evidence to the contrary. Irving took on the case after discussions with his daughter following a documentary L a w ye r m a g . c o m Montreal's Colin Irving passed away on June 11. by the CBC's The Fifth Estate program detailing Gamble's situation. "He was exceptionally kind, very humble," said Narang, noting e-mails she received following Irving's death from law students who said that his example and mentoring fundamentally changed their careers. — Kathryn Leger kathryn.leger@videotron.ca DELISLE TO SEEK LEAVE TO SCC A motion for leave to appeal before the Supreme Court of Canada will be filed this August on behalf of Jacques Delisle, the retired Quebec Court of Appeal judge now serving a life sentence in jail with no chance of parole. Jacques Larochelle, the Quebec City lawyer representing Delisle, says he will go ahead with the high court appeal before the Aug. 20 deadline. In a 41-page decision in late May, the Quebec Court of Appeal refused to overturn Delisle's conviction for first-degree murder in the shooting death of his 71-year-old wife Marie-Nicole Rainville on Nov. 12, 2009. Rainville, who was paralyzed on her right side, was found in the couple's Quebec City condominium lying on a couch with a bullet wound in her head and a revolver owned by Delisle nearby. Delisle, who had called 911 to report his wife

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