Canadian Lawyer

CHANGEMAKERS Geoff Plant Partner, Heenan Blaikie LLP, Vancouver/Victoria A former attorney general of the province, Geoff Plant has spoken out bravely and boldly on many social issues that affect British Columbia, including housing, homelessness, and drug use. He has always put citizens' legal and electoral rights first and is a keen advocate of aboriginal rights. In February, he was one of four former B.C. attorneys general who penned a letter to the current AG in support of legalizing marijuana. He has also been quite vocal in his calls on the province's judiciary to engage constructively in the B.C. government's ongoing judicial reform initiatives rather than just stand for the status quo. What the panel had to say: "Geoff Plant isn't afraid to speak his mind on the tough issues and speak truth to power. " Lorne Sossin Dean, Osgoode Hall Law School, Toronto As dean of Osgoode Hall Law School and previously as a law professor at the University of Toronto, Lorne Sossin has been at the vanguard of access-to-justice efforts. Recently, he was a member of the steering committee of U of T's access to middle-income justice initiative, a multi-pronged initiative aimed at addressing the growing problem of middle-income access to the civil justice system in Canada. In many other ways, he has been at the forefront of these issues and a leader in the profession of law: He is a founding director of the Centre for the Legal Profession and has been a member of the steering committee of Ontario's joint civil legal needs study, and served as research director for the Law Society of Upper Canada's task force on the independence of the bar. What voters had to say: "One of the best professors I had in my undergraduate studies at U of T and in law at Osgoode, Lorne Sossin continues to show a level of knowledge and commitment to the legal profession that makes him a leading changemaker in Canadian law. " CRIMINAL/HUMAN RIGHTS LAW Justice Morris Fish Justice, Supreme Court of Canada, Ottawa Justice Morris Fish has been a judge of the Supreme Court of Canada since 2003, but his tenure is coming to an end — he reaches the mandatory retirement age of 75 in 2013. As a recent Globe and Mail profile suggests, in recent years he has become the court's lone champion of the rights of the accused, increasingly finding himself in dis- sent. He has not been shy in criticizing his colleagues. In the 2007 case R. v. Singh, Fish chastised the majority for eroding the right to silence. In R. v. Morelli, he appreciated the tremendous capacity of modern technology to assist the state in intruding upon individuals' privacy rights. "It is difficult," he wrote, "to imagine a search more intru- sive, extensive, or invasive of one's privacy than the search and seizure of a personal computer." Fish is a team player but not afraid to use his powers of persuasion on the issues that matter to him, particularly when they affect the rights of the accused. What voters had to say: "His lone voice in this delicate issue [of accuseds' rights] will be missed when he leaves the court." www.CANADIAN Lawyermag.com A U GUST 2012 31 fish: philippe laNDreville INFLUENTIAL MOST 25 TOP THE

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