Chief Justice Strathy in conversation with Ian Binnie, Q.C.

For more than 135 years, the Toronto Lawyers' Association, located within the Courthouse Library, has represented the interests of lawyers practising in the City of Toronto. The association was founded to support its members in three key areas: Knowledge, Advocacy, and Community. To uphold these pillars, the association offers a year-round mix of online and in-person education programs for lawyers, hosts both free and paid events to foster in-person networking, and submits advocacy pieces on behalf of its members to the Ontario bench and bar, all levels of government, and the broader public.

One of Canada's most respected arbitrators and advocates, the Honourable Ian Binnie served for nearly 14 years as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. When he retired in 2011 he was described by The Globe and Mail as "arguably the country's premier judge" and by La Presse as "peut-être le juge le plus influent au Canada dans la dernière décennie." During his time on the country's top court (as only the fourth modern Justice appointed directly from the bar) Ian authored more than 170 opinions, including in landmark cases involving corporate and commercial disputes, issues of contractual interpretation and torts, patent interpretation and validity, aboriginal rights, copyright and protection of trade-marks, media law, punitive damages, expert evidence and many other aspects of constitutional, criminal and administrative law. In his role, Ian shares strategic and practical advice, as well as his dispute resolution expertise, with his colleagues and the firm's clients. In doing so he draws not only on his judicial insights, but also his wealth of courtroom experience as one of Canada's top litigators. Over the course of three decades, he argued cases in most of the common law provinces and appeared regularly before the Supreme Court on a range of constitutional, civil and criminal matters. Throughout his career as a litigator, Ian has often taken on public service roles as well. In the early 1980s he served for four years as Canada's Associate Deputy Minister of Justice. He was later appointed Special Parliamentary Counsel to the Joint Committee of the Senate and the House of Commons on the Meech Lake Accord. An elected member of the International Commission of Jurists, he has appeared before the International Court of Justice and various international tribunals in governmental litigation matters, and has acted as Canadian representative in high-profile disputes involving France and the U.S.

The Honourable George R. Strathy was appointed to the Court of Appeal for Ontario on April 25, 2013 and was subsequently appointed as Chief Justice of Ontario and President of the Court of Appeal for Ontario on June 13, 2014. For the previous five years, he served as a judge of the Superior Court of Justice in the Toronto Region, where he presided over civil, class action and criminal matters. He was appointed to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on December 13, 2007. Chief Justice Strathy received a Bachelor of Arts from McGill University in 1970 and a Master of Arts from the University of Toronto in 1971. He studied law at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law where he received his LL.B. in 1974 and was awarded the Gold Medal. He was called to the Ontario Bar in 1976. In practice, he specialized in civil litigation, with an emphasis on maritime and transportation law. He was active in a number of professional organizations, including the Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Maritime Law Association and the Canadian Association of Maritime Arbitrators. He is the author of two books on maritime law, as well as numerous papers and articles. Chief Justice Strathy is married to Elyse Strathy. They have five daughters and nine grandchildren.