The Honourable Justice Lorne Sossin’s 5 Reasons Why the Public Sector is the Best Place to Devote Your Legal Career

  • November 01, 2019
  • Anu Lalith Kumar

On October 2, 2019, the Public Sector Lawyers Section of the Ontario Bar Association held their annual welcome reception for articling students and LPP candidates. Students and lawyers in the public sector gathered to hear the Honourable Justice Lorne Sossin share a few words on the good, the bad and ugly of the legal public sector.

For those who aren’t familiar with Justice Sossin’s career, he graduated Osgoode Hall Law School and embarked upon a broad and varied journey throughout the public, sometimes private, and academic sectors of the legal field. Justice Sossin served as a law clerk to former Chief Justice Antonio Lamer of the Supreme Court of Canada, had a brief litigation practice at Borden & Elliot (now Borden Ladner Gervais), completed his doctorate in law at Columbia University, taught at Osgoode Hall Law School, served as Associate Dean at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law, and served as the Dean of Osgoode Hall Law School. He also spent time as the Vice Chair of the Ontario Health Professions Appeal and Review Board, and the Health Services Appeal and Review Board, as well as the Integrity Commissioner and Closed Meeting Investigator for the City of Toronto. Most recently, in December 2018, he was appointed a judge of the Superior Court of Justice of Ontario.

With this wealth of experience, Justice Sossin shared the five reasons why he believes the public sector is the best place to devote some, or all, of one’s legal career.