NIMAN o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2005-11-15 published
James McLEOD,
Writer,
Lawyer And Teacher (1947-2005)
University of Western Ontario professor who was regarded as 'the
conscience of the family law bar and judiciary in Canada' was
misunderstood as a sexist reactionary
By Ron CSILLAG,
Special to The Globe and Mail, Tuesday, November
15, 2005, Page S9
Toronto -- It's no small feat to be compared in one's lifetime
to libertarian journalist H.L. Mencken and right-wing radio host
Rush
Limbaugh.
James
McLEOD just sought to make the world a better
place but, on at least one occasion, was adjudged to have done
the opposite.
A prolific writer, editor, appellate lawyer and professor at
the University of Western Ontario's law school for 33 years,
Prof. McLEOD was remembered by colleagues as Canada's pre-eminent
barrister and scholar of family law. Those close to him recall
a frighteningly encyclopedic knowledge that could be summoned
in an instant, with clarity, accuracy and wit. His mastery of
family law was so prodigious and widely known that a judge once
openly wondered whether Prof.
McLEOD slept with a dictaphone.
Known to Friends as Jay and to family members as Gary (his middle
name,) Prof.
McLEOD's name was virtually synonymous with Canadian
family law and all its arcana. As editor-in-chief of Reports
of Family Law for 27 years, he screened tens of thousands of
cases -- virtually every written family law ruling in the country.
And as author of more than 1,000 case commentaries (known as
annotations), he helped shape and develop important legal concepts.
Those annotations were the stuff of legend; while highly regarded,
they were not always flattering.
"Much as a producer of a new Broadway play waits anxiously to
read the reviews by the critics the next morning, judges were
always apprehensive about what Prof.
McLEOD might think of their
decision and whether they would pass his rigorous standards,"
wrote long-time colleague, co-author and self-described tag-team
partner, London, Ontario, lawyer Alfred
MAMO, whose firm Prof.
McLEOD had joined for 17 years to write opinions and handle appeals.
One tribute to Prof.
McLEOD's "phenomenal" stature in family
law is the fact that his writings have been quoted with approval
by virtually every court in the land with jurisdiction in family
law, and on numerous occasions by the Supreme Court of Canada,
Mr. MAMO said. "To a large degree," he added, "Jay was the conscience
of the family law bar and judiciary in Canada," and his comments
were "the gold standard" for legal analysis in family law.
Sometimes, his parsing of a case was longer than the case itself.
Toronto family lawyer Harold
NIMAN, a long-time friend whose
daily e-mail exchange with Prof.
McLEOD would begin at 5: 30 a.m.,
recalls a court ruling this year on whether a set time a child
spends with one parent should be calculated in hours or days.
The decision was contained in half a page. Prof.
McLEOD's annotation
ran for four pages "as he analyzed in his Einstein-like way the
abstruse existential territory of time-space and relativity,
and whether sleeping and being in school qualified" as time spent
with a parent.
Prof. McLEOD was "often like a dog with a bone when it came to
a legal issue.... He was without a doubt the most energetic and
entertaining speaker I have ever heard. He could pack more into
a lecture than any person I have heard or seen. I was so exhausted
after hearing him speak that I often needed to have a nap," said
Mr. NIMAN, whose firm Prof.
McLEOD joined as counsel in 2003.
"Jay was the H.L. Mencken of family law."
He was able to reduce the most intricate and forbidding legal
case to its "barest human essentials," wrote University of Western
Ontario colleague Rande
KOSTAL in the student newspaper Nexus.
"He regarded the law as a way -- an imperfect way -- of imposing
some rational order on the unruly tragicomedy of everyday life.
And he strove, with legendary success, to be the funniest man
on the funniest subject of them all: the rituals of human love,
marriage and parenthood."
To others, he wasn't always so funny.
In the late 1980s and early '90s, Prof.
McLEOD championed the
"causal connection" theory of spousal support, which posited
that a person shouldn't be obliged to support an ex-spouse unless
the marriage "caused" or contributed to the ex's need for support.
His theory was promptly attacked as reactionary and sexist; according
to a 2000 profile in Lawyer's Weekly, he was once introduced
at a conference as "family law's answer to Rush Limbaugh." (He
was also reportedly pelted with buns at a dinner.) A band of
family law practitioners even wrote and performed a protest song,
The Ballad of Jay McLeod.
A 1992 Supreme Court of Canada decision put an end to the theory
and, although Prof.
McLEOD later said he regretted that it had
been used to hurt long-term spouses (almost always middle-aged
women), he defended it: "All the causal connection theory said
was, 'You come into marriage as individuals. You leave marriage
as individuals. And you shouldn't have a right to support from
the other person unless somehow the circumstances that cause
you to need money are somehow related to the relationship," he
said in the Lawyer's Weekly piece. "That was it."
Born to a full-time homemaker and a labourer who had served in
the wartime Canadian navy, he was the oldest of five siblings
and the first member of his family to attend university. And
he did so with a vengeance. After two years as an undergraduate
at Western Ontario, he enrolled in law school (because there
was "no market for Robin Hood," he would later quip), and placed
first in each year, going on to win the Gold Medal by a wide
margin in 1971. He earned a master's degree in law at the University
of London in 1972, the year he joined University of Western Ontario's
faculty to teach corporate and commercial subjects, and two years
before his call to the Ontario bar.
In 1978, he was invited to annotate and edit the Reports of Family
Law, and he never looked back. "Once I got going in the area
and started to write these things, all of a sudden it dawns on
you, 'My God, in three pages you can have a lot of fun saying
this stuff,' " he recalled. "It took on a life of its own. The
annotations basically built and created me."
He went on to edit other legal publications, including those
on child custody and matrimonial property. Many lawyers eagerly
awaited his pithy and popular weekly on-line newsletter, This
Week in Family Law. When he died, he was the University of Western
Ontario law school's associate dean for administration and a
respected teacher at the university's Ivey School of Business.
While taking one of Prof.
McLEOD's third-year classes, an older
student, a single mother of two, turned to her friend and wondered,
"Is he always such a jerk?"
The word became a "term of endearment," chuckles Margaret
McSORLEY,
who married her professor in 1981. Years later, the two legalists
found themselves on opposite sides of a case, he representing
the wife, she the husband. They soon negotiated an agreement.
"He talked a mile a minute and would always make you laugh,"
says Ms. McSORLEY, a family lawyer who was named a judge of the
Ontario Court of Justice in 2003. "But what a stickler."
Indeed, Prof.
McLEOD was a long-time proponent of rigour in family
law. "We are law, too, and I want it treated that way," he said.
Even the Supreme Court of Canada was criticized for laxness.
"I think this court is a discretion court and that hides a multitude
of sins," he said five years ago. "I don't like undisciplined
power or uncontrolled power. I like rules. I like some form of
clearly structured discretion."
He helped set some of those rules, winning important cases before
the Ontario Court of Appeal, including Elliot v. Elliot, which
set a precedent on compensatory support in the province.
He didn't relax much, apparently. Some golf, maybe an old movie.
Mostly, he worked. He wanted to make a mark. "I'd hate to think
that I would go through life and was nothing but average as I
did it," he told Lawyer's Weekly. "So I have got an opportunity
doing this stuff, and I try to use it."
James Gary
McLEOD was born in Guelph, Ontario, on November 29,
1947, and died in New Hamburg, Ontario, on October 4, 2005, of
a heart attack. He was 57. He leaves his mother, Pauline
McLEOD,
his wife, Margaret
McSORLEY, five children and four grandchildren.
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NIMMERT o@ca.on.middlesex_county.london.london_free_press 2005-04-14 published
LOTZ,
Kurt
Kurt LOTZ (member and treasurer of German Canadian Club of London
and Philatelic Club) peacefully on Tuesday, April 12, 2005, surrounded
by his family at the London Health Sciences Center, University
Campus, in his 85th year. Beloved husband of Gabrielle
LOTZ (nee
POWELL) for 24 years and the late Ellie
LOTZ (1979.) Loving father
of Christine (Klaus)
NIMMERT and grand_son Peter (Kelly)
NIMMERT
and their family. Step-father of Robin (Colleen)
STEVEN,
Laurence
(Jan) STEVEN, Chris (Freda)
STEVEN, Tim
STEVEN, Calvin (Michele)
STEVEN and their families. Kurt will be missed by family in Germany.
The family will receive Friends and relatives at Forest Lawn
Memorial Chapel, 1997 Dundas Street East (at Wavell), London,
for visitation on Thursday from 7-9 p.m. Funeral service will
be on Friday, April 15, 2005 at 11 a.m. Interment at Forest Lawn
Memorial Gardens. In remembrance, donations to the London Health
Sciences Foundation, c/o: Burn Unit or the Parkwood Hospital
Foundation, c/o: Wound Care Fund would be gratefully appreciated.
Arrangements entrusted to Memorial Funeral Home 452-3770
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NIMMO o@ca.on.middlesex_county.london.london_free_press 2005-01-20 published
BROUGH,
Beatrice "
Bea"
Florence
(McCOWAN)
At the Strathroy Middlesex General Hospital on Wednesday, January
19, 2005. Beatrice "Bea" F.
(McCOWAN)
BROUGH of Parkhill in her
92nd year. Beloved wife of the late John C.
BROUGH (1962.) Sister
of Mary SMITH of Seaforth. Predeceased by sister Elizabeth
NIMMO,
brothers John and Peter
McCOWAN. No funeral home visitation and
no funeral service. M. Box and son Funeral Home, 183 Broad Street,
Parkhill in charge of funeral arrangements. Share a memory or
send condolences to www.boxfuneralhome.ca. M. Box and son will
plant a tree in living memory of Mrs.
BROUGH at Ausable-Bayfield
Conservation Parkhill.
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NIMMO o@ca.on.middlesex_county.london.london_free_press 2005-03-01 published
SMITH,
Mary
Marjorie
Peacefully at Huronview Home, Tuckersmith Twp. on Monday, February
28, 2005, Mrs. Mary Marjorie
SMITH, formerly of Seaforth in her
99th year. Beloved wife of the late Alex
SMITH (1966.) Loving
mother of June and Murray
COCKWELL of Atwood, Marjorie and Bruce
COLEMAN of Exeter and Mark
SMITH and Kathy
NIGH of R.R.#2 Kippen.
Cherished grandmother of 9 grandchildren, 15 great-grandchildren
and 2 great-great-grandchildren. Predeceased by daughter-in-law
Mary Anne SMITH, great-grand_son Michael
COCKWELL, 2 sisters Beth
NIMMO,
Bea
BROUGH and by 2 brothers John and Peter
McCOWAN. Friends
will be received at the Box and Smith Funeral Chapel, 47 High Street,
Seaforth on Tuesday from 2-4 and 7-9 p.m. where the funeral service
will be held on Wednesday, March 2, 2005 at 2 p.m. Pastor Stephen
HILDEBRAND will officiate. Spring interment Maitlandbank Cemetery.
As expressions of sympathy, memorial donations to the charity
of one's choice would be greatly appreciated.
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NIMMO o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2005-02-10 published
DAVISON,
William▼
Gordon▼
94, of Lower L'Ardoise, Nova Scotia, formerly of Toronto and
Long Point, Balsam Lake, Ontario passed away on February 6, 2005
at the Strait-Richmond Hospital in Evanston, Cape Breton, Nova
Scotia.
Born in Toronto, he was the
son of Harry and Jean
(NIMMO)
DAVISON,
predeceased by brother Esler and daughter in law Wendy, and survived
by his wife and best friend of 66 years Jean (Fraser), children
Bruce of Brampton, Ontario, Drew (Louise) of Kirkfield, Ontario,
Marilyn of Lower L'Ardoise, Nova Scotia, grandchildren Cara,
Gordon, Michael, Lindsay, Stephen and Meghan and great grandchildren
Emily, William, Jacob and Emma.
He was a graduate of the University of Toronto (Commerce), a
Chartered Accountant, an executive with William Neilson Ltd.
for 25 years and a long term member of St. George's United Church
in Toronto.
Gordon will be remembered for his love of family and Friends,
his wonderful sense of humor and his lively intellect.
Cremation has taken place and a funeral service will be held
at St. Peter's United Church in St. Peter's, Nova Scotia at 2: 00
pm on Saturday, February 12, 2005, In lieu of flowers, donations
may be made in his name to the palliative care unit at the Strait-Richmond
Hospital.
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NIMMO o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.toronto_star 2005-02-09 published
DAVISON,
William▲
Gordon▲
94, of Lower L'Ardoise, Nova Scotia, formerly of Toronto and
Long Point, Balsam Lake, Ontario, passed away on February 6,
2005, at the Strait-Richmond Hospital in Evanston, Cape Breton,
Nova Scotia. Born in Toronto, he was the
son of Harry and Jean
(NIMMO)
DAVISON, predeceased by brother Esler and daughter-in-law
Wendy, and survived by his wife and best friend of 66 years Jean
(FRASER,) children Bruce of Brampton, Ontario, Drew (Louise)
of Kirkfield, Ontario, Marilyn of Lower L'Ardoise, Nova Scotia,
grandchildren Cara, Gordon, Michael, Lindsay, Stephen and Meghan,
and great-grandchildren Emily, William, Jacob and Emma. He was
a graduate of the University of Toronto (Commerce), a Chartered
Accountant, an executive with William Neilson Ltd. for 25 years
and a long term member of St. George's United Church in Toronto.
Gordon will be remembered for his love of family and Friends,
his wonderful sense of humour and his lively intellect. Cremation
has taken place and a Funeral Service will be held at St. Peter's
United Church in St. Peter's, Nova Scotia, at 2: 00 p.m. on Saturday,
February 12, 2005. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made
in his name to the Palliative Care Unit at the Strait-Richmond
Hospital.
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NIMMO o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.toronto_star 2005-12-26 published
BODDY,
Stephen
Thomas
Suddenly at the Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences
Centre, Veteran's Residence, on Saturday, December 24, 2005.
Steve BODDY, dearly beloved husband of the late Peggy
BODDY (nee
NIMMO.) Cherished father of Thomas, Stephen and Robert and his
wife Andrea. Devoted grandfather of Alexander, Christopher, Kevin
and Patrick. Resting at Newediuk Funeral Home, Kipling Chapel,
2104 Kipling Ave. (two blocks north of Rexdale Blvd.) on Tuesday
from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Funeral Service in
the Chapel on Wednesday, December 28, 2005 at 11 a.m. Private
interment. In lieu of flowers, donations to the Ontario Heart
and Stroke Foundation, Sunnybrook and Women's College Health
Sciences Centre, Veteran's Residence, or a charity of your choice
would be appreciated by the family. "Be kind to someone today,
tomorrow or any day thereafter. "
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