John J Robinette: Peerless Mentor: An Appreciation

Christopher English is a professor of history at Memorial University of
Newfoundland and the author of A Cautious Beginning: The Emergence of
Newfoundland’s Supreme Court of Judicature in 1791–92.

As litigator, counsel to a leading Toronto law firm from 1949, and
pre-eminent constitutional outside counsel to the government of Canada,
J.J. Robinette was acknowledged in English-speaking central Canada as
the leading lawyer of his age. Cases that he argued have become the
stuff of Canadian legal legend, scholarly treatises, and law-school
study. These include the Evelyn Dick and Suchan murder trials of the
1940s and ’50s; Noble v. Wolf, a case on restrictive covenants that
mixed property, privacy rights, and racism; Landreville on conflict of
interest; and the Patriation Reference of the early 1980s. Called in
when cases went on appeal, Robinette had an uncanny ability to isolate
the key issues of law and to argue them persuasively.

George Finlayson’s reconstruction and analysis of Robinette’s
strategy, advocacy, and influence is instructive and entertaining. For
those who still subscribe to the nostrum that judges are impersonal and
passive interpreters of the law, the story of his confrontations with
Ontario Chief Justice J.C. McRuer (profiled in a companion volume in
this series) will be enlightening. Having been Robinette’s student and
colleague for 30 years, Finlayson offers an affectionate, admiring,
sometimes gently critical analysis based on reported cases, interviews,
anecdote, and personal reminiscence.

Robinette was essentially a private man. Time not spent on the law was
reserved for family. He left no personal or professional records upon
which a more academic study might have been based, and if they do come
to light, a different kind of book may be written. In the meantime, this
biography can be read in one or two relaxed sessions.