One Man's Justice: A Life in the Law

Ashley Thomson is a full librarian at Laurentian University and co-editor or co-author of nine books, most recently Margaret Atwood: A Reference Guide, 1988-2005.

Thomas R. Berger has gained fame over the course of his career as the
leader of the B.C. New Democrats, a judge of the B.C. Supreme Court, and
especially as a royal commissioner (his Northern Frontier, Northern
Homeland: The Report of the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry remains
the bestselling work ever published by the Government of Canada). And
yet it was the law that was his passion. Accordingly, he notes in his
preface that One Man’s Justice is not so much an autobiography as it
is “the adventures of a lawyer.”

As a lawyer, Berger was involved in a remarkable number of high-profile
cases, the most significant of which was probably Calder v. the Attorney
General of B.C., [1973] SCR 313. Although he lost (just barely), that
case forced the federal government to take Indian land claims seriously
for the first time in Canadian history. The Calder case is but one of 11
that make up this splendid book. Others include the union workers who
were disciplined for refusing to work on a bridge they deemed unsafe,
the girl who was rendered disabled when a medical procedure went
horribly wrong, and the woman who was victimized by unauthorized medical
experimentation. Berger sets out in fascinating detail the background
and outcome of the cases, as well as the strategies he employed against
the opposing side. As such, One Man’s Justice is a must-read for
anyone considering law as a career.

But the book’s appeal is much broader. At one point, Berger writes,
“Jury trials are … a kind of discipline for lawyers and judges.
Lawyers are obliged, if they expect to be understood, to cast their
arguments in everyday language. Only this way will they be effective
with juries.” In this excellent book, Berger not only communicates, he
convinces. In more than one instance, beginning with the subject of
Indian land claims, he changed my mind. That’s the mark of a good
lawyer; it is also the mark of a good book.