Paul Schabas

The Honourable Paul Schabas
Justice of the Ontario Superior Court
In office 2019–Present
66th Treasurer of the Law Society
In office 2016–2018
Preceded by	Janet E. Minor
Succeeded by	Malcolm M. Mercer
Personal details
Nationality	Canadian

Paul B. Schabas is a judge of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.

Prior to his appointment to the bench, he was senior litigation partner at Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP in Toronto. In addition to a busy commercial litigation practice, Schabas acted for clients on arbitrations, white collar criminal and regulatory matters, and constitutional and public law cases. For thirty years, he represented Canada’s major media organizations on defamation, copyright, access to information and free expression matters. Schabas was counsel on leading Charter and human rights cases, many before the Supreme Court of Canada. He is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and the International Academy of Trial Lawyers.

In June 2018, Schabas completed two years as the 66th Treasurer (President) of the Law Society of Ontario, the regulator of the province’s 50,000 lawyers and 8,000 licensed paralegals. He was only the second lawyer from Blakes to hold this position, the first being Edward Blake, the firm's founding partner, who was Treasurer from 1879 to 1893. Prior to being elected Treasurer, Schabas was a Bencher of the Law Society, elected in 2007 and re-elected in 2011 and 2015. As a bencher, he served as chair of the Professional Regulation Committee, the Proceedings Authorization Committee, the Human Rights Monitoring Group, and the Access to Justice Committee. He was a member of the Equity and Indigenous Affairs, Tribunals and Finance Committees, and the Articling and Mentoring Task Forces. He also chaired numerous panels of the Law Society Tribunal, adjudicating professional conduct and licensing issues. As Treasurer and Bencher of the Law Society, Schabas advocated in favour of a controversial requirement that all Ontario lawyers of an obligation to expressly affirm a Statement of Principles on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion or be sanctioned by their regulator.

Prior to his appointment to the bench, Schabas served as an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, where he taught a popular course on media law with Bert Bruser, a Blakes partner emeritus and counsel to the Toronto Star. Schabas also served as vice-chair of the university tribunal adjudicating academic offences. He previously taught trial practice at York University's Osgoode Hall Law School and lectured at Trinity College, University of Toronto, where he taught an introductory course on law to undergraduates. He frequently speaks on a variety of legal matters at professional and academic gatherings in Canada, the United States, and abroad. Schabas has published numerous articles, from scholarly peer-reviewed work to op-eds in major daily newspapers. His articles have been cited by the Supreme Court of Canada on several occasions.

Schabas is a past Trustee and Chair of the Law Foundation of Ontario, as well as a former Chair of Pro Bono Law Ontario, of which he was a founding director. He is a Past President of the Canadian Media Lawyers Association and at the time of his judicial appointment was a director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History, the Canadian Journalism Foundation, and Lawyers Rights Watch Canada. He is a former director of the Advocates' Society, Family Service Toronto, and the National Youth Orchestra of Canada.

Education

Schabas was called to the Bar of Ontario in 1986. He received an LLB from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law in 1984. He showed an early talent for oral argument, taking the prize of First Oralist at the annual University of Toronto/Osgoode Hall (York University) First Year Criminal Law Moots in 1982.

Prior to law school, in 1981, he completed an Honours BA (with Distinction) in History at University College, University of Toronto. From 1976 to 1978, Schabas attended the School of Music at Indiana University Bloomington, where he studied the French horn with Philip Farkas as a student in the B. Mus. Performance program.

Career

Schabas began his legal career in 1984 as an articling student under Morris Manning QC in Toronto. His first major trial was as Manning's student in R v Morgentaler, Smoling & Scott, in which a jury refused to convict three physicians for operating an abortion clinic in downtown Toronto in violation of Canada's Criminal Code. Following his call to the bar, as Manning's associate, Schabas was co-counsel on the landmark decision of the Supreme Court in the same case, which struck down Canada's abortion law under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in January 1988. While with Manning, from 1984 to 1988, Schabas practised criminal defence, administrative, and constitutional law.

In 1988, Schabas joined Blakes as an associate in its Litigation department. Over the next several years, Schabas developed skills in civil litigation and in municipal, environmental, estates, tax, human rights, and media law, all while continuing to practise in the areas of criminal and constitutional law. He worked with several eminent senior counsel, including Jake Howard QC, John Brown QC, Jim McCallum QC, Russell Juriansz, Kathryn Feldman, Bert Bruser, and Brian Rogers. Schabas became a partner at Blakes in 1992.

Since that time, Schabas has handled hundreds of cases, appearing as counsel before administrative tribunals and on trials, judicial reviews, applications, and appeals before courts in Ontario, Manitoba, Newfoundland & Labrador, and New Brunswick, as well as Canada's Federal Courts, Tax Court, and Supreme Court. Schabas has appeared in the Supreme Court on 21 occasions. In one of his prominent commercial cases, he was called out by the Court in its decision for having not been truthful in an appeal about what transpired at trial. Prior to his appointment to the bench, he had been counsel on several domestic and international commercial arbitrations in Canada and the United States.

In April 2019, Schabas was appointed a Judge of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. In 2023, Schabas upheld an order of the College of Psychologists of Ontario, a regulatory body, which required that Canadian academic and media personality Jordan Peterson take social media training in the wake of complaints about controversial online posts and statements.