Frank Iacobucci and the University of Toronto

Frank Iacobucci and the University of Toronto† Martin L. Friedland (bio) My essay is about one of Frank Iacobucci's great passions, the University of Toronto, where he spent almost twenty years of his life. Frank had a high regard for universities. The first sentence in the introduction to the 2005 book Taking Public Universities Seriously, which he edited with Carolyn Tuohy, reads, 'Public universities are central pillars of successful societies.'1 My objective in this brief paper on Frank and the university is to help us gain a better understanding of his character and his approach to problem solving so that we can more easily understand why he was so successful as a judge and continues to be so effective as a problem solver. I know Frank well. I first met him in September 1962 when I was teaching at Osgoode Hall Law School and he was on his way to Cambridge University, where I had spent the year 1960/1961 and to which I would be returning for another nine months in early January 1963. As with almost everyone who has met Frank, there was an instant bond. Our friendship has lasted almost forty-five years. During that time I have never heard anyone say a harsh word about him. As fellow Canadians doing graduate work in law at Cambridge – I think we were the only two doing so in 1963 – we cemented the friendship. I became aware of Frank's fine sense of humour and his laughter, which is also part of the reason for his success. I remember one incident – I can't remember whether I was actually there or whether Frank told me about it – when he and a philosopher friend of ours were in one of the Great Courts of St. John's College. Our friend had said something funny to Frank, who had doubled over in laughter and was rolling on the grass. The hall porter came over to our philosopher friend and asked what [End Page 155] was happening. The reply was, 'He just got some bad news – but he's taking it well.' Frank's humour was well known at the law school. You could always count on Frank to break the tension – or boredom – at a faculty council meeting by saying something clever and humorous. Sometimes it was straight slapstick. Frank always got a laugh at marks meetings, when we came to the student who had been given the pseudonym 'Duck,' by ducking under the table. I doubt if he resorted to slapstick or rolled on the floor in conference at the Supreme Court, but I can picture him switching to his Groucho Marx or W.C. Fields voice when the situation needed such an intervention. Frank went to Cambridge on a Newton Rowell Fellowship – the very Rowell of the law school's Rowell Room. Rowell had been the leader of the Liberal Party in Ontario. In his second year at Cambridge, Frank had the Mackenzie King Travelling Scholarship. I doubt if Brian Mulroney knew of this early identification with the Liberal Party when he appointed Frank Chief Justice of the Federal Court. His work at Cambridge was in international law, with a particular interest in disarmament, which again was useful in his later negotiations with the faculty association. Disarming the opposition has been one of his strengths. Cambridge is also the place where Frank met his lifelong partner, Nancy Eastham, who came from a well-established New England family. Like her father, Nancy had been at Harvard Law School, where she was one of the editors of the Harvard Law Review. My wife, Judy, became friends with Nancy. We attended Frank and Nancy's wedding in Andover, Massachusetts, in October 1964, trying to do our bit to counterbalance the profusion of Bostonians. After Cambridge, Frank and Nancy went to New York, where Frank was an associate of Dewey, Ballantine. I seem to recall that Frank has a funny story about meeting or not meeting Governor Dewey. Sometime in early 1967, Peter Williamson, who taught corporate and securities law, decided to leave the University of Toronto Law School to return to the Dartmouth business school. The law school therefore needed...

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