by David Williams. Published with the University of British Columbia Press, 1984. Out of Print.
Sir Lyman Duff is often described as Canada’s most distinguished jurist. His career encompassed forty years in high judicial office, the last eleven as Chief Justice of Canada. More than any other individual, he shaped the Supreme Court and its decisions during a period when it was struggling, often against formidable obstacles, to achieve the stature needed to fulfil its obligations as Canada’s highest judicial body. Although Mr. Williams’ work offers important insights into those difficult years in the court’s evolution, his focus is on Duff personally. Duff’s career as lawyer, jurist, frequent royal commissioner and adviser to Prime Ministers was unique to the man and his times. As his biographer, Mr. Williams has succeeded admirably in integrating that which is private and personal in his subject’s life with Duff’s larger political and judicial concerns.The result is a popular and entertaining account which will offer an introduction for many readers to the role played in the first half of this century by a great Canadian judge and to the Court which benefited so much from his intellectual eminence and outstanding leadership.
