Mr. Hyman Soloway

This interview captures the remarkable career of Hyman Soloway, who immigrated to Ottawa from Ukraine in 1923 at age ten and rose to become one of Ottawa’s most distinguished lawyers. Born into a merchant family in Ukraine during the turbulent revolutionary period, Soloway’s family fled the pogroms and civil unrest to join relatives already established in Ottawa’s Jewish community. After excelling academically at Glebe Collegiate and Queen’s University, where he won the R.B. Bennett Scholarship to study in Geneva, Soloway attended Osgoode Hall Law School despite facing antisemitic discrimination in securing articling positions.

Soloway’s legal career spanned over five decades, beginning with partnership with Jack Minsky in 1945 after military service in World War II. The firm evolved into one of Ottawa’s largest practices, specializing in expropriation work for the National Capital Commission and administrative law before federal tribunals. His most significant cases included the landmark Canadian Aero Services v. O’Malley corporate opportunity decision at the Supreme Court of Canada and extensive work as special counsel to the National Energy Board on pipeline regulation. Throughout his career, Soloway remained deeply involved in Ottawa’s Jewish community while building a practice that reflected the city’s unique legal landscape shaped by federal institutions and the National Capital Commission.

This description was written by AI and may contain some inaccuracies.