Mr. Paul Lee

This interview captures the remarkable career of Paul Albert Lee, Q.C., one of Canada’s most innovative and strategic civil trial lawyers. Born in 1928 in Halifax as one of eighteen children to a barber father, Lee’s path to law began serendipitously when Dalhousie Law School Dean Vincent McDonald recruited him as a football player, telling him “if you play football, you are a law student as of now.” After graduating in 1951, he moved to Toronto in 1952, beginning with Edson Haines before establishing his own practice focused on insurance defence work.

Lee’s career was distinguished by his masterful jury advocacy and creative legal strategies that often operated “above the facts.” His most famous cases include Graham v. Hodgkinson (the “dog case”), where he successfully focused the trial on a defendant’s dog rather than liability, and Crocker v. Sundance, which became a landmark Supreme Court decision on assumption of risk. He was known for his theatrical courtroom presence, strategic use of humor, and ability to cross-examine witnesses for days without notes while maintaining perfect recall of testimony.

The interview reveals Lee’s philosophy of trial advocacy: giving witnesses “an exit” that leads to another dilemma, focusing juries on peripheral issues that favored his client, and his belief that perception mattered more than raw facts. His career spanned the evolution of civil litigation from simple trials lasting days to complex proceedings lasting months, and he provides insight into the changing nature of legal practice, expert testimony, and judicial administration in Ontario from the 1950s through the 2000s.

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