Just weeks after the end of his term as Dean of Law, Nicholas Kasirer was appointed to Quebec’s Court of Appeal – the province’s highest court.
Calling the appointment “recognition of his remarkable talent,” Principal Heather Munroe-Blum noted that Prof. Kasirer “leaves an extraordinary legacy” after an outstanding 20-year career at McGill, and “will undoubtedly distinguish himself as an eminent member of the Canadian judiciary.”
Upon assuming his new role, Mr. Justice Kasirer is likely to see some familiar faces. He will be joining his former colleague Mr. Justice Yves-Marie Morissette, who also served as Dean and has been at the Court of Appeal since 2002, as well fellow McGill Law alumni Mr. Justice Joseph Robert Nuss, BA’55, BCL’58, and Mr. Justice Allan R. Hilton, BCL’73, LLB’74.
Speaking to law class of 2009, Kasirer – who earned his BCL and LLB from McGill in 1985 – traced the Faculty’s history of alumni living “public-spirited lives” back to Alexander Morris, who graduated in 1850 and went on to establish Quebec’s first schools and hospitals.
“This work speaks to a life of sharing the gift of one’s legal education – financed as it was in part by the whole legal community – in the public sphere. And this fine McGill tradition reminds us that the great dignity of legal education could become a burden unless we somehow give back to the community that helped us become jurists,” said Kasirer.
– By Pascal Zamprelli, BCL/LLB’05