Marie Deschamps

McGill University - Faculty of Law

The Honourable Marie Deschamps received a Licentiate in Laws from the Université de Montréal in 1974 and an LL. M. from McGill University in 1983. The Université de Montréal and the Université de Sherbrooke each awarded her an honorary doctorate, respectively in 2008 and 2014. She was inducted as a member of the American College of Trial Lawyers in 2005. She received from the Law School of McGill University the F. R. Scott award for distinguished service in 2013. Also in 2013, she was appointed Companion of the Order of Canada. She received the distinction Lawyer Emeritus from the Quebec Bar in 2014.
She was called to the Quebec Bar in 1975 and practiced as a litigator with various law firms in the Province of Québec in criminal, civil and commercial law. She was appointed judge to the Quebec Superior Court in 1990, to the Court of Appeal in 1992 and to the Supreme Court of Canada in 2002. She retired from the judiciary in August 2012 and rejoined the Quebec Bar in 2013.

She has been a member of numerous boards and committees, including the board of the Université de Montréal, the 1986 Advisory Committee on Reform of the Bankruptcy Act and the Competition Tribunal Advisory Council. In 2014 and 2015, she conducted the External Review into Sexual Harassment and Sexual Misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces and, in 2015, chaired the panel appointed to review of the response of the United Nations to allegations of sexual abuse by peacekeepers in the Central African Republic. In 2016, she acted as member of the Remuneration Committee of the Quebec Judges. She has been an adjunct professor in the law faculty of Université de Sherbrooke since 2006 and in that of McGill University since 2012. She currently serves as member of the boards of directors of Gaz Metro inc, Educaloi and Pro Bono Canada.

She is regularly invited to give lectures and conferences to various audiences, mostly on constitutional and commercial law and on governance and ethics.