Mr. Kaufman was appointed a Judge of
the Québec Court of Appeal in 1973. He was Acting Chief Justice of
Québec from 1990 until 1991, and retired from the Bench later that year.
He is an Honorary Life Member of the Canadian Judges Conference.
Mr. Kaufman became a Certified
Commercial Arbitrator in 1993 through the Québec National and
International Commercial Arbitration Centre. From 1992 to 1994, he was a
part-time member of the Québec Securities Commission and Chairman of the
Committee on Alternative Dispute Resolution.
Mr. Kaufman received a B.Sc. from
Bishop’s University in Lennoxville, Québec, in 1946; a B.A. from
l’Université de Montréal (Thomas Moore Institute) in 1953; a
B.C.L. from McGill University (where he was Editor-in- Chief of the Law
Journal) in 1954; and an Executive M.B.A. from Concordia University in
Montréal, in 1991. He was called to the Bar of Québec in 1955,
the Bar of the Northwest Territories in 1961, and the Bar of Alberta in 1968.
He was appointed a Queen’s Counsel in 1971.
Prior to his career in law, Mr.
Kaufman worked as a reporter for the Montréal Star and as a part-time
correspondent for Saturday Night (Toronto) and Time and Life.
He began his practice as a junior to
the late Joseph Cohen, Q.C., one of Québec’s leading criminal
lawyers. Eventually, he became the senior partner of the firm Kaufman Yarosky
& Fish. On his retirement from the Bench, he rejoined the firm Yarosky
Daviault LaHaye Stober & Isaacs, as counsel, devoting most of his time to
mediation, arbitration and evaluation.
Mr. Kaufman was a Member of Council
and Québec Chairman of the Criminal Justice Section of the Canadian Bar
Association from 1962 to 1965. He also served extensively on committees of the
Bar of Québec, including the Board of Bar Examiners, the Discipline
Committee, the Professional Ethics Committee, and the Committee on Judicial
Appointments. From 1996 to 1997, he was Chair of the Committee on the
Administration of Criminal Justice.
In 1971, Mr. Kaufman was appointed
by the Attorney General of Québec as a representative on the Conference
of Commissioners on Uniformity of Legislation in Canada, a post he held until
his appointment to the Bench. From 1980 to 1990, he served on the Judicial
Advisory Panel of the Law Reform Commission of Canada, and from 1985 to 1990 he
was a member of the Advisory Task Force on the new Criminal Code.
In 1994, at the request of the
Canadian International Development Agency, Mr. Kaufman became a consultant to
the Financial and Legal Management Upgrading Project of the United Republic of
Tanzania. A year later, he delivered a report on the state of the legal
profession, with recommendations for the future.
In 1996, Mr. Kaufman was appointed
by the Government of Ontario as sole Commissioner of the Commission on
Proceedings involving Guy Paul Morin, with a mandate to inquire into the causes
of Mr. Morin’s wrongful conviction on a charge of first-degree murder and
to make recommendations on how this and similar cases might be avoided in the
future.
Throughout his career, Mr. Kaufman
has taken an active interest in the field of education. From 1962 to 1968, he
was lecturer in Criminal Law, Procedure and Evidence in the Faculty of Law at
McGill University. From 1968 to 1973, he was a lecturer (and, later, Assistant
Professor) in the Faculty of Medicine at McGill, where he developed a course of
Medical Jurisprudence. From 1973 to 1995, he was a guest lecturer in the
Advanced Evidence Class in the Faculty of Law at McGill, and he participated
frequently in moot Courts at both McGill University and
l’Université de Montréal.
Mr. Kaufman also served as a thesis
examiner at McGill, Montréal and Laval in Québec. From 1991 to
1993, he was Visiting Lecturer in the Executive M.B.A. Program at Concordia
University, and from 1991 to 1994 he was an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of
Management at McGill, where he taught a course on Ethics in Management.
Mr. Kaufman is the author of a
well-known text, “The Admissibility of Confessions”, with
three editions and three supplements. He also has numerous articles on law and
law-related topics to his credit. He is fluent in English, French and
German.
In 1976, Mr. Kaufman was made a
Doctor of Civil Law, honoris causa, by Bishop’s University, where
he was a member of Corporation and, from 1973 to 1976, Chair of the Executive
Committee. In 1992, he received the Order of Canada for services to law and the
community.
Mr. Kaufman now lives in Toronto.
