The Honourable Thomas Cromwell, C.C., was appointed to the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal in 1997, serving there until his appointment as a judge of the Supreme Court of Canada in 2008. He now serves as senior counsel with Borden Ladner Gervais LLP in Ottawa and Vancouver and is a Member Arbitrator and Mediator, with a focus on labour and complex public sector disputes.
The Honourable Thomas Cromwell received law degrees from Queen’s and Oxford, practised law in Kingston and Toronto and taught law at Dalhousie University.
After serving as Executive Legal Officer to the Chief Justice Canada from 1992 – 1995, Mr. Cromwell was appointed a judge of the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal in 1997, serving there until his appointment as a judge of the Supreme Court of Canada in 2008. He retired from the Supreme Court of Canada on September 1st, 2016. A member of the Bars of Nova Scotia, Ontario and British Columbia, ...more he now serves as senior counsel with Borden Ladner Gervais LLP in Ottawa and Vancouver and is a Member Arbitrator at Arbitration Place in Ottawa and Toronto.
During his time at Dalhousie, Mr. Cromwell was active as a labour arbitrator and served as Vice-chair of the Nova Scotia Labour Relations Board. Since retiring from the bench, he has been engaged to resolve multiple complex public sector disputes.
Mr. Cromwell was the first recipient of the Canadian Bar Association’s Louis St. Laurent Award of Excellence and is an honorary fellow of Exeter College, Oxford and of the American College of Trial Lawyers. A holder of four honorary doctorates in law, he has also had an award established in his name at the Queen’s Faculty of Law, The Honourable Thomas Cromwell Award for Public Service. He is the chair of the Action Committee on Access to Justice in Civil and Family Matters, a director of the International Centre for Criminal Law Reform and Criminal Justice and of Access Pro Bono British Columbia.
Mr. Cromwell was awarded the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice’s Justice Medal and, in 2017, was named a Companion of the Order of Canada for his “illustrious service as a Supreme Court justice, and for his leadership in improving access to justice for all Canadians.”
