CrimSL congratulates Professor Jim Phillips of the Faculty of Law, cross-appointed to the Department of History and the Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies, who received the Law Society of Ontario (LSO) Medal at the 2025 Law Society Awards ceremony in Toronto on May 28, 2025.
The ceremony was hosted by LSO Treasurer Peter Wardle, who introduced Professor Phillips. The Honourable Paul B. Schabas presented Phillips with the Law Society Medal.
After receiving the Medal, Phillips spoke briefly. He said he was honoured to be nominated for the Medal, and thanked Dean Jutta Brunnée of the Faculty of Law for the nomination. He also thanked "all those people who supported me and were on the selection committee."
He went on to thank many others in his remarks, below, which were transcribed from the LSO's event video recording:
"First, my friend, colleague, former law teacher for some 40 years, Philip Girard, who recently retired from Osgoode Hall Law School and with whom I have done a great deal of my legal history work. So thank you very much, Philip, for all you’ve done for me and for being here tonight.
"Secondly, I’d like to thank my — I don’t know, hundreds — no, thousands — thousands of students that I have taught over the years, property and trusts law as well as legal history. I know some of them are here tonight, including, in fact, one of the other Law Society Medal recipients. And I’m not going to tell you who that is. You’ll have to guess.
"I’d also very profoundly like to thank the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History. For those of you who don’t know about it or are not members of the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History, you ought to be members. Our president, Paul Schabas, who kindly awarded me the medal tonight, is here tonight, so he will collect your subscriptions. This is a wonderful organization. And the most important thing about this organization to me is that it’s a genuine partnership between the academy, those both in law and in history, between judges and lawyers, and a recognition of the fact, or evidence of the fact, if we needed it, that the legal profession is indeed a learned profession, and we work together, to practise law, to teach law, to learn law, to write about the history of our law and therefore the history of our country and its wonderful values. Thank you. Through my association with the Osgoode Society, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting many, many wonderful lawyers and judges. I think most particularly I remember the great, late, R. Roy McMurtry, the Society's founder, and Robert Sharpe, who was president for many years."
Phillips concluded by thanking his wife.
"I am pleased to congratulate Professor Phillips for this esteemed honour," said Professor Kamari Clarke, Director of the Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies. "He is being recognized for his contributions to Canadian legal history as a teacher, editor and distinguished scholar of Canadian Legal History. A leading figure in the field of Canadian legal history, Phillips has made the history of law a dynamic tool for interrogating Canada’s past and present, and understanding its future. This is a well-deserved award of recognition for a lifetime of scholarly service."
Watch LSO's 2025 award ceremony.
Citation of Professor Jim Phillips as a 2025 recipient of the Law Society Medal
Professor Phillips is a member of the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto, cross-appointed to the Department of History, and a former law clerk to Madam Justice Wilson of the Supreme Court of Canada. He is an intellectual leader who helped transform the field of Canadian legal history from a peripheral sub-field of both law and history to a significant field in both disciplines.
His scholarship, especially his two – soon-to-be three – volume History of Law in Canada, written with two colleagues, has transformed the field of legal history in Canada by deepening our understanding of Canada’s legal system. That work meticulously uses the history of law to interrogate Canada’s past, present and national identity within the multi-juridical nature of our country’s legal system, based on common and civil law, as well as Indigenous legal traditions.
He has served as editor-in-chief of the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History since 2006. As editor, he has overseen the publication of more than 60 books, expanded and diversified its oral history program and led seminars for the legal profession and the public.
Professor Phillips is motivated by a deep passion to promote legal history and a selfless desire to serve the legal profession and improve the law. He has been widely recognized for his scholarly contributions to Canadian legal history including the Mundell Medal for excellence in legal writing and more recently was elected as an honorary fellow of the American Society for Legal History and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
About the Law Society Medal
Originally struck in 1985, the Law Society Medal has been awarded to more than 100 lawyers in recognition of distinguished service.
Each year, the Law Society of Ontario awards the Law Society Medal to selected lawyers who have made a significant contribution to the profession.
The award is given for outstanding service within the profession, whether in the area of practice, in the academic sphere, or in some other professional capacity where the service is in accordance with the highest ideals of the legal profession. It may be awarded for devotion to professional duties over a long term or for a single outstanding act of service.
The 2025 Law Society Medal recipient who is a former student of Professor Jim Phillips is Melissa Kluger.