Leadership Series of the David Peterson Public Leadership Program.

BiographyThe Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin served as Chief Justice of Canada from 2000 to mid-December 2017.
Ms. McLachlin works as an arbitrator and mediator in Canada and internationally. She brings to those forms of dispute resolution her broad and deep experience from over 35 years in deciding a wide range of business law and public law disputes, in both common law and civil law; her ability to work in both English and French; and her experience and skill in leading and consensus-building for many years as the head of a diverse nine-member court. Ms. McLachlin also sits as a Justice of Singapore’s International Commercial Court and the Hong Kong Final Court of Appeal.

Her judicial career began in 1981 in the provinceof British Columbia, Canada. She was appointed to the Supreme Court of British Columbia (a court of first instance) later that year and was elevated to the British Columbia Court of Appeal in 1985. She was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia in 1988 and seven months later, she was sworn in as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada.

Ms. McLachlin is the first and only woman to be Chief Justice of Canada and she is Canada’s longest serving Chief Justice.
The former Chief Justice chaired the Canadian Judicial Council, the Advisory Council of the Order of Canada and the Board of Governors of the National Judicial Institute. In June 2018 she was appointed to the Order of Canada as a recipient of its