Louise Mailhot

A former justice of the Court of Appeal of Quebec and retiring vice-president of the International Association of Judges, the Honourable Louise Mailhot acts as strategic counsel to Fasken Martineau’s Litigation and Employment Law Practice Groups. She also mentors the firm’s young lawyers. Ms. Mailhot is a prolific author who has actively contributed to both the Québec and Canadian legal communities. She was the co-editor of Revue du droit du travail, Revue légale, and Rapports de pratique; she was a member of the editorial board of the magazine Justice dans le Monde and the coordinator for several collective publications on the legal system in Canada and abroad. An international lecturer, she has dealt with a number of topics over the years: judicial independence, legal discipline and ethics, judicial drafting, Canadian history of women in law and on the bench and the reform of civil justice. After being the first woman articling student admitted to the law firm Martineau Walker, Louise Mailhot worked as a lawyer in private practice with highly regarded law firms, mainly practising in labour and public law, subjects which she taught in the continuing education programs of two universities, and at the Barreau du Québec. She has also been a member of various boards of directors, including the executive committees of the University of Montreal and the Quebec Bar Foundation. In 1980, she was appointed judge to the Superior Court of Quebec and, in 1987, was the first woman appointed judge to the Court of Appeal of Quebec in Montréal. While she was on the bench, she implemented a training program on judicial drafting for Canadian judges and has written two guides on the subject. She was on the executive committee of the Canadian Superior Courts Judges Associations and has chaired the Quebec Superior Court Judges’ Conference. From 1996 to 2005, she was elected vice-president of the International Association of Judges, an NGO that encompasses national associations of judges from over 65 countries. Since 2005, she has been the International Association of Judges’ representative to the United Nations. In 2008 she was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Ottawa. She is a lawyer emeritus of the Quebec Bar Association. She was named Officer of the Ordre national du Québec in June 2018.