LAWYERS from Canada

Top 2

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Canadian Lawyers of all time. This list of famous Canadian Lawyers is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

1. Louise Arbour (b. 1947)

With an HPI of 47.24, Louise Arbour is the most famous Canadian Lawyer.  Her biography has been translated into 21 different languages on wikipedia.

Louise Arbour, (born February 10, 1947) is a Canadian lawyer, prosecutor and jurist. Arbour was the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, a former justice of the Supreme Court of Canada and the Court of Appeal for Ontario and a former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. From 2009 until 2014, she served as President and CEO of the International Crisis Group. She made history with the indictment of a sitting head of state, Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milošević, as well as the first prosecution of sexual assault as a crime against humanity. From March 2017 to December 2018 she was the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for International Migration. She is currently in private practice in Montreal.

2. Richard Wagner (b. 1957)

With an HPI of 43.09, Richard Wagner is the 2nd most famous Canadian Lawyer.  His biography has been translated into 18 different languages.

Richard Wagner (French pronunciation: [vaɡnɛʁ]; born April 2, 1957) is a Canadian jurist serving as the 18th and current Chief Justice of Canada since 2017. He previously served as a puisne justice of the Quebec Court of Appeal (2011–2012) and of the Supreme Court of Canada (2012–2017). For several months in 2021, following Julie Payette's resignation as Canada's governor general, Wagner was the administrator of the government of Canada as well as chief justice.