Moderator: Paul D. Paton

Chair, CBA Ethics and Professional Responsibility Committee
Professor of Law and Director, Ethics Across the Professions Initiative, McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific.

Professor Paton had a distinguished career in private practice, corporate counsel and public service settings before joining the academy. Educated at University of Toronto and University of Cambridge, he holds master’s and doctoral degrees from Stanford Law School. Professor Paton’s research focuses on ethics in corporate contexts, legal ethics and lawyer regulation in comparative perspective, and on corporate governance matters. He has been recognized in both the US and Canada for his contributions to debates on the future of the legal profession and is a frequent media commentator on these issues.

For the Affirmative: Adam Dodek

Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Common Law Section, University of Ottawa

Professor Dodek graduated from McGill University and Harvard Law School and then received a Fulbright Scholarship to research Israeli constitutional law while clerking for the Supreme Court of Israel. After being called to the bar in California, Professor Dodek practised law in San Francisco and then clerked for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Pasadena. Professor Dodek returned to Canada and clerked for Justice Claire L'Heureux-Dubé at the Supreme Court of Canada. After being called to the bar in Ontario, he joined the Public Law Working Group in Borden Ladner Gervais LLP's Toronto office where he practised until the fall of 2003. At that time, he joined the staff of Ontario's Attorney General, first as Senior Policy Adviser and then as Director of Policy and from 2005-06 as Chief of Staff. Professor Dodek joined the Faculty in 2008 where he teaches Public Law and Legislation, Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility, and a seminar on the Supreme Court of Canada.

For the Negative: Mahmud Jamal

Partner, Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP

Mr. Jamal’s national litigation practice includes the defence of class actions, constitutional and administrative law, competition/antitrust, pension, tax and other regulatory litigation. He has argued fifteen appeals before the Supreme Court of Canada in many different fields and defended three class action merits trials. He has also argued trials and appeals at all levels of court in Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, and New Brunswick, at the Federal Court and Federal Court of Appeal, and before federal and provincial administrative tribunals such as the Competition Tribunal and Financial Services Tribunal. He has represented the CBA in several interventions before the Supreme Court of Canada to protect solicitor-client privilege. He is a former law clerk to the late Mr. Justice Charles D. Gonthier of the Supreme Court of Canada and to Mr. Justice Melvin L. Rothman of the Quebec Court of Appeal.