Professor Dodek has now been honoured with the Canadian Association for Legal Ethics (CALE/ACEJ) Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his sustained contributions to legal ethics and professionalism. He was recognized alongside Frederica Wilson, who formerly served as the Deputy CEO of the Federation of Law Societies of Canada, and who previously taught legal ethics at the Faculty of Law.
Long recognized as one of Canada’s leading scholars in the field, Professor Dodek has played a pivotal role in establishing legal ethics as a legitimate area of legal study. As early as 2000, while still a graduate student, Professor Dodek surveyed the terrain of Canadian legal ethics and reached a stark conclusion: few Canadian law schools were offering courses in the subject and the legal scholarship in the area was exceedingly sparse. He authored an article entitled “Canadian Legal Ethics: A Subject in Search of Scholarship,” highlighting the lack of Canadian research and teaching in legal ethics and challenging the legal community to take the subject more seriously. He has spent his career answering that call, helping to build a national community of scholars and practitioners through his involvement in CALE and his work to foster discussion, research and mentorship in legal ethics and professionalism.
Professor Dodek played a critical role in the creation of CALE in 2012. The decision to establish the association was made at a meeting of Canadian legal ethics scholars hosted by the University of Ottawa in 2010. Professor Dodek served as one of the founding directors of CALE and its initial Corporate Secretary and Treasurer. He has continued to serve in leadership roles in CALE since then, including as a current director of the organization. He was the founder of the Canadian listserv for legal ethics which he moderated until 2018 as it grew the community from 20 to over 300 members.
Overall, Professor Dodek’s work bridges academic research and the legal profession, examining the ethical responsibilities of lawyers and the roles of public institutions, regulators and public officials in upholding the integrity of the legal system. His scholarship has also informed important debates about the legal profession, including his work on conflicts of interest and his award-winning text Solicitor-Client Privilege, which has been frequently cited by the Supreme Court of Canada. At the University of Ottawa, he has helped establish and develop courses in legal ethics and professional responsibility and Canada’s only lecture series exclusively devoted to issues of legal ethics and professionalism.
These contributions have helped shape how legal ethics is studied, taught and understood across Canada. The CALE/ACEJ Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes the lasting impact of these contributions on the legal profession and the scholarly community.
Congratulations to Professor Dodek on this exceptional achievement!