A Tribute to a Distinguished Legal Career
From the Spring 2000 issue of Nexus.
In the fall of 1996, the law firm Torys and its partners endowed the Faculty's first academic chair and dedicated it to James Marshall Tory, Q.C. (known as Jim), the modern law school's first gold medallist.
The Faculty has enjoyed a relationship almost like family with several generations of Torys. It began with J.S.D. Tory, Jim's father and a lifelong friend and ally of Cecil Wright, the modern law school's first dean. Graduating from the Osgoode Hall law school in the year after Wright, J.S.D. Tory, like Wright, was the top student of his year. He followed in Wright's footsteps to Harvard for a year of legal study, where he not only gained the skills that took him to the top of his profession, but acquired a solid grasp of what would become Wright's vision for legal education.
Years later, when Wright left his position as dean at the Osgoode law school over a fundamental disagreement about how law should be taught, J.S.D. provided Wright with the support he needed to make the move to the yet-unproven U of T law school. Offering Wright the safety net of a post in his firm and his support as a member of the university's Board of Governors, J.S.D. stood solidly behind his friend and colleague. Perhaps the most telling expression of his faith in Wright's vision, however, was the encouragement J.S.D. gave his twin sons, Jim and John, to enroll at the U of T law school for its first academic term in the fall of 1949.
Jim Tory recalls the law school as an stimulating hotbed of academic thought, with small classes and professors who "all knew their students on a personal basis. The physical premises of the school were small and led to personal contact between students and faculty." Jim and his twin brother John excelled in this atmosphere. On graduation in 1952, Jim won the Angus MacMurchy Gold Medal for the highest cumulative average. However, the proof of Wright's approach would be in the careers of the two young men, who went on to build reputations as Canada's leading business lawyers.
Jim's skillful handling of large and small corporate reorganizations and acquisitions is much admired. Interestingly, his unusual ability to draw together divergent parties for their mutual benefit may owe as much to the decency that is basic to his character as to his legal expertise. Throughout Jim's decades at the head of Torys, the firm itself has exemplified his commitment to the highest standards of professionalism, integrity, and excellence.
Jim has also led the way in community citizenship, serving both as trustee and chairman at the Hospital for Sick Children and playing a leadership role in the Faculty's Laskin Library campaign. In 1987, the law school presented him with the Distinguished Alumnus Award, in recognition of his outstanding achievements and dedication to the legal community. Under Jim's influence, Torys has been a steadfast ally of the Faculty over the years, and, in turn, the firm has become the professional home of many of our graduates.
The first incumbent of the James Marshall lory Dean's Chair, Prof. Martin Friedland '58, dean of the Faculty from 1972 to 1979, received this honour in acknowledgement of his significant contributions to legal scholarship and teaching, particularly in the area of criminal law. The Dean's Chair will serve as a permanent tribute to a distinguished graduate and to Torys' warm and lasting relationship with the law school.
