On October 25, 2024, during its annual conference at the Dalhousie University, CALE/ACEJ presented its Lifetime Achievement Award to Emeritus Professor John Law. The award is for having demonstrated “sustained accomplishments in the field of legal ethics and professionalism”.

John was a professor at the University of Alberta for many years and was appointed as the Thomas Lawlor Professor of Legal Ethics in 2013. In the 1980s and 1990s he played a leading role in the creation of the Alberta Code of Professional Conduct, which was highly influential across Canada due to the guidance it provided.

John has been a member of CALE/ACEJ since it was created, and before that was a member of its ad hoc predecessor group. He organized a meeting of that group in 2007 and hosted the annual CALE/ACEJ conference in 2017.

Nominators praised him as “consistently thoughtful, helpful and productive” and as having “played a critical role in creating [the] community of Canadian legal ethics scholars and teachers”. He is one of the top scholars of legal ethics in Canada.

John was unable to attend the presentation but provided written remarks. He reflected on advances in the field of legal ethics, including its teaching and research, over the past four decades.