THUNDER BAY – After 23 years as the first superior court justice in Northwestern Ontario, Justice Helen Pierce set down her gavel for the last time.
By the end of the day, she will be hanging up her robes, returning home to her husband, and settling into a quiet retirement. She said she's setting her sights on more leisurely activities like sitting in her backyard reading a book, weeding her garden, and drinking gin with her retired neighbour.
“Yesterday, we had a wonderful celebration in the courtroom where the members of the bar were all present and the judiciary and friends and neighbours, and it was quite moving, and so I think I'm still running on adrenaline from yesterday,” Pierce told Newswatch on Friday, her final day as a superior court justice.
“This has been my life for 23 years, and both over at the old courthouse and here for the last 15 years. So, I feel a bit sad.”
Pierce presided over numerous high-profile court cases, and she highlighted two that stand out from recent years: the Brayden Bushby case in 2021 and the defamation lawsuit against Brian Webster over anti-drag comments made on the Real Thunder Bay Courthouse – Inside Edition Facebook page earlier this year.
Speaking to the Bushby case, she said, the trial was planned to be a jury case, but because of COVID-19, the case was switched to be overseen by a “judge-alone case.”
The case sticks out in her mind because of how important it was to the Indigenous community,” she said.
Pierce said the defamation lawsuit provided her with an “educational opportunity” to learn more about “the history of drag and the culture of drag.”
“It made me more aware of the unfairness, perhaps in society towards people whose gender might be different than the mainstream gender, gender identification, and so I felt I learned a lot from that. I really enjoyed that case,” she said.
Before becoming the first female superior court judge in Northwestern Ontario, Pierce was on a different career path.
She had an undergraduate degree in social work and was working in family court in Kenora for a couple years — that's where her interest in justice grew.
“I didn't know whether I wanted to be a lawyer, but I wanted to see what it was all about. So, I signed on. Queen's University was my law school, and I graduated in 1980 and was called to the bar in 1982,” Pierce said.
“I practiced law in Sault Ste. Marie until I was appointed to Thunder Bay, and so at that point in 2001, when I was appointed, our family moved here, and so it's been home ever since.”
Over her career, she highlighted several changes to the court system. She pointed out that it is not uncommon to see more women sitting on the bench in the courtroom.
Working closely with Lakehead University’s Bora Laskin Faculty of Law, Pierce had many opportunities to speak with law students. She said there is “a certain visibility” for women in law.
Pierce noted she had to adapt to changes in technology.
“The advent of computers has been huge. When I began, I was handed a laptop computer, and it was like learning a new language, but now I write judgments on my computer, and that works well,” Pierce said.
“The next, I think, biggest change was the pandemic, when the court had to pivot. If it was going to offer services at all, it had to pivot to do that in a way that was safe. So, when the court was open, there was plexiglass. There were a lot of meetings and court proceedings, and still are, via Zoom.”
“And the whole way in which filings are made has changed; instead of paper files we now have electronic files. That's made a huge change. It has frankly made work more difficult for the judges. We have a harder time, I think, adapting to that way of doing things. In the old days, you would have a cart wheeled in with the paper files on it, and you would go through them and prepare ahead of time, and nowadays it's all on the screen.”
When asked what the future holds, Pierce said she is going to “just play it by ear.”
“I think I'm gonna have to reinvent myself…. one of the things that I was privileged to do, during my time on the bench, is to do a lot of writing. Since I was very young, I have loved to write, so maybe I will try and transform legal writing into something more personal,” Pierce said.
