Brief Biographical Note of Justice Julie Thorburn

Justice Thorburn was appointed to the Ontario Court of Appeal in June 2019.

She was appointed to the Superior Court of Ontario in September 2006 and Deputy Judge of the Northwest Territories in 2009. Prior to her appointment to the Court of Appeal, she was the Team Lead of the Divisional Court.

She is a graduate of l'Université de Montréal (Bac. Int. Chant) and Queen's University (LLB). She has a Certificat en droit international privé from The Hague Academy of International Law, an A.R.C.T. in Performance Piano and the Silver Medal in Voice from the Royal Conservatory of Music. She was a law clerk with then Supreme Court of Ontario (now the Superior Court of Justice) and a partner with Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP.

She is a member of the coa-parkedrd of Directors of the International Association of Women judges (an association of over 900 judges from around the world), and Past President of the Canadian chapter. Until her appointment to the Court of Appeal, she was a member of the coa-parkedrd of Directors of the Ontario Superior Court Judges Association.

She is co-author of the Report, Améliorer l'accès a la justice en français (2015) prepared at the request of the Attorney General of Ontario to improve access to justice for French speaking litigants. Until her appointment to the Court of Appeal, she was a member of the Attorney General's Committee on francophone affairs.

She was a sessional Lecturer Civil Procedure Workshops, at Osgoode Hall Law School from 1993 to 1997, and is co-author of The Law of Confidential Business Information, Canada Law Book, 1998 (co-author K. Fairbairn), and a contributing author of Digital Democracy, Policy and Politics in the Wired World, Oxford University Press, 1998, Ontario Courtroom Procedure (4th Ed.), 2016, and Canada Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (Thomson, Carswell).

She has lived in Canada, France and Italy and works in both official languages.