The Honourable Justice Julius Isaac: a model of productive retirement.

• Author: Seaman, Brian
• Position: Feature Report on Older Adults and the Law

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Some judges, as they approach retirement age, look forward to doing a lot more fishing. Others look forward to finally having lots of free time to perfect their golf swings. Others think about maybe getting around to writing that book they've always had in mind. However, if any of this was on Julius Alexander Isaac's to do list, it apparently wasn't at the top of that list. When the former Chief Justice of the Federal Court of Canada reached the mandatory retirement age for a judge in 1999, he opted instead to stay very much in the public eye, both on the national and international stages. Now, in looking back on his lifetime of dedication to the legal profession and service to community, that choice does not seem so surprising.

When a studious teenaged boy shyly approached his favourite high school teacher six decades ago for advice about whether to pursue a career in law or teaching, the response he got was terse and, as life would unfold for that teen, prophetic. "He said, 'Boy, don't you even think about teaching. You've got what it takes to be a lawyer.'" Julius Isaac chuckles fondly now at his schoolmaster's prescience, as he looks back on a legal career that has taken him from a farm on the Caribbean island nation of Grenada to the upper levels of the halls of justice in Canada and finally to a very public role in the hornet's nest of Jamaican politics where he put his life at risk just by going to work each day.

It's not easy to sum up a career at the bar and bench that spans almost half a century. A curriculum vitae can only tell part of the story. There are the honours bestowed in that career's twilight by peers and colleagues to acknowledge a lifetime commitment to legal service: honorary member of the Canadian Maritime Law Association; a University of Windsor Faculty of Law scholarship called The Honourable Julius Alexander Isaac Scholarship," the Canadian Association of Black Lawyers Award of Recognition for Outstanding Contribution to the Legal Profession; and honourary degrees from Dalhousie University, the University of Windsor, and the University of the West Indies. The Governor-General's grant in 2006 of an Order of Canada (Canada's highest civilian honour) can be regarded as national recognition of dedicated service to the community and recognition of a positive contribution to the lives of many people. If he were inclined to boast, Julius Isaac could list all of the above and more as his awards and...