Jonathan Dawe, a partner at Dawe & Dineen in Toronto, has been appointed a judge of the Superior Court of Justice of Ontario in Newmarket, Jody Wilson-Raybould, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, announced in a Justice Canada news release.
He replaces Justice E.A. Quinlan, who elected to become a supernumerary judge effective Sept. 7, 2018. Due to internal transfers effected by the Chief Justice, this position is located in Newmarket.
Before deciding to pursue a career in law, Justice Dawe received a B.Sc. from McGill University (1987) and began doctoral studies in theoretical particle physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He graduated as Bronze Medallist from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law in 1994 and clerked for Chief Justice Antonio Lamer at the Supreme Court of Canada before receiving his LL.M. from Yale Law School in 1996.
Justice Dawe was called to the Ontario bar in 1997. After practising for 15 years in the criminal law group at Sack Goldblatt Mitchell LLP, he co-founded his own law firm, Dawe & Dineen, in 2012. He served as Associate Commission Counsel to the judicial inquiry in Manitoba into the wrongful conviction of James Driskell from 2006 to 2007.
Justice Dawe’s legal practice focused mainly on criminal appeals, and he participated in numerous significant appeals in the Ontario Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada. A longtime member of the Criminal Lawyers’ Association (CLA), he frequently represented the CLA in Supreme Court interventions. He regularly served as a panellist on Supreme Court Advocacy Institute preparatory sessions for Crown, defence and civil counsel who had pending Supreme Court appeals.
Justice Dawe spent many years as an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, teaching courses on criminal procedure and the Charter. In 2014, he co-founded the faculty’s criminal appellate externship program. He also co-wrote a book on criminal appeals for practitioners.
Away from work, he is an avid baseball fan, cyclist, kayaker, guitar player and occasional guitar builder. He grew up in and around Vancouver, and now lives in Toronto with his wife Judy and their two children.
