Jeffrey Miller is, among other things, a
- lawyer, legal academic & researcher, consultant & speaker (contempt, media & arts law, law (which is to say justice) and literature, judges & judging, legal history/curiosities/humour, the writing life, etc.); writer on jurisprudence, law & humanities, and legal history. The second edition of my The Law of Contempt in Canada was published in 2016 and is updated/improved on this site. My book on judicial notice (simply put, “facts” that judges, tribunal heads, and juries can accept without hearing supporting evidence) is now available here. For a few years I worked as a barrister at major Toronto law firms and in sole practice, where I proved to be a fish out of water, actively discouraging lawsuits. (See the Law page, and the Translating & Consulting page.) On the occasion of its twenty-fifth anniversary, the Toronto Area Law Librarians put my name forward as one of the top ten speakers to have addressed the organization.
- novelist, short fiction writer, and poet whose published books include a series of comic crime novels featuring Amicus the courthouse cat and his companion human, Justice Ted Mariner (see the Books page). After nearly four decades, I am still trying to be the next Ring Lardner cum James Thurber cum Peter DeVries cum John Mortimer cum Cynthia Ozick cum…
- literary critic and professor of law and literature, who has taught in the law faculties at McGill University and Western University (in London, Ontario, Canada). My most recent book in these areas is The Structures of Law and Literature, and my book and film reviews have appeared in The Globe and Mail, The National Post, The Lawyers Weekly, and other national publications. (For more information, see the Justice page. Several of my journal publications are available through the Social Sciences Research Network.)
- French-English translator (freelance literary, legal, business: see the Translating & Consulting page).
- journalist and essayist in print and broadcast media. For nearly three decades, I was the principal feature columnist for The Lawyers Weekly, where I covered (well, riffed off of) legal current events, legal history, law and language, legal education, and law in society – my beat, that is, persistently has been the tragicomic intersection of law and life. In this regard I also appeared regularly as a legal columnist on CBC Radio’s “Basic Black” and on TVOntario’s “More to Life,” and published law-and-life essays in The Globe and Mail. I have published several related books, one of which – Where There’s Life, There’s Lawsuits – was short-listed for an Arthur Ellis Award and optioned by a Hollywood producer. I am told that my Ardor in the Court: Sex and the Law is frequently stolen from libraries. (See the Books and Words & Music pages.)
- musician, composer & arranger of tunes – I play many styles of guitar, concentrating on jazz, fingerstyle, and now and again on open tunings. My other instruments include five-string banjo, mandolin, mandola, bouzouki, flutes, whistles, recorders, crumhorn, cornamuse, fumbling around on keyboards… Main music interests: jazz, traditional (particularly British, Irish, North American (including blues)), Jewish, early dance and related.
…sometimes all at the same time.
- Education (or, anyway, documentary evidence of same): B.A., University of Colorado, English literature; M.A., University of Toronto, English literature; LL.B., Osgoode Hall Law School; Certificate of competency as a translator (French/English), University of Toronto. Barrister and solicitor, Law Society of Upper Canada (Ontario); Certificate, Trial Advocacy Workshop….
Some links to friends and colleagues of this website and the “blawg”
http://www.christophermoore.ca/index.html (the award-winning historian’s site)
http://supremeadvocacy.ca/newsletter/ (Eugene Meehan’s newsletter/blog)
http://www.carswell.com/ (the venerable legal publisher)
http://www.ecwpress.com/ (another publisher of several of my books)
http://juris-blogging.com/professeurs-bloggeurs-a-lhonneur/ (Juris Blogging, the blawg (in French) of Professor Édith Guilhermont, who has a research specialty in law blogs – their nature, influence, etc.)
The Law Society of Upper Canada Yes, as someone who believes in respecting our legal history (warts and all), I still call it that.
http://www.johnrenbourn.co.uk/ (Although the great musician, composer, and mentsch I am proud to call friend died in 2015, his website is still in operation. John, ars longa. You are missed.)
