Legal Research

End of an Era in Kingston

By Simon Chester

We’ve blogged in the past about Hugh Lawford and the vision and tenacity that built the Queen’s Law School treaty data processing project into the foundation for one of Canada’s too commercial legal databases.

It’s an accident, of course, that QL was based in Kingston – in the same way that Dayton and Eagan were in the American systems. But that’s where the ideas were.

Kingston was of course where Hugh taught contracts, in between being Lester Pearson’s right hand man in Ottawa.

Today, the Kingston Whig-Standard reported that the remaining QL office in Kingston is to close. Rationalization moves the operation to Markham, though it’s apparently unlikely that many staff will go with the move. Thirty eight jobs. And a lot of history. And much symbolism.

From the newspaper story, there appears to be a lot of bitterness in the employee ranks.

Homenaje a Hugh

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on August 01, 2009 (boomark / email).