Dickson's Law: 'Manifestly one of the humanities'

Field: Arts and Humanities (Social Sciences)

I 1979-1980 It was oblique, but I had an angle through the window by my desk, across the courtyard, down one floor, and through another window across the hall from his chambers. But there was no need for me to see him come and go, because he was predictable, and there was little variation in his calls. The phone at my desk rang in the morning before the judges sat, often but not always during the lunch break, and again at the end of the day, when the Court had retired for the day. 'Would you like to drop down?' is what he said every time I answered. He asked me to 'drop down' because the law clerks were quartered in a large, high-ceilinged room on the third floor, above the judges' offices. That year ten of us shared a space that was squeezed between the corridor by the judges' elevator and staircase outside our door, on one side, and a room with physical plant fittings that connected to the Supreme Court library, on the other. Co-clerks who answered my phone would search me out and casually inform me that my 'ruddy-faced, lantern-jawed boss' had called. We sometimes referred to the late Ronald Martland as the 'sleek, oval-faced otter,' and if it is unclear what we found playful in Martland's appearance, photographs confirm that Dickson's was a jaw of lantern proportions. These bits of irreverence were a cover for the affection we felt and for our unquestioned respect for their office. We were well aware that it was our place to ride the freight elevator and that the judges' library was off limits to us. Once, one Friday afternoon, there was a dare between two clerks, who were caught when Justice Ritchie and Mrs Shuttleworth stepped on to join them in the judges' elevator at the second floor. In those days the Court was a minimum-security institution, and the clerks were issued keys to their judge's office, though we rarely put them [End Page 93] to use. There was an exception when two of us watched the Canada Day fireworks on Parliament Hill from Justice McIntyre's chambers. That made me feel like an intruder, but worse was the time, at the end of my clerkship, when I naughtily took the smallest cutting from a ficus benjaminus tree in Dickson's office. If the transgression was inconsequential, I confess just the same. From that twig I cultivated a little plant as a keepsake, and it wandered back and forth across North America with me before dying when I moved to Toronto. The Dickson chambers were friendly but formal, and relentlessly immaculate. It would have violated the judge's sense of order for his office to be blighted by clutter. The furniture was upholstered in the leathered red of the judges' ceremonial gowns, and his desk, which was spare and elegant, faced the door to his chambers. I sat in the same chair whenever I attended on him, as did his secretary, who joined us from time to time when summoned to take shorthand. I was not sure what to call him; 'Brian' was presumptuous, but I had never called anyone 'sir' in my life, so I left it at that. The judge and I worked on draft judgments in his chambers at the Court or at Marchmont, his home in the country. Before clerking I knew nothing of 'editing' and, if asked, might have picked 'drudgery' as a synonym. Without computers or memory typewriters, the process for us was painstaking, manual, and fun. I had never seen scissors with blades that long before, and working on judgments was like being a kid again. We changed words and sentences freely, and we moved paragraphs whenever we wanted. It was not unusual to discover that a paragraph on page 40 belonged on page 2, or...