Legal Research

Announcement by Lexis Nexis of the passing of Hugh Lawford

By Gary P. Rodrigues

The following announcement was issued by Pat Collins, the President and Chief Executive Officer of LexisNexis Canada:

Dear Colleagues,

With great sadness, I am writing to inform you that Hugh Lawford has passed away.

Hugh Lawford co-founded the Quicklaw service in the 1960s and retired from LexisNexis Canada in 2004 as president and CEO. He died in hospital in Kingston yesterday afternoon after a lengthy illness.

A pioneer in the legal research industry, Hugh Lawford was a law professor and an entrepreneur who, together with colleague Dick von Briesen, established Quicklaw as a Queen?s University research project in the 1960s. In 1973, Professor Lawford (as he was known to LexisNexis Canada employees) and Dick incorporated QL Systems Limited to offer commercially one of the world?s first online legal research services.

Over the years, Professor Lawford worked tirelessly to serve Canadian legal professionals, leading the growth of Quicklaw into Canada?s most comprehensive and most widely used online legal research service. In July 2002, he sold Quicklaw to LexisNexis Butterworths Canada and continued to serve as CEO of the newly formed company of LexisNexis Canada until his retirement from the company in 2004.

In 1999, Professor Lawford was named Professor Emeritus upon his retirement from Queen?s University in Kingston, where he joined the Law Faculty as Assistant Professor of Law in 1958. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1962, and to Professor in 1965.

During his career, Professor Lawford was a member of the Canadian Government?s Advisory Board on Scientific and Technical Information, of a Statistics Canada advisory board, and of a task force that studied the creation of the Canadian Network for the Advancement of Research, Industry and Education (CANARIE). During 1965 and 1966, he was Special Adviser to prime minister Lester B. Pearson. From 1964 to 1965, he was Special Assistant to the Government House Leader and President of the Privy Council, the Hon. George J. McIlraith, Q.C.

At Queen?s, Professor Lawford worked with the Ontario Trial Lawyers Association to organize Canada?s first seminar on Trial Techniques. For many years, he chaired the Queen?s University Grievance Board.

Professor Lawford held a B.A. and an LL.B. from the University of Alberta. He was selected as Rhodes Scholar for Alberta in 1955 and attended Oxford University, where he received the degree of Bachelor of Civil Law in 1957. He was admitted to the Alberta Bar in 1958 and the Ontario Bar in 1962.

In 2002, The Law Society of Upper Canada awarded Professor Lawford with the Law Society Medal in recognition of his significant contributions to the legal profession. Three years later, the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL) renamed its annual award for superior legal publishing the ?Hugh Lawford Award of Excellence in Legal Publishing.?

I wish to acknowledge Professor Lawford?s importance in LexisNexis Canada?s history and extend my deepest sympathies to those employees who knew him and who have fond memories of him. We are told that there will be a private service on Friday for Professor Lawford?s immediate family, and that a memorial service will be held in Kingston in September. In lieu of flowers, the family prefers donations to charities benefiting Parkinson?s Disease. If you wish to send a card, you can send it to:

Lillian Lawford

1286 Channelview Road

Kingston, Ontario

K7L 4V1

Yours sincerely,

Pat Collins

Chief Executive Officer

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on August 18, 2009 (boomark / email).