On March 15, 2005, a Vancouver courtroom and indeed much of Canada was stunned to hear British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Ian Bruce Josephson read his acquittal of accused Air India bombers Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri.

The culmination of one of the country’s largest mega-trials, into what many describe as its worst mass murder, had ended. The government had failed to prove its case, and by simple reduction, Richard Peck, lead counsel for Bagri, had proven his. It was not the first time his arguments had stunned a province and perhaps the country. Four years earlier, Peck was successful with the argument to the Supreme Court of Canada that parts of Canada’s child pornography laws were akin to legislating thought, in R. v. Sharpe.

Peck is not always on the side of public opinion, then again criminal lawyers rarely are. He prefers to make his arguments before a court, rather than at a podium. And despite victories that propelled him into the upper echelon of the criminal bar in Canada, many both inside and outside the profession have likely never heard his name.

Sixty-year-old Peck is not a self-promoter, rather a living, breathing contradiction of the traditional idea of what a top criminal litigator is or what one acts like. His contemporaries, including Air India co-counsel Michael Code, say Peck has no territorial issues, is extremely modest, and “brings almost no ego issues at all to the courtroom.”

What he lacks in self-promotion, Peck certainly more than makes up for in promotion of the legal profession. “I’ve been intrigued by the lore of the profession particularly in Canada,” says Peck. “The great characters that have gone before us, some incredible people and I’ve known many of these people over the years and learned to admire and respect what they’ve done. This goes from the mighty to the less mighty, just having had the opportunity to spend time with people like [former B.C. chief justice] Allan McEachern, and over the years [former justice] Michel Proulx, to know people like [Supreme Court Justice] Morris Fish, people like the Greenspans, to have met [former justice] Arthur Martin, just a variety of remarkable human beings and what they’ve done, it’s always intrigued me. . . . I think these people set a model, set a standard as it were, that we can only inspire to ultimately.”

Where that standard is most evident for Peck is in the courtroom. He says the courtroom is the “one place that you really feel comfortable.” In that temple of justice, Peck’s persona is described as the model of civility, never blusterous like the litigators often portrayed on television. His contemporaries note his impeccable standards and his calm and professional manner. His language is thoughtful; he considers his words fully and truly in a way that only someone with the love for the English language can.

“He really cares about language,” Code says of Peck. “This makes him a really unusual lawyer, he loves the English language, he thinks about the English language, he chooses his words incredibly carefully. So he is probably the best read lawyer of any lawyer I know, because he is just so thoughtful and careful about the way he uses language, real precision and care.

Code says the first time he saw Peck in a courtroom it brought to mind great Canadian criminal lawyers such as John J. Robinette. Peck’s careful and considerate language means he holds his temper and never attacks opponents.

“I was always astounded when I saw him stand up in a courtroom, that he has the presence in the courtroom that I have not seen for 30 years,” Code says relating Peck’s presence to Robinette’s. “[He’s] so formal and incredibly professional and polite, [you] never see him say anything nasty or losing his temper or attacking his opponent on a personal level, he’s all straightforward business in the courtroom, in a very erudite, learned, formal kind of way.”