CL Talk

Supreme Court of Nova Scotia Chief Justice Deborah Smith on the judiciary’s most pressing challenges

Feb 27, 2024

Deborah Smith was appointed the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia in 2019. Before her judicial career, she practised civil and family law for 17 years at McInnes Cooper. She sat in the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia family division until 2004 when she was appointed associate chief justice and transferred to the court’s general division. She was the first female associate chief justice appointed in the province of Nova Scotia. For our CL Talk podcast, we spoke to her about virtual proceedings, courtroom decorum, judicial independence, being a female legal leader and how the profession has changed over her 40-year tenure.