Ritchie, Louis McCoskery

ENCAENIA, MAY, 1965
LOUIS MCCOSKERY RITCHIE
to be Doctor of Civil Law

From the schools of Saint John he went overseas in World War I with the 26th Bn., the New Brunswick Regiment, and is one of that fast dwindling band who joined the R.F.C. before it became the R.A.F.

His profession he learned at King's College Law School. The parent college was then at Windsor, later moving to Halifax, but its Law School abode, like Asher in his breaches, in Saint John, to become in 1923 the U.N.B. Faculty of Law. It has taken forty-five years to close the gap of three that stood between our claiming de iure one who is de facto one of us.

Outstanding in private practice as a corporation lawyer, he was created K.C. in 1946, and nine years later elevated to the Federal Bench. He is justly proud to believe himself the only New Brunswicker who has been simultaneously a judge of three superior courts. The Federal Bench still vies with the Provincial for his talents. In World War II Ottawa found in him an Assistant judge Advocate whose thinking was often far ahead of its own, and M.D. 7 remembers the utter conformity and fairness of his sentences.

His stature as a Judge has sturdy foundations. At base is his fine appreciation of the Law, its spirit, its formulation, and its dignity. He sees it as a practical instrument, demanding, and from himself receiving, meticulous accuracy, crystal-clear expression and all due protocol. In his own office decorum forbade first names and shirtsleeves -- even on a Saturday afternoon. In court woe betide the callow pleader whose language or deportment are not impeccable! In no sense a reactionary, he is a staunch champion of youth and progress. More than one junior has cause to bless Ritchie's sage guidance, and Ritchie's office boasts the most modern of equipment. Capping all is his insatiate appetite for hard work and information. Hours, letters, telephone bills mount when he is on the scent, with the result that to any case he judges he comes better prepared than
plaintiff and defendant put together.

In him Jurisprudence not only lives exemplified but evolves. If ever he desires an epitaph there is one to-hand from Gilbert's Lord Chancellor -- as immortal, let us hope, as the Honourable Mr. Justice Ritchie will be:
"The Law is the true embodiment
Of everything that's excellent.
It has no kind of fault or flaw,
And I, my lords, embody the Law."

From:
Cattley, Robert E.D. Honoris causa: the effervescences of a university orator. Fredericton: UNB Associated Alumnae, 1968.