Rosalie Abella, retired Canadian justice, joins NYU Law as distinguished judicial fellow
Justice Rosalie Silberman Abella. Image expanded with the Generative Fill function in Photoshop.
Rosalie Silberman Abella, retired justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, will join NYU Law this Spring as a distinguished judicial fellow, Dean Troy McKenzie ’00 announced on February 20.
Justice Abella, who spoke at NYU Law’s 2025 Convocation and who delivered the James Madison Lecture at the Law School in February, will teach a seminar, Judges, Democracy & Justice: Canadian and American Constitutional Law. “I am grateful for her continued engagement with our community and for the perspective she brings to our students and faculty,” McKenzie said in his email announcement.
Born in a displaced persons camp in Germany, Justice Abella practiced civil and criminal litigation as a sole practitioner until being appointed to the Ontario Family Court in 1976 at the age of 29, when she was seven months pregnant. She was the first refugee appointed to the bench in Canada. She chaired and authored the Ontario Study on Access to Legal Services by the Disabled in 1983 and was sole commissioner of the 1984 federal Royal Commission on Equality in Employment. In that report, she pioneered the term and concept of “employment equity” and developed theories of equality and discrimination later adopted by the Supreme Court of Canada in its first decision on equality rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and by the governments of New Zealand, Northern Ireland, and South Africa.
Appointed to the Ontario Court of Appeal in 1992, she served in that role until being named to the Supreme Court in 2004. She served on the Supreme Court of Canada for 17 years, the first Jewish woman appointed to the Court.
Abella has chaired the Ontario Labour Relations Board and the Ontario Law Reform Commission. She also sat on the Ontario Human Rights Commission; the Ontario Public Service Labour Relations Tribunal; and the Premier’s Advisory Committee on Confederation.
She has taught at numerous law schools and is currently the Samuel LL.M. ’55 S.J.D. ’59 and Judith Pisar Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. She has written more than 90 articles and authored or co-authored four books. She has been recognized with numerous awards, including 42 honorary degrees, the President’s Award of the Canadian Bar Association, the Knight Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit from the President of Germany, Canada’s Walk of Fame Humanitarian Award, and many others.
