Michael Code

About Michael

Now providing advisory work on criminal and civil matters and public policy, the Honourable Michael Code holds three degrees from the University of Toronto and was called to the Ontario bar in 1981. His career included work as both defence counsel and Crown counsel, service as Assistant Deputy Attorney General, and roles as counsel to the Ministries of the Attorney General in British Columbia, Ontario, and Manitoba, the federal government, and the Ontario Court Judges' Association. He was in private practice from 1981 to 1991 and again from 1996 to 2005, and served as Associate Editor of the Canadian Rights Reporter from 1982 to 1996. Beginning in 1981 he taught Criminal Law, Evidence, and Criminal Procedure at the University of Toronto, earning the Arbor Award in 2001 and the Alan Mewett Award for Teaching Excellence in 2007, and in 2005 he joined the university's Faculty of Law as an Assistant Professor. In early 2008, alongside former Chief Justice Patrick LeSage, he was appointed by the Ontario Attorney General to review procedures in long and complex criminal trials, producing the Report of the Review of Long and Complex Criminal Case Procedures. He was appointed to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in 2009, presiding over numerous lengthy and high-profile matters in Toronto until his retirement from the bench in 2025.