Jean Beetz (1927-1991)

First Director of the Public Law Research Centre (1962-1963)
Dean of Law (1968-1970)
Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada (1974-1988)

After completing a Bachelor of Arts in 1947 and a Licentiate in Laws in 1950 at the Université de Montréal, Beetz was awarded a Rhodes scholarship and continued his studies at the University of Oxford where he received a Bachelor of Arts in 1953. Called to the Quebec Bar before his departure for England, he became an assistant professor at the Université de Montréal upon his return in 1953. One of the first career professors of the university, he taught law for twenty years, in addition to being appointed Dean of Law from 1968 to 1970. In the same period, he acted as counsel to the Government of Canada and Special Advisor in Constitutional Affairs for Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau. He was appointed to the Quebec Court of Appeal in 1973, and then to the Supreme Court of Canada in 1974 where he served for fourteen years before his retirement on November 10, 1988.