Todd Archibald

The Honourable Todd Archibald was raised in Essex and Sarnia, Ontario. He received his Honours B.A. from the University of Western Ontario in 1974.[4] He is a graduate of the University of Toronto Law School with an LL.B. in 1977 and later received his LL.M from Osgoode Hall Law School in 1985.[5] Archibald was called to the Ontario Bar in 1979.[2] He was firstly a law clerk to the Supreme Court of Ontario in 1979, then an Assistant Crown Attorney in the City of Toronto from 1980 to 1989.[4] He joined the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto in March 1989 as a Senior Solicitor.[4] Archibald then went into private practice at the law firm Gardiner Roberts LLP in 1990 and specialized in environmental and civil litigation, before joining Borden & Elliot as a partner in 1992, specializing in insurance, environmental and commercial litigation.[2][3][4]

Archibald was appointed to the Superior Court of Justice in Toronto on January 8, 1999.[5] As a Superior Court Justice, he presided over many trials and motions in all legal arenas including criminal, commercial, civil, and family law. Notably, he denied an injunction to extend the voting period during the highly-contested 2018 Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario leadership election.[6][7] The leadership election was held only months before the 2018 Ontario general election.[8][9] Archibald retired from the Ontario Superior Court on May 1, 2021, and commenced his arbitration and mediation practice at Archibald Mediation and Arbitration Solutions Inc.[2] He became a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators in 2018.[4] Archibald then received his Chartered Mediators’ designation from the Alternative Dispute Resolution Institute of Canada (ADRIC) in 2019.[4] In 2022, he became a member of the Canadian Academy of Distinguished Neutrals.[10] He also received his Chartered Arbitrators’ designation from ADRIC in 2023.[3]

Archibald has been an adjunct professor at Osgoode Hall Law School Professional LL.Ms since 2000.[2] Since then, he has taught Advanced Trial Advocacy, Corporate Crimes and Regulatory Offences, and Mediation Advocacy. He has taught an LL.M course on a near annual-basis in either the criminal law or civil litigation fields, and was previously the co-director of Osgoode's part-time Civil LL.M. program.[5] He received Osgoode's Professional Teaching Award in 2008 and later received Osgoode Hall's Alumni Gold Key Award for public sector achievement in 2019.[11]

Archibald is the author, co-author or editor of seven legal texts. He has been the co-author of the text "Profiting From Risk Management and Compliance" with Ken Jull, which deals with corporate criminal law and regulatory law, since 2008.[12] He is the co-author of the annually-published text "Ontario Superior Court Practice", which deals with the Ontario rules of civil litigation, since 2008.[13] Archibald co-authored the 2017 text "Discovery in Canadian Common Law: Practice, Techniques, and Strategies".[2] Archibald is the co-author of the 2021 text titled "The Trial Book", which is the first e-book written about trial advocacy.[14][15] He is also the founding co-editor of the "Annual Review of Civil Litigation", which has been published since 2001.[16] Archibald has been the Editor-in-chief of the Advocates Quarterly since 2020.[17] In 2023, Lexis Nexis published his litigation and administrative advocacy text entitled “Litigation and Administrative Advocacy: The Art and Science of Persuasion”.[18]

In 2002, Archibald received the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal.[19] In 2012, he received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.[3] In 2015, he received the David Mundell Medal from the Ontario Attorney General for legal scholarship.[20] Archibald received Canada's 150 Community Award for Legal Teaching and Scholarship in 2017. He received the Distinguished Service Award from the Ontario Tennis Association in 2019, pertaining to his achievements as president of the Gwendolen Park Tennis Club and the North York Winter Tennis Club.[21] Archibald also received the Ontario Bar Association's 2020 Foundation Award for outstanding contribution to legal education.[4]