Born in Montréal on February 1st, 1945, he is the son of Jacques M.D. and Jacqueline Lanctôt.
He received a B.A. degree from the Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf in 1962 and a LL.L. in 1967 from the Law Faculty of Université de Montréal.
He was called to the Québec Bar in 1968. In 1971 he founded a law firm that merged in 1996 with the hundred-year-old firm Robic, Intellectual Property Attorneys which became the firm Léger Robic Richard.
From 1971 to 1986, he practiced mainly as a trial lawyer and appeared before all levels of the Québec courts, the Federal Court of Canada and the Supreme Court of Canada.
As well as being a trilingual lawyer, he gained expertise over the years in Intellectual Property Law, Information and Communication Law, Licensing Agreements related to Franchising and to Technology Transfer, and in Commercial Law.
He also served as arbitrator for the Québec Bar in lawyers/clients disputes; he became an accredited Arbitrator by the Québec National and International Commercial Arbitration Centre WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization), E-Resolution, the International Trade-Mark Association (INTA) and the National Arbitration Forum. From 2000, he served as a private mediator.
Justice Léger has authored numerous articles and publications specialised in Intellectual Property Law in addition to co-publishing two annotated acts on Trade-marks and Copyright. He was also a lecturer at Québec Bar courses, at the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada, the National Judicial Institute, in addition to being a guest panellist on many organizations that offer professional training.
Between 1980 and 1985, he served as the Vice-President of the Interamerican Association of Intellectual Property (ASIPI) and the International Vice-President of the International League of Competition law (LICD).
He was appointed Queen's Counsel in 1992.
In 1993, he became Executive Member of the Canadian Group of the International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property (AIPPI) and Treasurer in 1996. In 2003, he was elected General Treasurer for International AIPPI, position that he occupied until his appointment to the Court.
He was appointed to the Québec Superior Court on September 14th, 2006.
He was appointed to the Québec Court of Appeal on January 22nd, 2009, but only began to perform his duties on June 1st, 2009, once he finished a long trial as an ad hoc Justice at the Superior Court. |
