The Queen’s Law community was saddened by the sudden death of Professor Emeritus Bernard “Bernie” Adell, in his 75th year, on July 24 while visiting family in Sasebo, Japan. A former dean of Queen’s Law, he was a respected teacher and an internationally recognized scholar in employment and labour law.

After completing his LLB in his native Alberta and his doctorate at Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship, he joined Queen’s Law in 1964. Though he was just 25, his breadth of knowledge was immediately apparent to everyone who took his classes.

“Bernie was always prepared and always provided a very sophisticated analysis of the law,” recalls Professor Emeritus Don Carter, Law'66, who was a student in Adell’s first class and later a lifelong friend and colleague. “People respected him from day one.”

Adell’s popularity with students and the esteem of his colleagues eventually led to his deanship (1977-1982) and his special focus on improving the school’s scholarly reputation.

But Queen’s wasn’t his only sphere of influence. Far from it. He served briefly with the International Labour Organization in Africa and spent many years in arbitration and human rights adjudication. He conducted numerous studies for government commissions and international organizations and had rich experience as a labour arbitrator and mediator. He was the Canadian Industrial Relations Association’s H.D. Woods Memorial Lecturer in 1996 and was a principal researcher in a nationwide study on strikes and lockouts in essential services.

A prolific writer and editor, he published scores of articles on labour law topics, edited the Canadian Labour and Employment Law Journal, and was a longtime faculty advisor to the Queen’s Law Journal (QLJ).

“There are very few labour law academics in Canada who escaped Bernie’s editorial pencil,” says Carter, “but despite being a stickler for clarity, he was always kind, and we always benefitted from his comments. Still, I often think that if he'd had the opportunity, he would have rewritten the Ten Commandments.”

Sharon Ford, Law’11, a former QLJ co-editor-in-chief, worked closely with Adell for three years. To her, he was a mentor and friend, always willing to share stories and discuss legal scholarship despite his workload. “He took time to connect with people and invest in the students he was advising,” she says.

Like his other friends, Ford describes Adell as a modest man who downplayed his brilliance by using a disarmingly wry sense of humour. In her third year, she recounts, while organizing a national conference at Queen’s for student editors of Canadian law school journals, her keynote speaker pulled out at the last minute. Adell volunteered to step in.

“His speech opened with a political one-liner that got everyone laughing and set the tone,” Sharon recalls. “He proceeded to deliver an address that lit up the room. It was witty, intelligent, pointed … altogether fantastic. Students came up to me afterward and said, ‘Wow, you’re so lucky to have him as your faculty adviser!’ And I said, ‘Yes, we are.’”

After “retiring,” Adell was academic director of the Professional Development LLM Program in Labour and Employment Law at Osgoode Hall Law School, 2005 to 2009. In 2010, he coordinated a master’s course in comparative labour law (in which he was renowned) at Queen’s Bader International Study Centre in England, recruiting leading British and European scholars as instructors. He also sat on the advisory council of CRIMT (Centre international de recherche sur la mondialisation et le droit du travail).

Adell was closely involved in developing Queen’s Centre for Law in the Contemporary Workplace (CLCW), launched in 2010. “Bernie was instrumental in its founding,” says Hugh Christie, Law’81, a former student of Adell's and now CLCW co-chair and a partner and employment law specialist at Gowlings, Toronto. “He personified what we are trying to accomplish at the law school. He was brilliant, hard-working, collegial, and had absolutely no pretense.”

Fittingly, Adell received 2013’s Bora Laskin Award, Canada’s top honour for outstanding contributions to labour law. He expressed delight that the other winner that year was his erstwhile student, Don Carter.

The Adell-Carter Fellowship was established by Queen’s Law in 2013 to support a full range of postdoctoral, research, and visiting fellowships at the CLCW. Donations can be made at www.givetoqueens.ca/adellcarter.

Adell is survived by his children Simon Adell (Artsci’93), Rebecca MacNeely Adell, and Elena Adell Smith, step-children Nathan and Eric (Artsci'97) Baron, and dear friend Jochebed Katan. A memorial service and reception to honour Bernie and his legacy will take place Saturday, September 13, 1-4 pm, in Grant Hall. A tribute will appear in an upcoming issue of Queen’s Law Journal.

By Alec Ross