Justice Michael Porter

Justice Michael Porter
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Judge Porter was appointed to the Provincial Court of Alberta in 1975 and retired from that Court in 1997 in order to start a full time mediation and arbitration practice.He also provides training in the A.D.R. field to lawyers, judges, law students and other professional and business groups.

Experience Highlights

Prior to his appointment as a Judge he practiced law in both Alberta (Admission 1968) and in England (Admission 1964) and is a member of the Law Society in each of these jurisdictions.

He conducts mediations and arbitrations in disputes involving small business, professional partnerships, family and divorce, wills and estates, personal injury and commercial matters.

Notable Achievements

He is bilingual and has conducted court proceedings in both the French and English languages.

He was early to recognize the need for the judicial system to be more responsive to the needs of the aboriginal community.As a consequence, he pioneered a Native Sentencing Court, in which elders joined him on the Bench and participated in the sentencing process.This resulted in a marked improvement in the acceptance of and respect for the judicial system by the native people.

He also recognized that the adversarial system is not always appropriate to the resolution of many disputes, such as family violence and custody issues.Consequently he used innovative mediation techniques in court that have resulted in the elimination of long trials and paved the way for a harmonious resolution of the disputes.

He worked extensively with counsel appearing in his Courts to ensure that trial issues were clearly defined and common ground identified and dealt with by admission of facts.