Legal icon Harry Walsh dies at 97

Posted: 4:21 PM CST Thursday, Feb. 24, 2011

WINNIPEG - Winnipeg's legal community has lost an icon.

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WINNIPEG - Winnipeg's legal community has lost an icon.

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This article was published 24/02/2011 (5362 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WINNIPEG – Winnipeg’s legal community has lost an icon.

Harry Walsh, who was proud to call himself the oldest working lawyer in Canada, has passed away at the age of 97 after a 71-year career.

Even though he was at an age when most of his contemporaries had long moved on from the law, Walsh continued to handle hundreds of active files right up until the end.

MIKE.DEAL@FREEPRESS.MB.CA
Winnipeg lawyer Harry Walsh, Manitoba’s newest officer of the Order of Canada, still practises law at 97. — MIKE.DEAL@FREEPRESS.MB.CA Winnipeg lawyer Harry Walsh, Manitoba’s newest officer of the Order of Canada, still practises law at 97.

“I shall never retire. I shall go out with my boots on,” he said in an interview a couple of months ago.

Walsh, who was called to the Manitoba Bar in 1937, was one of the most respected lawyers in Manitoba and indeed all of Canada. He said the proudest accomplishment of his career was his central role in having the death penalty abolished in Canada in 1976.

“We have no right to take the life of anybody,” he said.

He was presented with the Order of Canada in 2010.