Dr. Bernard Adell (photo courtesy of Queen's University Faculty of Law)It is with great sadness that the University of Alberta Faculty of Law announces the passing on July 24, 2014, of our distinguished alumnus Dr. Bernard 'Bernie' Adell (LL.B. 1961), who passed away in Sasebo, Japan, whilst visiting his youngest daughter and her family. For half a century, Dr. Adell, a former UAlberta Faculty of Law Gold Medallist (1961), worked tirelessly as a highly respected labour law teacher, scholar, writer and editor.
"On behalf of the Faculty of Law community we extend our sincere condolences to Bernie's family, friends and colleagues," said Dr. Paul D. Paton, UAlberta Dean of Law. "We are proud to have had Bernie as such a prominent member of our alumni community, whose contributions to labour law and to legal education in Canada were so important. On a personal note, Bernie was a former colleague of mine at Queen's and I'm personally saddened to have learned of his passing. His support and encouragement was so important to so many."
Born in Edmonton, Alberta, in 1939, Dr. Adell attended the University of Alberta, graduating from the Faculty of Arts in 1960, and the Faculty of Law in 1961. He received the Gold Medal in Law in 1961 from the latter. Dr. Adell subsequently went on to receive his doctorate in 1967 at Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship. In 1964 Dr. Adell joined the Queen's University Faculty of Law in Ontario and remained an integral member of the law school until his death. Dr. Adell taught in the area of labor and employment law, and was the first UAlberta Law alumnus to be appointed as Dean at Queen's University Faculty of Law, serving in that position from 1977 to 1982. Dr. Adell served for a short period of time with the International Labour Organization in Africa, and for many years worked in arbitration and human rights adjudication. In 2004, he was appointed as a professor emeritus by Queen's University Faculty of Law. Dr. Adell's work as a professor of law, and an internationally recognized scholar in the employment and labour law field, took him around the world throughout his career and his contributions to his field of study were exceptional.
From 2005 to 2009, Dr. Adell served as the academic director of the Professional Development LL.M. Program in Labour and Employment Law at Osgoode Hall Law School. In 2010, at Queen's University's Bader International Studies Centre in England, Dr. Adell coordinated a masters' course in comparative labour law, which was taught by several leading British and European labour law scholars. He was on the advisory council of CRIMT (le Centre de recherche interuniversitaire sur la mondialisation et le travail).
Dr. Adell had written on a wide range of labour law topics, in particular on the interface between collective and individual rights and on industrial conflict. He had co-authored a nation-wide study on strikes and lockouts in essential services. Dr. Adell was the Canadian Industrial Relations Association's H.D. Woods Memorial Lecturer in 1996. He was the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Labour and Employment Law Journal and a long-time faculty advisor to the Queen's Law Journal. Since 2010, Dr. Adell had been closely involved in the planning and launching of the Queen's Centre for Law in the Contemporary Workplace.
A service to commemorate Dr. Bernie Adell will be held at Grant Hall, 43 University Ave. on Queen's University campus on Saturday, September 13th from 1-4pm, beginning with a memorial service and ending with a reception.
Please check the Queen's University Faculty of Law webpage for details of Dr. Adell's memorial service.
Further tributes to Dr. Bernard 'Bernie' Adell by his family can be read in the following obituary.