Martin Freedman

Martin H. Freedman, Q.C., was appointed a judge of the Manitoba Court of Appeal on July 16, 2002 and retired from the court in 2012. He replaced Madam Justice Bonnie M. Helper, who resigned.

Mr. Justice Freedman received a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Manitoba in 1963 and won the Gold Medal in Law from both the University of Manitoba and the Law Society of Manitoba. At the time of his appointment, he was a partner with the Winnipeg law firm of Aikins MacAulay & Thorvaldson. He had served as the firm's managing partner from 1991 until 2001. Throughout his career, he acquired a vast expertise in corporate-commercial law and arbitration-mediation matters. In recent years, Mr. Justice Freedman had concentrated his practice on arbitration, especially in labour-related disputes in different jurisdictions throughout Canada.

Over the course of his legal career, Mr. Justice Freedman was very active in a wide range of professional organizations, including having served as President (1978–1979) and Bencher (1971–1979) of the Law Society of Manitoba and as a Director of the Federation of Law Societies of Canada (1981–1983). For 20 years, he was a lecturer at the Faculty of Law at the University of Manitoba and a frequent presenter at numerous professional and continuing legal education seminars. Mr. Justice Freedman was appointed Queen's Counsel in 1975.

His late father, Samuel Freedman, also served as a judge of the Manitoba Court of Appeal (1960–1983).