Remembering Professor Gerald Nemiroff

With sadness, we share news of the passing of retired Faculty of Law professor, Gerald Nemiroff. Known to colleagues as “Gerry,” he taught at the Faculty of Law from 1968 to 2008, serving as Associate Dean from 1977 to 1982.

A memorial service for Professor Nemiroff will be held tomorrow, Friday, June 14 at 10:00 a.m. at Chapel Lawn Funeral Home, 4000 Portage Avenue. Please read The Free Press Passages notice.

Nemiroff held a BSc (McGill), BA (Sir George Williams / Concordia), BCL (McGill), and an LLB and LLM from Dalhousie. He was called to the Manitoba Bar in 1972 and in the same year, was awarded the University of Manitoba’s Olive Beatrice Stanton Award for Excellence in Teaching. In 1975, he was a visiting professor at the University of Melbourne, and taught at the University of Calgary in 1977.

Good at mathematics and physics, he nearly became a meteorologist, but ended up in law “because there were more spaces,” than applicants at the time, as he intimated to Dr. Bryan Schwartz in an interview for the Manitoba Law Journal 39:1 (136-190) regarding “The Great Transition in Legal Education.”

Nemiroff practiced Insurance Law in Quebec initially, but after completing his LLM on waiver, election and estoppel in the law of insurance, decided to pursue an academic career. Hired by late Dean of Law Cliff Edwards who was snapping up every LLM he could find for Manitoba’s law school, he taught Insurance Law and Negotiable Instruments, which he said he found “interesting and challenging and quirky.” Later, he also taught Contracts.

In Nemiroff’s interview with the MLJ, the editor notes that despite University policy that a professor can only win the Stanton Award for Teaching Excellence once in their career, Nemiroff’s students in his last year of teaching (2007 – 2008) asked the University to bend this policy, writing:

      Gerry Nemiroff is somewhat legendary at Robson Hall…

      A good law professor doesn’t just tell you what the state of the law is, or how the law has developed. They teach you how to find the law and more importantly they teach you how to use the law….

       …It wasn’t until my third and final year of law school that I learned how to properly read and understand a case. It was in Gerry’s [sic] Nemiroff’s Insurance Law class where I began to understand how to argue the law. (MLJ 39:1, p. 154)

The Faculty of Law extends condolences to Gerry’s family, friends and former colleagues and students for the loss of this legendary scholar and teacher.

Please learn more about Professor Gerald Nemiroff’s legacy in the Manitoba Law Journal.

Story submitted by Faculty of Law.