This Web site is dedicated to the life work of Patrick J Ducharme, as well as his personal views and opinions, the laws and statutes of Canada, and some light-hearted legal humour.
This is Patrick J Ducharme’s sixth Web site. The webmaster is Michael J Ducharme, Patrick’s son, who worked alongside Patrick for many years in his office and in the courtrooms of Ontario. Michael has done his best to document all of Patrick’s legal wisdom, primarily for the benefit of Patrick’s law students, because it has always been Patrick’s intention to share his wisdom with young lawyers.
The task of compiling this information began more than three decades ago, when Michael joined his father at the Gignac Sutts law firm of Windsor Ontario. Patrick was preparing to lecture to his law students at the University of Windsor Faculty of Law. Michael was tasked with reviewing Patrick’s “Case Book” line by line, and cross-referencing hundreds of cases from his last year’s curriculum against every new case that was published in the current year. We discussed together the changes that were needed in the present year’s “Case Book” so that Patrick’s students would be completely up to date. All of these hundreds of cases were organized in a large three-ring binder with hundreds of numbered tabs. Students were allowed to borrow the binder and photocopy every page to produce their own Case Book to aid their study.
The tremendous value of the information in PJD’s Case Book was more than enough to warrant the tedious and costly task of photocopying, punching holes and filling up large binders. But Michael suggested that we find a more efficient way for Patrick to share information with his students. Hence, in 1991, Michael created the first edition of Patrick’s books, Criminal Trial Advocacy, and Criminal Procedure.
At that time, the World Wide Web did not yet exist. But as soon as it did, Michael taught himself to develop Web sites, and then immediately launched Patrick’s first Web site, which was originally located at criminal-defence.com.
A year later, Patrick and his brother, the late, great, Edward W Ducharme, Michael’s wise, witty uncle, created a Sports Agency called Pro Sports Management. Michael developed a second Web site for his beloved father and uncle, which appeared at prosportsmanagement.com.
The Ducharme Brothers, Patrick and Edward, were a dynamic duo. Patrick specialized in criminal law while Edward focused more on civil litigation. To further honour his father and uncle’s loving collaboration, Michael launched a third Web site called ducharmelaw.com, providing a springboard for the creation of their own law firm, which they called Ducharme Fox. Michael again developed a new Web site and launched it at ducharmefox.com. That law firm grew substantially and was very successful. Edward rose to the bench, becoming a superior court judge and then later rose to the Court of Appeal for the Province of Ontario.
Patrick, together with Evan Weber, then decided to create a law firm exclusively dedicated to criminal defence (though some of their clients insisted on having Ducharme and Weber handle their civil disputes as well.) Michael launched Patrick’s fifth Web site, ducharmeweber.com.
But with his five previous Web sites, Patrick still didn’t have a place to write his personal views and opinions, so he asked Michael to develop a personal blog. Hence, Patrick’s sixth Web site was born at www.pjducharme.com, and initially contained Patrick’s raw, uncensored and politically-incorrect opinions on world news, law, sports and health. After five decades of daily courtroom battles, Patrick and Evan decided to close the firm, allowing Patrick more time for one of his greatest passions: writing, and sharing his vast legal experience via this Web site.