Timeline: Eddie Greenspan career highlights

With the passing of Eddie Greenspan on Tuesday at the age of 70, many have said we’ve lost a giant of the Canadian legal world, and it’s not hard to see why. Greenspan’s impact and influence in many high-profile legal cases is unprecedented in this country.

Here’s a breakdown of his professional accomplishments and high-profile criminal defence cases over his 44-year career:

• 1965 — Earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Toronto
• 1968 — Graduated from Osgoode Hall Law School
• 1970 — Called to the Bar of Ontario
• 1982 — Greenspan was appointed Queen’s Counsel, a merit typically earned in recognition of community service and advocacy for helping groups and others in need of legal aid
• 1982 — Hosted and co-produced CBC Radio’s Scales of Justice a program that recreated famous Canadian criminal trials until 1990, when the show was moved to television.
• 1986 — Represented Helmuth Buxbaum, a London, Ont. man accused of hiring a hit man to kill his wife. Buxbaum, who reportedly paid more than $1 million for Greenspan’s services, was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.
• 1987 — Took a six-month hiatus from practicing law to travel across the country to debate against the return of the death penalty in Canada. A subsequent free vote in the House of Commons saw the idea of bringing back capital punishment defeated.
• 1990 — Moved the Scales of Justice to the small screen on CBC, winning a Gemini Award for his work on the program in 1993. Here is the intro for one episode that aired about the 1983 murder of Barbara Turnbull:

• 1998 — Defended former Nova Scotia Premier Gerald Regan, who was accused of sex crimes dating back three decades. Regan was found not guilty on eight charges, including rape and attempted rape.
• 1999 — Represented German-Canadian lobbyist Karlheinz Schreiber, who was fighting deportation back to Germany to face charges of tax evasion. Greenspan represented his client — a major character in the Airbus affair involving Prime Minister Brian Mulroney — until he surrendered to the deportation in 2009.
• 2000 — Worked on Robert Latimer’s Supreme Court of Canada appeal. The Saskatchewan wheat farmer was convicted of second degree murder in 1997 in the mercy-killing death of his daughter, Tracy, in 1993. Greenspan argued that a sentence of 10 years in jail without parole was “cruel and unusual punishment” — and the judge agreed. Latimer’s sentence was set at two years less a day, half to be served in jail and the rest on his farm.
• 2003 — Defended NBA players Gary Payton, Sam Cassell and Jason Caffray against charges that they assaulted the husband of an exotic dancer outside of a strip club in Toronto. The players were acquitted.
• 2004 — Defended former media baron Conrad Black against obstruction of justice and fraud charges in Chicago. Black was found guilty in 2007, and the two men engaged in a war of words through the media following the trial.
• 2009 — Former Toronto theatre mogul Garth Drabinsky hired Greenspan to defend him against fraud and forgery charges. Drabinsky was convicted on two counts of fraud.
• 2013 — Awarded the Law Society Medal, the top honour awarded by the Law Society of Upper Canada.
• 2014 — Was serving as a vice-president of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association until the time of his death.