Surprising no one who knows him, Justice Marshall Rothstein pledged to give his all to his new job at his installation ceremony at the Supreme Court of Canada.

“I promise to work hard,” Rothstein told family and friends April 10 in the walnut-panelled Art Deco courtroom as he made praised and made tributes to others, including Arthur Mauro, Rothstein’s mentor at Winnipeg’s Aikins MacAulay & Thorvaldson, Sheila Rothstein, his wife of 40 years, as well as his secretary, parents, four children and law clerks.

Justice Rothstein, 65, is only the fourth Manitoban appointed to the high court since its inception in 1875. He is he first Manitoban appointed since the late Chief Justice Brian Dickson, another Aikins MacAulay alumnus with a legendary work ethic and the gift of clear expression.

In warmly welcoming Rothstein, whom she described as a “superb jurist ... with an unbounded appetite for hard work,” Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin joked that while she rarely discourages new recruits from putting in overtime, she was reluctantly considering making an exception given the zeal he has displayed in the past three weeks.

“In his case, special measures may be in order,” she observed. “We are currently considering ... turning off power in the Supreme Court building at 6:30 p.m. every night and locking the doors on the weekends. Perhaps our biggest challenge will be trying to ensure that Marshall leaves the office somewhat before midnight.”

Justice Rothstein began sitting on cases soon after he was formally sworn in at a private ceremony March 9 after winning plaudits for the aplomb with which he handled televised questioning by MPs at a historic hearing Feb. 27 on Parliament Hill.

In the first sign that she and her fellow justices might be softening their stance against public vetting of Supreme Court nominees, Chief Justice McLachlin noted the lawmakers’ questions had been restrained and non-partisan. “At the end of the day those who watched the hearing were united in their belief that it provided Canadians an opportunity to get to know more about the respective roles and obligations of the government and the judiciary,” she said.

Justice Minister Vic Toews lauded the prolific output of judgments and scholarly articles “written with pinpoint clarity and precision” by the judge who was appointed to the Federal Court in 1992, and elevated in 1999 to the Federal Court of Appeal. Canadian Bar Association president Brian Tabor praised Rothstein’s intellect, humanity, decency, wit and “fierceness about preparation that you bring to the job.”