Lawyers opposed to diversity initiative dominate Law Society of Ontario board elections. Click here for more.

The irony of this issue is that the origin of the concept of law and justice,court and principles of justice began in Egypt. You cannot have any modern legal system without a codified set of rules that defends individual property ownership or that defends a man or woman's  right to family and family property. This began in Egypt and their codified principles that governed thousands of years of Egyptian society. The only other irony about this issue at the Law Society is that the Law Society rules have their own ethics on the issue of equality, diversity and inclusion.  Are these people refusing to follow the rules? The point of these rules is to evidence that legal answers to problems are the same whether or not the subject accused or  subject family law applicant /respondent is white or black, Chinese or Indian . The law has no import for race and ethnicity when it comes to the application of facts to the law to determine the just result. But, if a private firm only wants to hire red headed people, it does not seem to be a legal issue so long as the firm is not rude, harassive and destructive with  other people's property, stealing other people's firm property and file boxes in a failure to respect people  who operate their own firms  and who are willing to work with anyone under rule 1.1.1. Every law firm has to share their fee with those who work with the firm and the members of community that it serves. We have no struggle understanding that signing the principles is moot because of older law society rules on ethics and equality but then anyone who would refuse to sign the new principles as a further confirmation of their comprehension has, in principle, confirmed that he is unfit to be a member and has essentially failed the law society exams on the issue of ethics as the exams test for intention, proclivity and motivation  on all of these issues.  

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Lawyers opposed to diversity initiative dominate Law Society of Ontario board elections

By JACQUES GALLANT LEGAL AFFAIRS REPORTER

Wed., May 1, 2019

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One of the Law Society of Ontario’s key diversity initiatives could be in peril with the election of a slate of lawyers to its board of directors who are committed to scrapping it.

Of 40 seats for lawyers on the law society board of directors, 22 were won by members of a group opposed to the “statement of principles” — a requirement that every lawyer and paralegal adopt a statement that acknowledges their “obligation to promote equality, diversity and inclusion.” (RENE JOHNSTON / TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO)

The requirement was one of 13 recommendations made in 2016 by the law society’s working group on challenges faced by racialized licensees, in a bid to tackle systemic racism in the legal profession. But it quickly drew the ire of some lawyers who argued the requirement for such a statement is compelled speech and unconstitutional.

That criticism spilled over into this year’s law society board of directors election, in which a slate known as StopSOP were victorious Wednesday, taking 22 of the 40 lawyer seats on the board. The slate campaigned on striking down the statement of principles.

“I believe the StopSOP slate was elected because so many lawyers object to being told what to think and what to say,” Toronto lawyer and winning StopSOP candidate Chi-Kun Shi told the Star in an email.